City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening everybody. It is uh 6:01. This is uh Tuesday, January the 13th. This is the uh regular meeting for the Town of Spencer Board of Alderman for the month of January. We are called to order this evening. We do have all board members present and we have a whole host of folks uh out uh in the audience this evening. Thank you for coming uh to be recognized and we're going to do those recognitions here shortly, but we're very appreciative for all that you do for our town and for being here tonight. So, thank you all. Um our invocation will be given by Alderman Steve Miller.

Okay, Mr. Mayor, would you please bow your head, please? Heavenly Father, as we begin a new year, we place our lives, our hopes, and our intentions into your loving hands. We seek your wisdom for decisions, courage for challenges, and a heart aligned with your will to renew our spirit to reflect our your light in our community and in the world. We ask it in your name. Amen. Amen. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I

to the flag United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right board, you have before you your agenda for this evening. Is there any need for any additions or deletions? And if not, is there a motion to adopt the agenda? Mr. Francis. So, we have one uh add-on item we'd like to uh

share on the consent agenda, which is an updated uh class spec for one of our public works positions. Okay. And so, that's to the consent agenda. And do we have a copy of that updated? Yes. Okay. back page of Got it. I see it. Okay, perfect. All right. So, there's a request to add that to consent agenda. If there's any reason to discuss that further, we can uh address that when we get to the consent agenda. Board agreeable? Yes. Okay. Mr. Mayor, I noticed that Scott Shelton is with us tonight. Yes.

Okay. We will get an update from Mr. Shelton this evening. Okay. Yes. And I tell you what we will do before uh we will give it if we want to we'll add Mr. Shelton um just before we get the audit presentation. Does that work for the board? Okay. Thank you, Miss Sledge. All right. Any other amendments? All right. Hearing none. Is there a motion to adopt the agenda? So move. Motion by Miss Moody. Second by

I can't say Mayor Pro Tim anymore. Miss Secret. All right. All in favor? All right. All opposed. And our agenda is approved unanimously. We will now move on to recognitions. And probably the most important thing we're going to do tonight, the reason most people are here tonight. So uh with that, I'm going to turn it over to uh Alderwoman Patty Secret and Pat Sledge. Um also wonderful volunteers this holiday season. And so I know you're going to be recognizing the folks out here, but thank you to both of you uh for your service on the board and for your service to our holiday events. All right.

It gives me great pleasure tonight to recognize our Spencer parade committee. Wednesday, November the 26 2025 was a magical evening in Spencer as we watched our second very own parade come through in the early evening. Those who came to see it, and there were many, were not disappointed. The parade committee and their volunteers brought the magic of Christmas to our town once again. I have to confess that this year I didn't ride in the parade and I decided I was going to watch it because last year I didn't get to and I wanted to make sure I saw it while my grandson was still in school because he was marching in the parade and I was just amazed at everything that I saw. Spencer is thrilled to have our very own parade again and and the town literally sparkled that evening. Hats off to this wonderful group who are doing an outstanding job. Heather is now going to introduce the committee members who are here tonight and and announce the others who might could not have been here. So, I'm going to call Heather up to do that and she may want to call your committee members up.

Sure. Um, we'll start with and vice president was our secretary. and also mentioning tonight is Jennifer. Okay, LET'S GIVE [applause] And I think most of you noticed when they did the parade, you know, they had the food trucks available. We had advertisements for the restaurants before the parade. And so the restaurants were all happy. The whole thing was a very festive occasion. And every time I see or think about this parade, I just think about that uh story, the little engine that could and how everybody said he couldn't because last year when Heather told me they were going to do a parade, these kids were going to have parade and it was September or October. I said, "How I mean I didn't say it to her, but that's what I made [laughter] in my

but it happened." And I [laughter] just still am in awe that you pulled all of this together, all of you, so quickly. And it gets, it's only second year. It gets better every year. And I can't wait till and I understand you had 76 units this year. Yes, we grew from 61 to 76.

That's wonderful. So Lori and Coleman do all of our food. Um so they arranged everything in the food truck category and then they just hand over that to me and I hand it over to the communic [applause] Thank you. Graphic design. Um the text on um yeah he loves those but he is very um and he usually has a better plan for papers than I do. Um, so next year and our secretary, she loves taking [laughter] a great job.

But thank y'all. Thank you. Thank all of you. [applause]

So, we're so appreciative that they have what I would say is kept a tradition alive, but I think in the reality of it, they've actually created a new tradition. Um, kept one alive with us having a parade here in Spencer, but really reinvented it and made it something even more special than it probably has ever been. So, thank you all very much.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, five years ago, a small group of residents of the area had an idea of holding an event to create a Hallmark movie kind of festival here in Spencer and Winterfest was born. A committee of about 15 worked year round to fund raise, plan, and execute this annual festival. In the weeks leading up to the first week of December, many members of the Winterfest committee dedicated their time and effort to preparing the town park for the upcoming Winterfest celebration. Their commitment was evident as they worked tirelessly through the grounds and various spaces here to ensure everything was in place for the event. The following individuals served on the Winterfest committee, each contributing to specific aspects of the event. Kim Lintz, our main contact committee leader and liaison with Spencer Partnership. Karine Malden, entertainment coordinator and event MC. Sherry Mason Brown, website and contact coordinator. Anna Goodwin Godwin Godwin. Um, sorry about that. Anna was our Spencer on ice coordinator. Sher Morgan is our vendor coordinator. Lauren West coordinates the food trucks and the social media. Linda Miller does Christmas crafts and the ugly sweaters which are big hits always. Sheila Widner does the Christmas crafts and the spee and especially the gingerbread houses. Marty Linberger is our setup specialist and creative town decoration guy. Leanne Al Le Leanne Alexander is a creative town decorations including the elves at work and play and the giant puppet uh reindeer that they used during the event. Uh Beth Nance is the organizer of the freeze your buns run. Candace Mcnite has the kids games and bingo with the assistance from Clayton

and Kalin who are her children. Macy Cooper is our social media coordinator. The Spencer Partnership works with us. Rita Sims and Ron Koyer. Um Patty Secret is a volunteer coordinator and the volunteer director. Larry Shepard is our parking director and I was responsible for the charity partnership and the volunteer coordinator for attendance. Several additional helpers played crucial roles making it making it possible to bring all the elements of Winterfest together. Leslie Talbot is Santa Claus's right-hand helper, ensuring that every child had their time with Santa. Jody Everheart and Tim Watowski did electrical support and troubleshooting for the event setup. Joel Taylor and his public works folks provided valuable support throughout the event, also uh taking care of the facilities that we used at the T at the town park. Our Spencer police officers served as security personnel during and after hours of the event. Our Spencer firefighters and EMS first responders provided first aid as needed during the event. Steve and Kathy Robersonson were volunteers for Spencer on Ice. In addition to those named above, the master list of volunteers included 106 individuals who registered, signed up, and actively participated in making Winterfest a success. And those folks are from here in in Rowan County and Davidson County and Cabaris County and Meckllinmberg County and just everywhere. Um some of we had um some volunteers indicated schools they attended highlighting the involvement of local students. We had 17 students from who identified as North High School. There may have been more that we just didn't get on the list. Six students were from Central Davidson High School. Five students from Salsbury Academy. Five students from South Rowan High School, two students identified with

Early College, one student from Southeast Middle School, one student from North Rowan Middle School, and several volunteers identified themselves as Crosby Scholars. Over the three days of Winterfest, 5,448 visitors were counted passing through the gates. Although some attendees may not have been counted because we didn't always have somebody on the gates and some people got here early before we got somebody on the gates. But alongside the vendors and food truck workers, several dedicated individuals, not committee members, were present nearly every time the gates were open. Notably, Judy Sledge Hoskins volunteered at one of the entrances every day, playing a vital role in welcoming guests with other volunteers pulling shifts throughout the weekend. Our boosters club from North Rowanne provided support for the uh for the event with the with the Christmas trees. And I would be remiss if I didn't say thank you to our major sponsors, Martha Smith in memory of Tom Smith, the town of Spencer, and Novant, and all the business sponsors and friends of Spencer who contributed large amounts and small amounts to make Winterfest a success again this year. A full list of those businesses and individuals are listed on the website, and you can go and take a look at that, and they will remain in place until we start the process for the next year's U vision. That website is spencexperience.org and I invite you to go there and take a look. Uh we have done a wonderful job this year. So thank you all for your help. Thank you all for your volunteerism. Thank you for your sponsorships and and the money contributions and the time that you have given to make this event a success. So thank you all. Thank you for coming tonight. [applause]

[applause] And inevitably when we have this many volunteers in town, we always miss certain folks. But I do want to make sure we also recognize Terry Smith and Kelly Everheart for their work with the Freeze Your Buns Run as well. I know that was a big undertaking. So,

thank you all. [clears throat] [applause] Well, so I think what we've heard tonight is we have a ton of invested people in our town and that is so exciting. It's uh encouraging for us as board members as encouraging for me to know that we have community members that are as invested in our community as each of us are and probably in some cases uh some that are even more so. That you pour your hearts and souls into our town uh every single day. Uh some of it is uh some of you maybe it's for one event during the year, but from what we've heard is you're doing it all year round, prepping for it and planning for it. Um and so we're appreciative for you and all those that couldn't be with us tonight uh for all that you do for our town and for the lasting impact that you're making on the town and each of our lives and and our citizens lives. So thank you all very much. I think your impact goes beyond just our community because you have people that are uh ultimately coming to the transportation museum or coming to other events that are then coming and participating in the things we have going on here in town. And so it's uh a lasting impact across uh not only our community but uh far and wide across our country. So thank you all. Kim wanted to say something.

Yeah. Part of what makes all of this work is that we have You know that that truly is what makes it work is because you all support the things that we do. you supported supported in your supporting all of the wonderful help from the employment. I mean, you know, that's just that's what makes it work and we so appreciate that we live in a values. So, thank you all.

It's our pleasure. [applause] All right, thank you all. Um, we're going to move into the regular business of the meeting. So, those of you that want to stick around for more fun, please feel free to. For [laughter] those that don't, we'd love your company, but we also understand if you [laughter] have better things to do, too. [laughter] [cough] [clears throat]

That's why [laughter] It still get I guess I could have held him hostage here. [laughter] I could have held him hostage. You opened the door rightful seat in front. I was trying to be kind. I'm sure they appreciate it.

I didn't mention that's why I didn't that's why I didn't. [laughter] We're a team. We got this. Yeah. Well, I'm trying to think it's always going to happen when you have something like this. So that's why That's why I knew that.

All right, we're going to move on. For those committed people that stayed with us, thank you all. All right, we're going to move on to public comment. Uh we do not have anyone signed up to speak for public comment unless there is anybody at this time that would like to. We will open that up. Okay. Hearing none, we'll move to our consent agenda. We've already have a number of items on the consent agenda this evening plus the one that we added at the beginning of the meeting. Is there any reason to pull a consent agenda item for further discussion? And if not, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda before you?

I move to approve the consent agenda as amended. All right. Motion to approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? Second by Mayor Pro Tim. All those in favor. Right. All opposed. And the consent agenda is approved unanimously. We will now move to an update from the Rowan Economic Development Corporation and Mr. Scott Shelton. That's okay.

[clears throat] This is not tested. [laughter] There will be a test at the end.

Thank you, Mr. mayor and board for uh giving me a few minutes of your time to go over the EDC's activities in 2025. Um [clears throat] sort of refer to this was our monthly at a glance report for December, but also in a sense it's our end of year report as well. Uh at least an informal end of year report. Uh over past 12 months, we received about 132 new qualified projects. That's when we have a site or a building or program that could be of interest to a company interested in Rowan County for either their new facility or expanding their current facility. uh that was a 25% increase from uh 2024 and a lot of that was I think tariff driven a lot of foreign companies having to have a state side presence for manufacturing and a lot of US companies that had their stuff overseas having to bring that home led to a lot of interest in Rowan County and with that increased interest I think led to a strong organizational performance for 2025 you refer to the top right corner there the key metrics you see uh what our goals are for each year and of course those goals are also part of our fiveyear year for Rowan campaign. We pledged to create or attract 3,000 new jobs and about 500 million of new investment in Rowan County over five years. We're we just finished year one of that and off to a good start. You see almost 1,800 new jobs [laughter] versus a goal of 600 for 2025 and uh 534 million of new investment versus 100 million for the year. And another important stat, a lot of these jobs that are coming here are good paying jobs. So you see an average wage of $30.13 per hour for these new jobs that are coming here. Uh which is well above our target of about $26 per hour. U of course a recent announcement in Spencer played a a key part in helping the EDC reach its goals for 2025. Metacourse was [clears throat] complete welfare source announcement last month. U of course they're an outpatient drug and alcohol counseling uh service and also mental health counseling. And of course,

they're going [cough] to invest over $14 million in a new facility on Long Ferry Road. It's a 30,000 square foot, I guess, corporate headquarters, training facility, outpatient referral or outpatient treatment center, again on Long Ferry Road. And they're also going to create over 500 new jobs over five years. We were told the average pay for these new jobs is just under $65,000. So again, it's great to have that here. uh he of course increases the town's tax base but also helps provide a very necessary service in Rowan County to our citizens. So I want to want to thank uh the board and Peter and and Steve for their help and during this whole process. It's a great win for the community I think. Uh also uh for other Spencer related notes in November EDC and community partners held a job fair for those affected by the PCA closure and u I think there were 25 employers there. was at the Rowan Community Center and about 70 PCA employees attended out of 108 which I think is very strong number and um I don't have exact numbers but I think many I was told many left with conditional on-site job offers and several left with scheduled interviews and and real next steps. Again, don't have those specific numbers but Kendall in our office is trying to follow up with those companies to get those numbers. Hope I can get those to you here at a later date. Uh we're also told about 30 of those employees are staying with the company but going to other PCA locations such as Greensboro or Concord or maybe Morington. So all in all I think it was a very uh strong event with a lot of success and we're hoping to see a lot of those folks stay in the workforce here in Rowan County. Also last week I met with one of the owners of the PCA building a man named Steve Horvath. Um, he provided an overview of the property and I made him aware of some state and local programs that could benefit a future job creating tenant in the building. We also have the property up on our online database now and we're going to start submitting it for, you know, relevant projects. And then just switching gears quickly to events. I'd like to thank all of y'all who attended

our recent holiday party at the Salsbury Country Club last month. Think we all had a good time. And for those of you who didn't make it, hope to see you there next year at the event. It's always an annual thing. And regarding upcoming events, we're currently working on this year's EDC annual meeting. Don't have a date yet, but likely late February. Uh we should decide on that here soon. And be on the lookout for that email invitation for that. Also, EDC is going to be trying to put on another spring job fair with community partners. Uh no date on that yet either, but likely early April. And just want to remind you our EDC board of directors meeting. The next meeting is at uh on Thursday, March 12th at 3:30 at the Gateway Building. Of course, Miss Sledge always attends, but anybody on the board's welcome to attend that as well. And then just in closing, I want to thank the town of Spencer for his continued support of the EDC's efforts, and we look forward to a great 2026.

Great. Thank you, Scott. Thank you for any questions for Mr. Shelton. Hoping for big news in early 2026 for Northern Rowan County. got several things in the pipeline. So, fingers crossed. Sorry. Thanks for all your work and support. All right, [cough] we'll move to next to our fiscal year 25 audit presentation from Nick Wicker with Strickland Hardy PLLC.

Good evening, Mayor Williams and esteemed otter women and otter men. I'd like to thank each and every one of you for the opportunity to be here tonight and to serve the town of Spencer. So, you should have a a report that looks something like this in front of you and we will dive right into that. So the services we have provided the town include the annual audit of the financial statements, assistance with the preparation of the financial statements and the related note disclosures, report to management on observations and recommendations for improvements and then consultation on accounting matters as requested and attendance at board meetings as requested. I'm happy to report that in accordance with the yellow book 2018, we are independent and thus we can appine over the financial statements. So getting into your opinion over the basic financial statements, we express an unmodified opinion. That's what we call a clean opinion and that's ultimately what you're striving to get. We did perform a single audit in the current year. And the major programs we also assessed an unmodified opinion and those major programs were the rural transformation grant fund and the parks and recreation trust fund grant commonly referred to as part of. Any questions here on what a single audit is and the difference between that and a financial statement audit? Okay. So, required supplementary information consists of the management's discussion and analysis. The town's proportionate share of the loan of of the net pension liability for the local government employees retirement system. The schedule of the town's contributions for the local government employees retirement system. The schedule of changes in the town's separation allowance. Leosa, which is your law enforcement officer special separation allowance. And then the schedule of the town's total separation allowance. That's a percentage of covered payroll. [clears throat] I want to point out here that RSI, we apply certain limited procedures to it, but we do not appine over RSI in the

same way that we appine over your basic financial statements. On the next page, we'll talk about your individual and combining fund statements and schedules. So unlike the RSI, we do do a little bit more here. and we do opine over those. Um, most importantly on these first two pages though, we did not assess any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies. Any questions on that? So, the next letter you'll see here is the AUC260. This is required communication with governance at the conclusion of the audit. You have been presented this every year you've been up here. So I'm not going to read this letter to you verbatim, but I would like to point out a couple things that I think are important. So in the current year, we adopted and implemented Gazsby statement number 101, and that is the accounting of compensated absences. So, in fiscal years prior to FY2025, the only compensated absence that was recognized as a liability in your statement of net position was vacation leave. After determinating or determining all of your leave types and assessing them for materiality, we did in fact put sick leave on the books as well. But I want to point out that sick leave since it can transfer as time serves towards retirement, we only put on the books what we calculated as the current percentage which is based on a historical average over five years and I think it was between five and 7%. So in totality your beginning net position we had a restatement of $35,491. Secondly on this letter I would like to point out your key estimates. So management's estimation of useful lives and the determination of depreciation is a key estimate involved in your audit and then obviously the estimate of the current portion of compensated absences. I would like to point out that we did not encounter any difficulties in

performing the audit and there are no uncorrected misstatements in your audit. Lastly from this letter, I would I'd like to say that we had no disagreements with management over the accounting policies and procedures as listed in your financial statements. Any questions here on required communication with governments? The next letter we'll look at is the AUC 265. This letter is the communication of significant deficiencies and material weaknesses. I would like to point out that you only have a halfpage letter here. That's a good indication that things are going well in the control environment. when this page when this letter starts exceeding onto a next page, that's when we need to talk a little bit further about internal controls. So, diving into the graphs, the first graph we'll look at is your governmental fund balance for the last five fiscal years. So, in FY2025, your general fund had a decrease of $228,782 and all other funds had a decrease of $60,99. So, in totality, your governmental funds had a decrease in fund balance as compared to FY24 of $289,691. I would ask that we refrain from asking questions on this graph because I believe we're going to answer them in the next couple. So, next we're going to look at your governmental fund balance by category for the last five fiscal years. So, in FY2025, there was no change in non-spendable fund balance. I would like to point out that that's like inventory, prepaid expenses, things of those nature. None of that is on the books and thus that's why there are no non non-spendable fund balance currently. Your restricted fund balance had a decrease of $131,344. Your assigned fund balance had a decrease of $162,931 and your unassigned fund balance had an increase of $4,584. I'd like to point out that your restricted fund balance consists of restricted by state stabilization.

Essentially, that is anything on your books that's accounts receivable excluding property taxes receivable. Um, Powell Bill, downtown park project, capital reserve and replacement and standback forest and trails. Your assigned fund balance only consists this year of subsequent year's expenditures. And that is essentially a budgetary mechanism to balance your budget. So that's what's in your FY2026 budget. That's appropriated fund balance. And then lastly, your unassigned fund balance. I would like to point out that that is what is actually available for you guys to appropriate from. Any questions here? So looking at your governmental revenues by source for the last five fiscal years, your abaloral taxes had an increase of $32,47. Your other taxes had an increase of $52,355. Your intergovernmental had an increase of $2,165,967. And your other had a decrease of $66,297. So in totality in FY25, you had an increase of $2,454,72 in governmental revenues. And looking at your other taxes, that change is pro primarily due to an increase in solid waste collection fees of around $44,31. [snorts] Looking at your intergovernmental, you're restricted. The big increase is attributable to a rural transportation grant of 900,000, the rural downtown economic development grant of 275,000, and then the parks and recck trust fund partiff grant of $500,000. I would like to point out that you also had downtown park donations of $241,92 with the largest piece of that being a $100,000 donation from the Canon Foundation.

Your CDBG, which is your community development block grant, had $291,550. That was an increase of $182,497 as compared to FY2024. And then you had stand back forth donations of $350,000. Looking at your unrestricted intergovernmental, your local option sales tax increased $50,775 and your franchise utility tax had an increase of $27,945. Lastly here, we'll look at the other revenue types. Your sales and services had a decrease of $11,677. The biggest piece of that was a decrease in the sale of fixed assets as compared to FY24. And then your investment earnings decreased $55,164. Any questions about your governmental revenues in totality. Looking at your governmentmental expenditures for the last five fiscal years, your general government expenditures decreased $23,566 as compared to FY24. Your public safety expenditures increased $1,99,974. Your transportation expenditures decreased $245,278. Your environmental protection expenditures decreased $396,535. Cultural and recreation had an increase of $16,776. Land management had an increase of $1,714,760 and debt service had an increase of $24,32. So in totality, your governmental expenditures had an increase of 2,190,433 as compared to FY2024. And looking at the change in general government, that was primarily due to a

decrease in contract services of $47,698. For public safety salaries and related benefits, police had an increase of $92,362. Salaries and b related benefits for fire had an increase of $25,64. And then obviously the public safety of the fire department acquired a new fire truck in FY2025 for $894,375. [snorts] Transportation salaries and related benefits had a decrease of $12,394 and there was additionally a decrease in power bill funds expended of $199,535. For environmental protection, the salary and related benefits decreased $32,943. Other operating expenditures decreased $18,912 and your capital outlay decreased $350,24. And lastly, your debt service had an increase of $24,32 and that is primarily related to installment purchases acquired in the prior year that had a first payment this year. And then I would like to point out that the current portion of your long-term debt, not including interest for FY2026, is $145,673. Any questions about your governmental expenditures in totality? Looking now just at the general fund. Your general fund's fund balance had a decrease in restrictive of $70,435. Assigned had a decrease of $162,931. And your unassigned fund balance had an increase of $4,584.

So, you're restricted by state stabilization had a decrease of $85,518 and POW bill had a decrease of $15,83. And I said that backwards, you're restricted by state stabilization had an increase this year. And again, just to to be on the same page, you're restricted by state stabilization is essentially anything you have on the books that's an accounts receivable excluding property taxes receivable. you're assigned as we discussed previously that number is just your subsequent year's expenditures and then the total change in general fund fund balance of a decrease of $228,782. That's a result of operations. I would like to point out that your unassigned fund balance is approximately 19.32% of total general fund expenditures. And I would lastly like to say that the $992,212 is what is actually available to appropriate from. Any questions about general fund fund balance? Looking at your general fund revenues by source, your advorum taxes had an increase of $32,47. [snorts] Other taxes had an increase of $52,355. Your intergovernmental had an increase of $12,352 and other had a decrease of $66,297. So in totality, your general fund revenues increased $300,457. And so the explanation of those changes largely similar um to what we discussed previously on the revenues by source. The only thing that I would say different is in the restricted intergovernmental you would receive the grant in the prior

year for around $63,000 that you did not receive in the current year. Any questions there? Looking at your general fund expenditures in FY2025, your general government expenditures decreased $23,566. Your public safety expenses increased $263,368. Your transportation expenses decreased $245,93. Environmental protection had a decrease of $49,734. And then culture and recreation had an increase of $17,976. And your debt service again had an increase of $24,32. So in totality, your general fund expenditures had a decrease of $372,747. Your general government change is largely attributable to pay and benefits increasing $60,985. And then your other operating expenses for contract services decreasing $54,352 and capital outlay also had a decrease of $30,194. Public safety is largely the same as we spoke earlier. The only difference here is that the fire truck was not purchased through the general fund and all other things are the same. Any questions about your general fund total expenditures? Looking at the special revenue fund, your capital reserve and replacement fund for the last five fiscal years. Your other financing sources consist of transfers from other funds and installment purchase financing as compared to FY2024. There was an increase in the transfer from the general fund of $247,658 and you had installment purchase financing of $690,000 and that is related directly to the acquisition of

the firet truck. Um, payments will begin in FY26 on the firet truck with a principal due of $23,785. Questions? Looking at your special revenue fund, the capital reserve and replacement expenditures over the last five fiscal years. General hasn't incurred any expenditures since 2023. The change in public safety was $836,66. Transportation had a decrease of $185. Environmental protection had an increase of $13,199. And then culture and recreation had a decrease of $1,200. And so in totality, your expenditures increased $848,420. I'd like to point out here that your total change in fund balance for FY2025 was 23 was a negative $23,52 and you have ending fund balance in the capital reserve and replacement fund of $6,533. Looking at your capital project funds revenues by source from inception to date, your pot park plaza municipal complex had no activity in the current year. Um, Yak and River Trail had $2,600 activity in the current year and Intergovernmental. All other financing sources are from prior years. the downtown park project. All1,916,92 is current year information and the other financing sources of $43,000 is all prior year. The American Rescue Plan, all prior year, the community development block grant, you had $291,550 in revenue in the current year. The 17th Street Stormwater improvements had $12,819 in intergovernmental revenue in the current year. And then the Stanbeck

Forest Center and Trails is all current as well with found and it was received from the foundation of the Carolinas. Any questions about your capital project funds? Looking at your capital project funds from inception to date. again, Park Plaza, that was completed in the FY22 audit. Your Yak and River Trail had a transfer to the general fund to close out that fund. So, next year that will drop off of your financial statements. The downtown park project all um $2,45,817 is the current year expenses in land management. The prior year was $21,186. your American Rescue Plan, the current year expenditures were 225,000. So, prior years was $812,997. For CDBG, $291,550 in the current year and prior years equaled $109,53. And then your 17th Street storm water improvements, current year again was $12,819 and prior years was $211,23. The town has not expended any Standback Forest Trails funds as of 6:30 2025. And then I'd like to also point out again the downtown park project fund has ending fund balance of $72,819 as of June 30th, 2025. And the Standback Forest Center and Trails Fund has fund balance of $350,000 as of June 30th, 2025. Any questions? It's always tough when you follow all of the fun and then you have to come and say numbers for 10 minutes. [laughter] It's rough.

Um I would like to personally thank Peter and Heather um and all employees of the town for being so hospitable to me and my team when we came out here. Um it was like a homecoming. I do believe I gave the first audit presentation ever at this podium while in this building and so it's I'm happy to be back. I'm very appreciative to be here and we can't thank you guys enough for partnering with us to do the audit.

Very good. I'll echo that. Thank you and your firm for all the work that you've done and thank you to our staff for all the time and effort you you put into it as well. Between the audit process, uh having to go with a single audit this year because of all of our uh grant funds and everything like that, which is a good thing. Um and the fact that we're going through a software transition uh you've had a lot on your plate, Heather. So, thank you for all your work that you've done. Or are there any questions for Mr. Wicker at this point? I'd just like to say that thank you for your guidance and that um you know you found no deficiencies this year. I think that because of that is or the reason for that is because you have set us kind of in the right framework for what we needed to do to uh achieve those goals. So thank you.

Absolutely. All right. I'm not going to hold you guys up any further. I hope the rest of the meeting goes well and I hope everybody has safe travels home and I wish each and every one of you a blessed evening. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, board. We'll invite Mr. Blunt forward. He has been itching to give a presentation for several months now. I think the first PowerPoint of the season. Many more to come. Thank you, mayor, members of the board. Uh I'll give you a little story before we get started with the slideshow. About a month ago, I got a phone call similar to calls I get all the time asking about the zoning on a piece of property and eventually asked me if cell towers would be allowed on that property. And the property was the Alexander Long House on Sour Ferry Road. Uh that property rang a bell with me that that's a historic register house and I didn't really think they would allow us a cell tower. I found out later there's also a conservation easement from the land trust on that property and they don't allow cell towers. So I explained to the company, I'm sorry, you can't put a cell tower on that property. And she was about to hang up the phone and I said, but by the way, the town owns the property right next to that and if you'd be interested in talking to us about a cell tower, we'd be glad to to broach the subject with our board. That's why I'm here tonight. We're not asking you to make any decisions. Uh cell tower locations can become controversial because some people don't like to look at them. Uh in Spencer, I have found that most people would love to have one close to their house because we have such terrible cell phone service in in many places. So people are offering to put them in their backyard almost anywhere in Spencer. [laughter] But I wanted you guys to know what's going on as we work through this process so that when your citizens come and talk to you about it, you'll have some answers. And if you don't have the answers, point them towards us. This will be a multi-month process to get it to the end of the approval process because we do have to jump through a lot of hoops to make this happen. And I'll take you through a few slides and then

answer any questions you might have. Uh this is the location of our public works department at the end of Sers Fair Road as you're certainly aware of. Uh if you go out Sour Fairy Road, at the very end of Sour Fairy Road is where they were looking to put the tower. And we'll zoom in so you can have a little better picture. That's our property outlined there. [clears throat] They don't need the whole property. and we will need to reszone some portion of that property because it is currently zoned CIV civic and in our table of uses self towers are not allowed in that zoning classification. So in the future we will be coming back to you with a resoning request and this will be a conditional resoning. We'll change it to industrial/cond conditional. And what that will do is only allow what's currently allowed under the civic and then add the use of cell towers to that use. And the reason we don't want to reszone the whole property is that we don't want people worrying about us putting six or seven more towers out there. We're just going to put the one. That's all we're shooting for. Uh so this portion of the property, as you see, is what we will ask you to reszone in the future. Um those dimensions is what we will use to describe the property that we are going to reszone. Uh sometimes in the past a line has just been drawn across a map and said this area will be zoned such and such and that area will be zoned something else. This one will be defined by those dimensions that are shown on that map that work out to just about five acres of land. We don't need five acres of land. That's about where the tower will sit. We uh in conjunction with Joel, we worked out an area that we thought would be suitable for the tower location and we had to dodge some sewer easements that are on the property. Uh Salsbury Rain Utilities holds two

different sewer easements. So that's about where we think it could go and that's acceptable to the tower company at this point. This is a map they sent and what you see out in the middle of that field is a rectangle. They call it a 75 foot by 75 ft lease area compound. They actually in discussion said it would be 50 feet by 50 feet. Regardless of which one it is, it's a very small area. That's where the tower would be inside of a chain link fence with barb wire on the top to keep interested kids out of there and keep them out of trouble. They also need an ingress and eress easement along the road. It's an existing road, so it's no problem to give them that. Uh they will need to extend the power lines down to the tower. And Joel says to allow them ingress and ingress. He'll give them a key and they can go through the gate whenever they need to to fix their tower. So that works out very well for us. In our development ordinance, we have a very extensive section on cell towers. It's in the special use section, chapter 10. Uh, in that chapter and most other ordinances that I've read, they refer to the 1350 foot radius, which is a quarter of a mile. And most things are triggered by that quarter of a mile distance. Uh, as far as who you invite to public hearings and and who you notify the towers going in. Basically, that's about as far away as you can see one of these towers and have it be noticeable to you. Because of the adjacent neighborhood, I will say that when we get around to inviting people to neighborhood meetings for the reasonzoning and the public hearings for the tower itself that we will be inviting all the people in those adjacent neighborhoods so they will know about that. But keep in mind the 1350 foot radius. That's what would normally

trigger some concern about the impacts of a cell tower. And and the impacts are purely visible. They're nothing as far as noise or uh humming of an electrical field around a power plant or anything like that. It's just visual. Some people don't like the look of tires. So, as we started looking at this, I identified these three residential structures. One of them is right next to our public works department. One is the Alexander Longhouse. identify as number two. And then that number three is one of our previous mayors. I wanted to make sure I identified his house so he wouldn't get mad at me. In our ordinance, we are allowed to require them to do what's called a balloon test. And as we were talking about whether that would be necessary or not, our manager spoke up and said, "Hey, why don't you just go out there and fly a drone and see what you can see from the drone?" And Joel's son happens to have a drone has a camera on it and so we took it out there and flew it. Uh let me show you these three homes that I identified. This is the one number one that's right next to the uh public works department, 519 Sour Road. This is looking up his driveway towards his house. And as you can see, his house is surrounded by woods. So even from the road, you can't see it very well. Certainly from the tower location, as you'll see in the video, you can't see it. If we can't see the house from the video, the house can't see the top of the tower. The the drone was flown at 200 feet, which would be the maximum height of the of the tower. So, we know that the drone can't see the property. Property can't see them. This is the Alexander Longhome, 404 Salis Fairy Road. It's a little outside of that 1350 foot radius, but still close enough that we were concerned. And of course, it is a very historic home. That's a write up from I got that from the land trust blurb on

their website. You can read that at your leisure, but tells what an important home it is. And this is the mayor's house over at 525 Chase Trail. again right outside the 1300 foot 1350 foot radius. But you will notice there's a large stand of trees behind his house. And as you'll see in the video, you cannot see his house from the top of the tower location. This is my amateurish way of showing what a tower's going to look like. It's not to scale. It probably will appear to be taller than that. Uh once we flew the drone, I had a better idea of how high 200 feet is. So that was my guess. But it will be a monopole design tower with the multiple array antennas on the top of it. So there will be no guy wires that are stretched out from it. Just be a single single towel. The lease options are what normally get people excited. Although in Spencer it's better sell coverage, but we won't turn down the money. We'll accept that. We started negotiating at about $500 a month. Got up to $700 a month. I was shooting for a thousand. I got them up to $800 a month. That's what the red block is there. I added that in late in the thing. They do give you the option of paying you a lump sum up front instead of paying you monthly. And I did some calculations on that and my advice to you, and this is certainly up to you with the advice of your finance director and manager, but if you take that lump sum, you're going to spend it immediately. It's going to be gone. If you take the monthly payment, then as needed, you could use that and leverage it through loans to pay for things that you need because you'll have a predictable income stream that you can tie to that loan. So, my advice to you would be to take the monthly payment. The monthly payments increase one and a half% per year. They start out at $800 a month right now, but each year it would

go up one and a half percent. It is a 40-year lease period. Um, so we'll talk more about that later. This is the drone footage. So, the drone flew up to 200 feet and then rotated clockwise. And if you'll stop it about right there for a m. So, that's looking back over the public works department buildings, the mulch pile to the left. And sort of the bright thing you see through the trees upper right side of that is the driveway going into that first house that I showed you. The house itself is behind the woods. You can't see it from the top of the tower. Okay, Mike, you'll take us on around. This is looking south out over the pond that's behind our property. You always tell me that the duck hunters come out and blaze away out there all the time. And as it comes a little farther around, they actually held the drone in place for a few seconds to show where the salt land utilities treatment plant is. and standing in our field. You can't see that, but that's what it looks like from 200 feet in the air. And then it'll pick up and run again. You'll see another pond that backs up to the steeple chase development. And let's see if you'll stop it about right there. That is the house at the very end of steeple chase. It's way out there. It's much farther away than the 1350 foot that we would normally be concerned

about. More like twice that. It's more like a half a mile away. Uh obviously if we can see the house from the 200 foot drone position, they will be able to see the top of the tower, but they will not see the base of the tower because those trees would be in the way of it. Trees surround our property. So most people, if they can see it at all, all they will see is just the top portion of the tower. Okay, might pick it up and run it a little bit more. And let's stop about right there. Somewhere through those woods in the center of that frame is about where the mayor's house is. So, he will not be able to see the tower at all from his house based on this view. And come on around again. I get Steve Paul. Just Paul. So, takeaway being not just him, but all his neighbors and really all most of that neighborhood. This is the key frame here that shows that most of the homes, you know, would not have any view other than the one that we previously mentioned.

And as you know, steeplechase is a circle. So what you're seeing from this is the backside houses. They're the farther away than the ones that are on on the inside of that loop. So they're actually farther away than the 1500 foot that we measured out to the mayor's house. But the people on the front side of that loop can see the house. You can see the houses from from those houses. Uh you would see them, but again they are much farther away than the 1300

and then come on around Mike if you bring it back to the end of the loop. So similarly I guess to the difficulty we see in seeing those structures and those houses and making out the detail they would have similar absolutely similar issue unless they have binoculars. Now this view confused me for a while. Joe helped me identify what I was looking at cuz I thought that was a house in the middle of the frame there and I couldn't find the house that looked like that from a aerial view. It's the barn.

That's actually the barn behind the Alexander long house. And if you look very very closely through the trees to the right of that, you can see the chimneys of the house sticking up. So that's the view that the Alexander Long would have. In our ordinance, it mentions historic register homes and or historic register properties as something we want to be concerned about. And therefore we are we're following our ordinance trying to make sure that the tower will not have any impact on any property but especially not special properties like that one. Uh again the owner of that house wanted the tower located on his property. [laughter]

So he's not complaining about it being [clears throat] on our property. He likes the idea that there's going to be a cell tower out there. And I think you'll find that most people agree with that that have cell phones. And I think everybody has cell phones. So, let's see what we got next. As I was playing around with it on the actual video, there is a time tape at the bottom. So, I went in and tried to plot on this map at what time uh related to where you were looking. So, if anybody is concerned about it, they can come in and actually watch the video in my office and we'll give them a copy of this map so they can see what they're looking at. At this point, the company is doing their due diligence and what they're waiting for from us is a deed and our attorney is digging through file after file after file trying to find the deed to that property.

Needle in a hack. Thanks a lot. We have owned that property. Town Spencer has owned that property since the 50s when I was born. So it's it's and it's been accumulated. It's not just a single property that was acquired long ago. It was accumulated over time out of pieces of other people's property. So Jay's having a tough time wrapping his hands around a deed. But we have to be able to prove to the company that we own the property before they'll enter into a contract with us. They can take my word. [laughter] Oh my god. This is all please.

This is all Phillips. This is all out of Phillips hours out there. That's got thousand acres. out there and his estate and there hundreds of transactions, but I'm zeroing in on your [laughter] 12 acres and I've got five acres. If you can if you can find that five acre piece that I'm going to reszone and put the tower on. They'd probably accept that. So, we may not need the whole property identified. I never will ever have. There you go. [laughter] Never bill for it either, did you?

Absolutely not. Once we get that deed in hand, I will send that to them. They will write up a contract and send it back to us, which will kick us into a phase of the attorney and and the manager and the accountants and everybody looking at the contract to make sure all the details are beneficial to the town. U because this is a 40-year lease, state statute requires us to handle it just like a sale of property. And therefore, we have to have a public hearing. I'll have to approve the lease and then we have to go through an upset bid period just like we were selling an asset. There is a reasonzoning as I mentioned that has to be done. There will be a neighborhood meeting where we send out mailed notices to all these people to come in and talk to us about the tower location. Then there will be a public hearing for the actual reasonzoning and then the cell tower ordinance requires another public hearing. So we'll have a total of four public hearings on this issue before we get through it all. We're actually going to try to lump some of those together so we don't have to do this four different times. Um once we get through all that and they've done their due diligence, then we will enter into a contract and they will start construction of the tower. Construction of a tower is probably not a long period of time. Takes a big foundation to hold a tower like that up. So, they'll do a lot of excavating, a lot of concrete pouring. They have to run some power lines, extend them down into the site. But it it'll probably take us more time to get it approved than it will to actually build the towel. So, we can look forward to that. Um, as I mentioned, we will be inviting all of the neighborhood people, not just the ones that were within the 1350T radius, because we want everybody to know what we're doing, that we're bending over backwards to protect their viewscape.

I'll be glad to answer any questions you might have.

So, Steve, I do I've got a question. One of the things and I think it's going to be something that many of the people are going to want to know right through this hearing process as as we move forward and something that maybe you're not prepared to answer tonight. Um, but that hopefully the company at some point will be able to provide us with some guidance because one of the the key complaints I get from residents in town is how bad their cell signal is. Um, and you know, multiple people would go, "Well, you think the mayor could do something about that?" It's like, well, no. So, I'm excited to hear about this opportunity. I think, but people are going to want to know what is the actual benefit going to be, you know, if if the company can somehow quantify how, and I know that we have different carriers that will connect to that tower. um what's the potential improvement in cell service and cell signal um that our residents might experience. We we will try to get better information uh from my past life as a county commissioner where we approved a few of these once the uh cell service company starts designing their antennas. They do a dispersion map and it shows usually in these funny looking colored plumes where the signal will go in their predictions from their engineers. Uh we will ask for that as soon as it's available so we can answer that question to our citizens. Uh the problem will probably be that this is a tower company. They build towers and then they lease space to the tower to the sale company service companies. Uh, so I'm sure they've got one or two lined up already and they can ask them, but I doubt that the antennas have even been designed at this point. So the initial information they can might give us a radius of what's going to be done. Uh,

the detailed information will come a little more in the future. Any other questions at this point in time? I got a couple questions, please, sir. Yes, sir. As far as the company goes that we're dealing with, is that a road company as far as that goes? Uh, as far as I've been able to determine through a a website search and looking at previous towers that they've installed across the country, they seem to be uh once we get the contract in hand and get the attorney involved in the review of the contract, we'll do a little more in study of that.

Okay. Second question. Um, and I think I know the answer, but some you might get asked this question. Is there health any health re issues as far as cell towers far as closeness to things as far as I'm not a doctor so I can't offer a medical answer to that but again from my past life the concern over radiation from high tension power lines right uh was fairly high in the past and they did a lot of studies of various sources of radiated energy and cell towers were way way down on the bottom of the ones that were concerned.

Okay. Very good. Um, and lastly, um, you know, you said construction will be going up and down the service road right there going to the dump. I know there's a section there that is asphalt. Uh, I just want to make sure they don't tear the road up as far as that goes. We'll make sure that's covered in the contract. I think that's important. I mean, it's not a big section coming down from the hill from that way. It is the asphalt and I know it's in good shape, but when you start getting a lot of traffic down there, Joel, that's recently been repaved, hasn't it? Down through there. Yeah. Okay.

I'm actually like thinking about from your driveway entering into that going down the hill toward your dump. That's not been repaid, but it is in decent shape. But when you start running a lot of concrete trucks down there, I'm concerned about that. So, will you say something about uh maintenance on that road? We'll we'll definitely make sure that's covered in the contract.

Thank you. Um I have have a couple of questions. Um, I know with things like solar units, there's if if if there's a if they're no longer in use, they have to the company owning them has is required to remediate the property, decommission. Decommission. Is there anything like that with cell towers? It's in our ordinance. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And so that that would be covered. Um, is there fact they have to be bonded to cover that. So, it's not just their word that they'll do it, not part of a contract that they put up a bond to cover the cost of decommissioning if they should take down the tower.

Okay. Um, is there any chance that that tower would it be um something that would improve broadband for the area? Not to my knowledge. Strictly sales service. Um, and what about when they start doing any um grading or anything? Is there any chance that they're going to run into anything of historical value that might prohibit I mean I see those two ponds there and and it's fairly close to the to the river too

there there are actually two 30in and one 12 in sewer lines that run down through there and I think if anything of significant importance was going to be found they would have found that when they excavated those lines one of those lines was in probably back in the 1950s or earlier. It's been decommissioned and is no longer in use. The other one is an active 30-inch line. Uh so we will certainly keep in mind that it's in a historic area

and and regardless when they do the engineering design and the permitting for it, all of that runs through the state of North Carolina. Uh erosion and the set sediment control depending on how big their impact area is going to be. it's an acre or more, they have to go through erosion sediment control permitting. But for the other through actually digging or doing any of that, they'll actually have to go through certain steps to essentially prove that there's no archaeological items in that area. But but keep in mind that it's it's really going to be about a 50 foot by 50 foot area that they're working in. Very small area. So the amount of area that they will have to excavate will be very small.

Will there be an opportunity because it's a 5 acre piece of property. Will there be an opportunity for them to put anything else on that property? There will certainly be an opportunity for us to put anything we want to put on it. It remains our property. The only thing they have is that 50 foot by 50 foot square within that 5 acre area. They're just leasing a basic place to put the pad. Yeah. Yeah. And and typically you're asking too kind of about the archaeological aspect, the digging that they will do. They will likely do pile foundations, whether it's augers that they dig down with individual piles or driven piles, right? Um but they will drive they will

have deep foundations just because of the nature of that rather than like a a giant mass of concrete. But they'll do the they'll do those uh peers and then they'll have a concrete cap on top of it that the the post will ultimately attach to. That's typically with those how they how they do those. Um I think that's other than the difference in the water quality in those two ponds. That's it is amazing. It's kind of interesting. Um, one of the which we're talking about at least 40 years ahead of which most of us especially me will not see as far as that goes.

But I know technology is changing so drastically if this company goes out of business or something like this in that in that period of time will something if we have to shut it down or remodel it or something like that as far as I go. Again, I haven't seen the contract yet so I don't know what all the details of the contract will be. That's certainly something we'll look at and see. We don't want to get two years into it and then walk away because everybody's using satellite phones instead of cell phones. So, yes, we'll take a look at that. Okay. And we can always repurpose it for Sam Morgan's pet project of having a zipline across the [laughter] one way.

Yeah. Steve to um your question too. I looked at the company and looked at the principles of that company and they were some of them were initially with Bear Sterns which is a big investment company and also AT&T. So they've got some experience with that kind of thing. That's good. That's fine. Thank you. Thank you. Um can we ask Mr. Taylor, do you have any concerns about this sir for your department? No. He's the first one we call. I figured

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Thank you, Mr. Blunt. All right. We'll move to departmental reports and we'll let you do your planning department report. And since I've bored you with the PowerPoint, I'll just say that you have my written report. I'll be glad to answer any questions or any questions for Mr. Blunt. Anything notable? I saw a few notes on Hawkins Meadows, but any notable updates that you'd like to give on that that you might be aware of?

Um, I will say that Hawkins Meadows has gotten all of their basic infrastructure installed. uh the stuff that they have not installed they have put up bonds for so that if they walk away we use their bond to complete the project. Uh they have looked at an option of taking it at this point with a totally improved site and selling it to a contractor to do the actual installation of the homes versus them overseeing the installation of the homes. Uh they are working through that process right now trying to make that decision. Either way, the town is continues to be protected by the bonds that are in effect so that if something happens with the project, we can finish out all the infrastructure and then somebody else can come along and build on it after that. I will tell you that that developer is now looking at another piece of land on Hawkins Town Road for another development. So, more is coming. And then a second developer contacted me this week for a 12 home subdivision in that same area. So, things are happening out there. Okay. How about the truck stop? What's the

truck stop? I can't remember if I told you, but the uh the developer who was out of Raleigh has parted ways with his original contractor and hired a new contractor to finish out the project. uh in talking to Salsbury utilities engineers that contractor has picked up the pace of getting all the infrastructure for water and sewer approved and want to get started on on that part of the work. Uh I think quite honestly that that's what maybe has slowed things down for a long period of time. Uh if you'll think back to the Johnson development project on the north side, they were actually going to run a sewer line down Montlair, right?

And the truck stop had planned to tap into that sewer line. So when Johnson Development put a hole on their project, it sort of left the truck stop out there thinking, should we wait for them or should we go ahead and spend the money to put the sewer line in ourselves? And I think they've decided they're going to have to put the sewer line in themselves. So, the new contractor is there. He has promised to get me a new construction schedule, but just the fact that he's jumping on some of these things that have been outstanding for a while. And steel is on site. Steel came in and I thought we'd probably see cranes out there the next day, months, but that's not an issue.

Let me ask you something else while I'm thinking about it real fast. On Monair, right down below the trucking, there was a house that's built there. Is that is that in our right away as far as that goes or is that looks like a house, but that's actually a model home for Sedick Homes. They build homes really all over the southeast. And that's a mod, not a modular, but it's a model home and an office for the Sedick Homes. We handled the zoning and sub wasn't any subdivision, but zoning uh and site approval process. We collected some money from them from for our payment lua for sidewalks. Okay. Uh, but they are not annexed in because they're using weld and septic. So, I had no way to twist their arm to be annexed.

But all those businesses down there, are they in our They are in our about halfway down Montlair. There is a line across the middle of one of those properties. And to the south of that is East Spencer's ETJ. And to the north of that is our ETJ. Okay.

To to date. And when we did the non-anexation agreement with East Spencer, the agreement was that we would be allowed to take all of Montlair over time. But again, we're just taking it as far as zoning a subdivision unless somebody wants to tap into that new sewer line that's going to run down there. We don't have a way to convince them that it's a good idea to be annexed in. So, it it will continue to be part of our ETJ, but probably not in our actual municipal boundaries. Thank you. Yes, sir. Any other questions? Okay, we'll invite Mr. Harris forward for his update. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening.

So, I'm here to provide you some important updates on the community development block grant program. Um, I have both good news and bad news. So, I'm going to lead with the bad news. Um, y'all will remember that we did apply for uh an additional cycle of funding through the 2025 CDBG program. Um and we did learn that we were not selected for that cycle. Um in digging into the uh numbers that uh Peter was helpful to share with me um earlier. Um the vast majority of those funds were earmarked for Helen communities. Um we knew that going in. We were actually competing for a very limited pool of funds. Um actually the department of commerce has allocated more than 355 million since 2017. But this particular cycle we were all competing for only $12 million in funding across the entire state. Um so we knew going in that it was going to be very competitive. Um and our assumption that a lot of those funds would go to Helen communities was correct. Um in fact only eight communities across the entire state were selected for this particular grant cycle. Of course, that doesn't mean that we won't have future funding opportunities, and I think as time goes on, um there will be opportunities to apply again. And as I communicated to you last time, we do still have a wait list of um households who need uh assistance with home repairs. And of course, as time goes on, we will need to evolve that list. And you know, people sell houses there, new people come into the community who need help. and there will be uh a need at some point to make sure that that list is still the right fit, especially if it's years down the road until we get future funding. Um but that is currently where we're at. Um so, you know, we will definitely keep our eyes open as to when the next funding cycle comes through for

us. So, moving on to some better news. Um, I am happy to uh report that we are uh on target to close out our current CDBG grant by uh around early April. Um, we will need to have uh finished all of our expenditures by the end of February. Um, so I'll certainly be working closely with Heather on that. Uh, we do have a project that is currently under construction right now. Um, and that will be, not to give specifics, but it'll be a little bit more than $100,000 in expenditures for that project. Um, but that will be the last project that we do. Um, there was another project that we were hoping to sort of slip in before the expenditure deadlines. Unfortunately, we did run into some unforeseen environmental conditions for that particular property. um we knew that property was in a flood plane. That doesn't necessarily preclude them from receiving uh CDBG assistance. Unfortunately, we did find that previous work that was done on the house was not done in compliance with the county's flood plan development process. And so in correspondence with the uh compliance specialists at the state, they basically told us that we would not be able to spend funds on non-compliant property in the uh flood plane. So that was a disappointment to us. But as I've said before, the CDBG program is one of the more complex programs that you'll find. Um and if if you don't meet all the requirements, they simply won't allow you to expend funds on a property. Um, so that's the situation with that. Um, and I do want to provide some additional information. Um, and then of course I'll be uh happy to answer any questions that you have. I will say for the properties that we were able to help through this previous grant cycle, um, I think the money was a real blessing to

those households, the clients that we helped were, uh, predominantly either permanently disabled or elderly households. and we were able to definitely help houses uh clients from being dislocated from their properties due to mobility issues. Um we did significant handicap accessibility across the properties that we we helped. And I think for those of us who are not necessarily u particularly well-versed in handicap accessibility, if you have someone who's permanently disabled um in a house that is not suitable for them, the house is not livable for them for the long term, especially if they have like a neurodeenerative disorder where their condition worsens over time. So, we were able to um help these clients with really critical uh accessibility modifications across their house so that they can age comfortably where they are instead of being dislocated to um somewhere else. And so, uh I think uh we were definitely able to serve a critical public need with the funding that we had. Um, I also wanted to convey that the uh Department of Commerce staff who supported us throughout this cycle were very they were instrumental in making sure that we were able to move forward. Um, and I do want to say that Vivian Schweitzer who's our grant representative, Tamisha Evans, who's the federal compliance specialist, and John Brooks, who's the CDBG section chief, they have advocated for us throughout this process. Um, as you know, we did have to request some extensions to our timeline at various points. Um, and they have been very accommodating for us uh throughout that process. Additionally, I did want to communicate that we have found that the CDBG program

uh is particularly vulnerable to increases in construction prices that have continued to gone go up since CO. And I think communities across the state are recognizing that the the traditional way of spending CDBG money for own substantial owner occupied rehabilitation projects is becoming increasingly less um feasible. For example, like the city of Salsbury, they are moving to a different model with how they spend CTBG funds. So for decades, most communities, including both entitlement communities [cough and clears throat] and communities who receive the money through special cycles like the town of Spencer, they apply their CDBG home repair funding for substantial owner occupied rehabs. What that means is if you're going down that track, you have to bring the entire house up to code. So you kind of have perverse incentives with the houses you select versus how much money you can spend on on the properties. So the incentive is to help those who need the most help, those who have the houses that are in the most dilapidated conditions, those properties that have um the most need across all building systems. So if if a house has broken plumbing, broken electric, broken heating and cooling, uh structural issues, roof issues, those naturally score higher for projects that need assistance. But then you have to look on the opposite side. There are typically budget caps. You you can't spend too much money per property because you have to look at the value of the property. You can't put a lean on a property for more than the property is worth. So there's this constant balancing act when you're going down the substantial rehab track of finding a like a needle in a

haststack trying to find that property where it's a a needy client and you can spend the budget on the house without exceeding the value of the house. It's a very difficult proposition. So many communities, including now the city of Salsbury, are moving to a different approach where they're using their CDBG money more for uh more limited urgent repairs. So that means spending approximately $10 to $20,000 fixing one building system or two building systems like plumbing or electrical rather than bringing the entire house up to code. the the sort of I'm not going to say we hamstrung ourselves at the very beginning of the process. What when the town of Spencer originally applied for the CDBG grant through the COVID stimulus funds, we applied for down the owner occupied substantial rehab track. And most of the time they won't allow you to make such a substantial project amendment to say, well, we'd rather do urgent repairs rather than substantial rehab. And when we applied for the 2025 cycle just recently, we also applied for the substantial rehab. I would recommend probably moving forward if we were to pursue additional Department of Commerce CDBG funds, we might instead try an alternate approach of using that money for targeted urgent repairs instead of substantial rehab because number one, those projects are inherently easier and more feasible to accomplish and also you can help more households. You know, uh that's one of the reasons that Salsbury is moving to a different model is like us, they have struggled to spend the money that they've had over the past several years. They'll average one major project per year. And then of course the questions arise, this is great for that one household, but we got to find ways to make the money

stretch. So all of that is to say um even though we are disappointed that we you know were not able to do all the projects that we wanted to do um we think that we do have kind of new insight into how we could reform our approach to home repairs moving forward especially as as we pursue additional grant uh opportunities. And finally, I do want to say just for especially we looked at the audit report and everything um at the end of the day we will have spent approximately 2/3 of the total grant we were initially allocated. So unfortunately we are leaving some funds on the table. [clears throat] Um but we again with that project that we had to cancel um the complexity of trying to fill that with another project is not as easy as it sounds. uh if we had that la that final project at an advanced stage of planning to the point where we had already had uh lead reports, asbesus reports, radon reports, we had done our scope of work. Uh we had actually iterated our scope of work many times before we found that the house had flood plane development uh compliance issues and we were just not able to fit in another project in the time that we have left. So, I believe that's everything that I wanted to convey to you and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have.

So, Kyle, couple questions. Um, just so that the board is aware, especially our our new member, um, remind us of the amount of the original grant. And then as a part of that, how many homes we originally thought we were hoping hoping to target versus how many we have actually been able to rehab. So, in 2020, we were awarded $750,000. Um, and we had initially targeted doing 10 properties, and that would have given us a budget of around 675 per property, which at the time seemed relatively reasonable. I think we knew we were even stretching it then. Um but what we have found is that over time that you just [clears throat] it was not feasible to use only 675 per property. So our housing selection committee actually originally set a budget cap per project to make sure that we were evenly distributing the funds. When we did our independent cost uh analysis for the applicants who applied to us um those were coming in very few came in under h 100,000 per. Um and a lot of them were just, you know, exceptionally over $100,000 per project. So, we had to reconvene the housing selection committee to make a determination of whether or not we would keep the budget cap, raise the budget cap, what that would look like. Uh but at the end of the day, we were able to accomplish three projects. Um which, you know, I'm very happy that we were able to do that. uh accomplished these three projects. I know for those particular homeowners, it was a tremendous [snorts] increase in their quality of life. We were really trying to do at least four projects. Um but again, those funds,

unfortunately, we have to leave on the table uh for that particular property. So again, $750,000 total. Um we were aiming to do 10 projects, we were able to do three. Um and we will be leaving a certain amount of funds on the table. Uh which basically means we don't have to return any money to the state. Uh it just means that we're not going to be requesting uh requisition of all the funds that we could have if we had completed eligible expenditures um on our side. Do I remember that we had something like 18 applicants? Yes, that sounds about right. Uh I average it around at around uh 20 applicants that we had. Yeah. Mhm.

Yeah. And we still have detailed information on all those applicants and we have actually I have in the past reached out to them to at least point them in the direction of other assistance that they could receive in the meantime as sort of stop gap assistance. Um and I think some of them have pursued additional help not from the town of Spencer but through other programs. Um but it's just it's a tough environment right now for housing assistance. It seems to me like um the area agency area the area on aging has money for emergencies. Is that right?

Um I'm not familiar with that group. Independent living is a program that we're through. Through Central No, Independent Living that we work with is not through Central.

Okay. Um, I will say uh at the Salsbury Community Development Corporation office, we have a like a resource sherpa who gets people connected to other help. I'm not familiar with the entire constellation of programs that they may refer clients to. Um, but there is a resource sherpa to help with that. So, I mean, I think overall for the three residential units that we were able to do, we did a, like you said, we did we did a great service to them.

And so, the program was a success, I would say, based on that metric. Um, I think you know the fact we were only able to do 30% of our target properties um, and that we had 18 people that applied which mean meant 15 people didn't get it but three did. I think that maybe leaves an opportunity for improvement on the next type of program that we do. Um, and the fact I mean I think the thing that is most disheartening is that we're having to that we're not able to make use of the full grant money um that we got. But we recognize, you know, there were delays. One of the properties we had targeted obviously ran into the issues. Um, and so I think, you know, the thing for us, I think it's a great learning experience for us. Um and like Kyle, like you said that it reiterates the fact that maybe the CDBG program that we are have pursued is probably not the direction in the future that we need to go. We need to think differently about how how we can get funds to help homeowners with some of their most urgent needs. So, I like the idea of if and when we target additional funding that we do it through a different um program like the urgent repair program. And I don't know what the board's thought is on that. But my thought is the more people that we can help, the more quickly we can help them and be able to spend all of the money that we are awarded.

Um that's a win-win for everybody. Well, and construction cost and everything else have just gone out out the roof in the last five years, you know, and so that's that's part of the problem, too. Yeah. So, yeah. Well, and that's the pro that's the problem with any of these grant programs is things don't move quickly. Right. Right.

And so, when things don't move quickly in an environment where costs are escalating so quickly, it's a recipe for for notating. Yeah. Yeah. And and if I could add on to that, I think the CDPG program was well designed for like the early 2000s, but it it just has not it's sort of becoming an antiquated program in the way that the rules have not kept pace with the reality on the ground.

And I think like you said earlier, this really has been a learning opportunity for not only myself, but I think for like our housing selection committee. We really toploaded our applicants. Like the applicants with the worst properties scored the highest. So of course we tried to target them for the assistance

only to find that they were so expensive to try to balance what we could feasibly do versus the budget and then of course getting like a real life contractor on board to understand our budgetary constraints. Um, I think moving forward we we would more likely be successful if we accepted that instead of just helping the worst of the worst houses with throwing a lot of money at it, it would be a better use of the funds and we would help more people by doing urgent repairs

um because that's really the more nimble uh flexible program that we're seeing much more um desired across the entire state. It's actually why the North Carolina Housing Finance AY's Urgent Repair Program, that's literally what it's called, is so successful and widespread and they get a lot of uh acclaim for it at the legislature level because they're able to help so many people. Yeah. It's because they're not trying to they're not trying to basically solve the worst of the worst. It's literally called the band-aid for North Carolina, right? So, [clears throat] I think that's probably what we would do if we applied again in the future. Yeah. All right. Any other questions?

Okay. Well, Kyle, thanks for all your work with it and I know it's uh it's a labor of love and you've put a lot of time and effort into it and uh so we appreciate your your leadership of it. Thank you very much. And I will just say at some point um later on earlier, you know, in April or May, I will be providing a full report to you on the outcomes of the program that will also be shared with our housing selection committee. Yes, sir. Thank you, K. Thank you. All right, Chief File, we'll invite you forward for the code enforcement and then police report. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. It's

a little longer report than normal this month, but I'll try not to talk too too terribly much. So, um it is wrapping up uh last year, so I've included some additional stats in this month's report just for us to review. Um but I've submitted the uh standard uh code enforcement uh monthly report uh showing they have 25 cases for the month and then on the back side of that um it will reflect the 2025 yearly report. Uh so for 2025 we had 418 cases which I think is exceptional for one single code officer and I put it in red over there because I always like to be around that number 89% voluntary abatement. So um if you look at our overall to get 89% to voluntarily comply I will definitely take it. Um, if you notice in there, the notice of violations was only 45. So, we've got a majority of uh of that 89% is all taken care of uh solely by talking to people, which uh your code officer does really good at. So, I'm I'm certainly happy with where code enforcement is right now. We can always uh stand to have additional help and additional hours in the day, but I think we're moving uh we're moving forward and we're doing what we can uh with our limited staffing currently. Um, I will certainly answer any questions we have about code enforcement.

All right, board. Any questions on code enforcement? Okay, we'll move to police. All righty. Um, the, uh, first report in here is our standard monthly report. I guess we'll just kind of briefly glance at that. 237 activities for the month of December. Um, as you know, I did get a pretty firm number. we had 93,000 visitors across the street in that five or six week period um that we have. So uh we were certainly busy with uh with some traffic related issues, but it went off uh went off well. So I appreciate all the officers hard work on uh on our busy holiday time. Uh the uh tax report for the ACE team is here and then I will uh I'll answer questions on that if I if y'all have questions about the monthly before we jump over to the yearly one. Do you have a ballpark about how much overtime you all worked over the holidays to handle all of those community events?

The one good thing is overtime none because [laughter] we zeroed that line out this year. How many extra hours but extra hours? Oh boy. I would it would be hard to hard to calculate a lot. Thank

a lot. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds [laughter] across the across the staff for sure. So, all righty. Well, I will jump into the yearly report. Um, it looks very similar because it comes from the same uh the same format. Um, but uh I always like to look kind of look back at uh and knowing what we've had in past years. Um, so, you know, I like to point out a couple little things. When you look at shots fired, which is on the very last page of that, we had 18 for the entire year. If you remember, uh, two years ago, we were probably having 18 a month. Um, four years ago, we were certainly having that before we had the AC team out here working. So, we've definitely uh brought that level and that type of criminal activity down. [clears throat] Um, again, all the proactive work. I always brag on the officers, but I mean, if you kind of look at some of this, there's, you know, 1,200 or better uh, school checks per school. Um, you know, you look down here, I kind of laughed when and chuckled when I looked at the, uh, Yaken Park, uh, River Park checks where on the yearly we have more in Spencer than we did in Davidson County. So, I knew that had came up, but still nearly 1300 on those. So, a lot of proactive work and I believe that's what uh, you know, the unfortunate people that come from other communities around us and they meet our officers, they decide they're going to take their their drama and their trouble elsewhere. So, um, and that is where all this proactive work comes in. All these part checks, if you added them all up, I didn't do it. It's probably over 10,000 for the year. Um, so if you add up all that proactivity, that's what the people that are passing through see. Um, and that's what I think keeps that criminal element, you know, kind of pushed pushed off and away from us and helps us maintain good criminal stats for the years. So, um certainly certainly happy with the with the work the officers did this year and I will take any reports or any question you may have on the yearly report.

All right, board. Any questions for Chief File?

All right, a couple couple extra things to tack on to the end um in case you get calls about this. So, uh there is some federal law that regulates the release of traffic accident reports and I I I spoken at briefly a while back. I think um I mentioned um either in a planning session or in a board meeting that Charlotte had been sued on releasing traffic accident reports. So we were already very restrictive on who we released them to when we vetted it ourself. Um effective uh the first of this month we no longer release traffic reports at all. Um it all has to go through the state of North Carolina and that was a push that the state was doing. Um there was a little loophole that would allow us to still release very limited information, but the the reporting part to release the limited information was definitely not worth it. Um because you still couldn't come get a complete report from us. Um it all has to go through the state of North Carolina. So um we're kind of working through that. So if you get citizen complaints, uh just explain to them that it's it's just a transition that was forced on us. And that's it's it's tied into the driver's protection uh law on the federal level uh to protect your personal information from getting out. So, um it's not a bad thing. It's just a transition. Most people have been used to coming up here and getting a free report. Now, they're going to have to pay the state a few dollars to send them certified copy. So, a little bit of a change on that. So, I just wanted to share that with the board.

That does it have anything to do with the law letter, the letters you get from the lawyer when you have a speeding ticket?

Well, you know, that is what started the problem in Charlotte really. Um it's where attorneys were going and they were getting massive amounts of reports um to get the information off of then solicit business. I mean great business model uh didn't really comply with federal protection laws. So um it's been a transition up for about the last year but we were one of the last agencies we held on until the very end. Um I mean the last day we sent a report out on the 31st or the 30th of December. um we released it to a citizen because we hadn't fully transitioned but effective on the first we did. So um and that was that was to become compliant with what was kind of being forced on us by the state. So I haven't had a ticket lately but this is happening [laughter]

lately. You're not plotting to get one, are you? You're not plotting to get one, are you? No. [laughter] 2026. Yeah. Which been Yeah.

I know Peter Bar uh briefly shared I think in his weekly report about some openings. So, um, just to keep everybody on board, you know, we still have one patrol position frozen. Um, we have two patrol positions open. So, we lost one to the sheriff's office. Um, and we already have one opening. And then we lost, uh, Lieutenant Everett, who was our C lieutenant. He was over SRO's. He went in the business for himself. He stayed with us parttime, but he went in the business for himself. So, um, certainly we were happy for him to, uh, aspire to, to make it big, and and I hope it works out for him. I told him he's got a home here if it doesn't. So, um so we're definitely going to be uh looking at posting those in the next week or two most likely and we we hope that we get a little bit of uh uh you know activity on those postings. Um our Billy T graduate did graduate and he is here with us now. He is not sworn in by the state yet. We're waiting on his packet to come back. So, he's kind of doing some of the the paperwork stuff that you do when you first get hired. Um, so we're hoping in the next two weeks that he'll uh he'll get a badge and a gun and we'll be able to put him to work. So it's about a three-month process after that. So we anticipate probably pushing April time frame before he is um on the street working. So just wanted to briefly update everybody on that. And that kind of rolls into my next thing. Um I I spoke with Peter and I just wanted to get the board's uh uh take on uh applying for a grant. Um I've got a pretty good opportunity to apply for a personnel grant. I have successfully wrote and received this grant twice in my career um before I was here with Spencer. Um so it's funded through the state. It is a grant that would stair step down. So the first year we would have personnel covered at 100% then it would stair step down for the next three years until we would take the position over. Um knowing that we have a position frozen. Um we can't use the funds to directly pay for that. This has to be trafficbased. But that kind of all ties in to what we looked at whenever we

um I sat down with Steve and we talked about what the truck stop was going to generate, what this industrial we know that it's going to be some traffic related issues. We already know from looking at the numbers um of our truck stops in other places in the county kind of what we can expect. Um so I'm a little bit on a time frame for this. I have until the end of the month to apply for this said grant. No guarantee I get it. Uh but I certainly wanted to uh present that to the board. See if you had questions, get your direction. if you were fine with us uh going in and looking at applying for that grant. Um it it operates on the federal budget, so funding would not become available until October. Um again, the first year will be covered at 100%. We would just have to, you know, agree that we're going to take it on after the fact. I know it's a little bit pushed, um but is a short time frame to apply for this one. So, it just opened up. So,

this was the governor's highway.

It's funded through the governor's highway safety program. So, um, you know, they had got to where they were not funding as as often funding entire positions. Um, now they've kind of reimaged and they started doing that again. So, um, I don't know the specifics if we get the vehicle with it. Used to we got the vehicle with it. I've not got a direct answer on that. Um, but quite frankly, if we can get the person, we'll find something to make them work in. Um, I think we'll we'll work around that uh that part of it just knowing what we've got coming. So, um, unfortunately, if we don't apply for it now, obviously, we'd have to wait until this time next year, and we may be in a whole different situation. Um, [clears throat] so it kind of lines up good that we'll be getting funding right when we anticipate that truck stop opening. And, uh, you know, based on where the budget may sit this year, we may not be bringing the frozen position back. So, I'm kind of thinking in the back of my head, what do we need to do to try to try to get ahead of that a little bit? So,

but I will try to answer any questions you have about it. Uh, I only know the preliminary stuff, but I have wrote and received it twice, so fingers crossed. How many years step down did you say it was?

Um, it's considered a 4-year grant, but I believe if if I'm still waiting for a little bit of followup from them, but um, historically, it's been a 25% step down each year. So, we would be funded 100% the first year and then 7550 and so on. Um, and then you do your final reporting at uh, at year four. So, it is report heavy. So, yay for me. um it's quarterly report heavy and they they like reports. Um but we have officers that work hard so there's not going to be an issue with us submitting weak numbers if you want to call it that. Um our numbers are more than satisfactory with what we have now. We just see some additional uh additional coverage knowing knowing that we're going to see some additional uh call volume I believe. board. Any questions uh specifically related to the grant? And then is there general consensus um that we want to move forward with the grant?

Do we need application? Do we need a formal recommendation or I don't know that we would need a formal acceptance if we if we're awarded the grant. I don't know that we necessarily, but we certainly can give formal authorization to the chief and manager to apply for that grant for the town if you want to. I'd like to do that. All right. Well, then make a motion. I [laughter] make a motion to authorize town manager and chief file to apply for this grant. I think we really cheerlead proactive policing and we can only continue to do that with appropriate staffing numbers. So, okay. I think this is important. So, there is a motion by Miss Moody.

Second. There's a second by Mayor Prom. Is there further discussion or questions? All right. All in favor? All right. All opposed. All right. All righty. Thank you very much. Have it. Take care. Have a good evening. But that's not to buy a new vehicle yet. [laughter] All right. Fire Department Chief Lanning, Mayor and Board. Good afternoon.

U, you have my prepared report. I did want to highlight a few things. Our um 752 as we call it, which is our 2008 Crave, is still in Taylor's old receiving repairs. Um, and some of those were budgeted repairs. It's nothing out of the normal. What was not expected was that our brand new firet truck would have a crack in the coolant reservoir. Coolant levels been dropping. So, we were able to find that. Unfortunately, we can't send that to repair until we get a fire truck to be able to put in service. So, hands are kind of tied there. Um, fortunately, where we did have a lot of issues getting that truck in service initially, they extended the warranty by 3 months. Had not then this would be on us to repair it. even though, you know, they recognize it's a faulty part. It would have been out of the warranty window. So, as soon as we receive that, that'll go to Charlotte. Um, you'll see an older truck on the road for a little while. I also realized that in my board report, I went back a month in time. Our awards ceremony was this past Saturday. It was not, in fact, December 10th. It was January. So, I apologize for that. Um, and then again, just to hit on some personnel things, we did promote uh firefighter Kobe Smith to engineer effective December 22nd. Um, did have a full-time company officer who'd been with us. He was one of the original captains that we hired back in 21 22. Um, he resigned. So, when we hired him, he had recently been laid off from the railroad. They called, offered him his job back. He would be able to retire about 10 years sooner than he would if he had stayed with us. and a uh very large pay increase. So, you know, unfortunately, hate to see him leave, but it is definitely what is best for him

um and his family. And then Allison Mars, she was uh or started last Tuesday to fill our vacant firefighter position on a shift. So, got uh her sworn in on Saturday at our banquet and all things are positive. So, if you have any questions, I will answer anything that you may have. Okay. Board, any questions? Thank you, Chief Lanning. Have a great night. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Mr. Taylor. I'm surprised that Mr. Taylor didn't just offer Flex Seal to fix that coolant leak. [laughter] I offered JB Weld, but he wouldn't. That works, too. I mean, you know, we do what we have to do in certain [laughter] situations, right?

Keep it running. Sure. Good evening, mayor, members of the board.

Good evening. Um just a few items to to update with. Um the Leaf Act has stopped as far as on routine service. Now we may bring it out occasionally if we start seeing a few piles pile up here or there, but the majority of town with the weather being what it was got most everything out. So um we've seen one or two, but nothing major. So we'll um but it will resume on March 15th for that month. It'll be March 15th, April 15th. Um, just a reminder also that Monday, uh, our offices will be closed, so we'll just run one day late next week. Uh, for Martin Luther King, um, the trash schedule, uh, once again, we've posted it for the year, and I think I put a copy of it in your packet and put it on your refrigerator just to let everyone know, um, what the schedule is for the year. It really does solve a lot of confusion by putting it out at the beginning of the year. Everybody can kind of and now that we've transitioned back to a four day week, it does kind of confuse things even for us sometimes. So, um especially over Christmas this year with only two days that made it interesting. So, um the one of our crew members also um turned in his resignation and y'all approved tonight some updates to the to the posting. So, that will be posted as soon as Hannah can get the but get somewhere she can hit the button. So, um and we'll get that in the works. Uh we have been working the storm water inventory is about complete. um spoke with the engineers two weeks ago before well right before the holidays that would be three weeks ago now. So um we are transitioning and have added that segment to the eyework system that we already have. Um so it will be a mapping system. Um so they're in process now

we're going through some training and they're transitioning those shape files um to get those in. I'll bring an example once we get it up and running so we can show everybody um how they're marking um pipes, culvert sizes, conditions, uh what materials are made out of um and then you can kind of get a list from there. Um what they've made, you know, important to least important um on their list. But but that is definitely in the process. And I'm still trying to get hold of Elise um about our live staking. She from Salsbury. She actually had a um kind of came to Peter I think about uh helping with the live staking through one of their classes or something through there. So, um, still working with vendors trying to get live stakes and as soon as we can get them, I my guess would be February probably would be the best. That's what everybody keeps telling me. That's the time to harvest. So, um, if we can get it lined up with them, of course, they'll be helping us get that grid set up and get it finished and then that'll get our CCAP money. We'll get it back in back in works. So, other than that, if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer.

Any questions for you? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Finance. Good evening, board and alderman. Good evening. Good afternoon.

Um, you have my report, my finance report. Um, just want to reiterate that our FI2526 budget is now in Black Mountain software. There are some updates that needed to happen um with taking some of the grant um expenditures from general fund into the separate funds, the storm water and the miscellaneous grants. That has been taken care of. There's still some adjustments that need to be made. Um, so I I made highlights on the report that I gave you and if you have any questions about those, I'll entertain those questions. Um, as far as an update to make sure that everything is in place that we we're going to work on that this week. I was trying to get the audit out of the way and um, submitted, which was submitted today. So, do you have any questions about the report, the finance report?

One comment I would add, and of course you pointed it out, uh it looks like, and I think it's been pretty consistent the last few months, that our sales tax growth is seeming to stay at that 4% range, and we planned on 1% this year. So, so that number is a good number uh revenue-wise. Of course, we're I think for our sales tax, every 1% is worth about $11,000. So, we're not talking millions here, but [laughter] but it's helps because we have had some unexpected expenditures come up over the past over the past month. So,

Heather, what's the difference between So, we're showing the the sales and use tax as of the January distributions. We're showing you show fiscal year this current fiscal year 519,000 versus 398,000 but only at 3.9%. Yeah. You know what that looks like? I did not update the FY25 number. Okay. I thought something was off but so 3.9% though is the number. The percentage is correct. Okay. Um it's just that FY25 number is not Okay, good. So 3.9% and we had budgeted what percent? one. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's encouraging.

That

and I I mean that from the the trend because I I keep a record of the trend for the past five years and the trend looks to be the same because this month on every year has been a little bit lower than other months, but and the the months following it kind of picks back up to the same trend that was. So, um, this is one important thing for me. You know, I want to make sure they get this out to you guys because it's, you know, that's just something that it's a little bit of an adjust, you know, a little bit of money, but it can cover some of those, you know, small expenditures that we don't plan for or it's kind of surprising. said,

um, I I had a question. um like on the and I think I've seen this a couple of places in the reports. um the Yedkin River Trail. This was um grants and donations transferred and appropriations and fund should close by the end of FY 26, but don't we will have maintenance and things like that that continue with those properties and those should come out of those should come out of general fund. Okay. Just because the fund that we're looking at is a project fund specifically for construction for the construction of that project. Okay. Okay. But and same thing like with the park, the expenses for that will come out of general fund. The construction part comes out of

the the fund balance of the fund here. Okay. Yeah. Are you guys happy with the format that's there? Is it is it readable? Yeah. Are you okay with that? Okay. Yeah. If there's any if there's any adjustments or you have any questions, so anything that you would like to see more of, let me know. and I can look at other reports because there's some other reports that are available. It's just this covered everything in the same format from fund to fund. So that help that helps me to you know share it with you guys in the uniform format. So

thank you very much. All right. Active living report. Mrs. Ward.

Yes. Good evening, mayor and board. Um, so just some highlights from my report. Um, the parks and recreation board did meet this month. Um, they reviewed the their uh 2025 accomplishments and goals that they uh are hoping to set for 2026. Um and there's a report that is uh being put together and should be presented to you all next month um for to help with planning uh for the budget. Um they we realized there were some there's a something needs to be adjusted with the bylaws because of the staggered um terms. So we're working on that as well and that will be presented to you all um in the future. Uh, as far as grants and projects go, um, which I told Joe if you guys have any specific questions on this part, he might have to come help me with it. But, um, the Standback Forest Center agreement has been finalized. Um, there have been major grants and donations secured for the Rocky Branch Loop Trail in the Standback Forest. Um, the Blue Way project, we're waiting for flood flood plane permit. Um and there is funding being sought currently for the uh archway for the one entrance in the park. Um you all already heard about how successful Winterfest was. Um the only thing that came up during our meeting was a concern about lawn drainage. Um so we might be kind of looking into that in the future. Um and I believe we've talked about it at other meetings. Somebody had mentioned it, but the Rowan County is working on plans for the 250th anniversary celebration, um, which will be on June 13th at Dan

Nicholas Park. Um, and they're hoping to get other community involved with that. Um uh and as far as the library programming went last month, um there were some artisan demonstrations uh on December 16th uh by local artists uh Cindy Sip and Wendy Irvin um where they demonstrated their artwork and spoke about their experiences um and the program ended with light refreshments. Um on the 23rd there was a holiday story hour and crafts where um librarian McCra read uh three traditional Christmas stories and um use her puppets uh to help entertain those present. Um and then the attendees made themed crafts and there were seasonal snacks. Um and she has expressed interest in doing something for the 250th anniversary as well. Any questions?

Boarding questions on the active living report. I got a question and I'm not going to ask Miss Ward because I'm gonna ask Mr. Morris on this question. Aren't aren't we still we still dealing with this Grants Creek Blueway? We're still dealing with Royan County on this flood plane issue because I think everything else has been approved. What's what's the hold up on that? Sorry. [laughter] Sorry, Joe. Good evening, Joe. Hello. You woke him up back. Sorry I had to wake you. It's okay. It's okay. [laughter]

I was I was paying attention to the old time. Um we had uh prior to the issuance of the grant agreement from NC Parks, we went through a due diligence process where the regulatory agencies were notified. US Fish and Wildlife, DEQ,

State Historic Preservation Office, US Army Corps of Engineers. And during that due diligence, it was ascertained that we had to have a wetlands delineation for um any wetlands on the site where the the Blueway Trail Head is being constructed. As a result of that, um it was suggested to us by the county flood plane administrator that we would need to have a um a civil engineer apply help us apply for a flood plane permit. We were able to get permission from NC Parks that any cost associated with the civil engineering work that would be done could be paid for out of the grant funds. And so there was a time lag in there that was not really anyone's fault. was just sort of a combination of getting that permission from NC Parks, finding a civil engineer, Christmas holidays, and then issuing a PO.

Okay. And so last week the purchase order was issued to the civil engineer to do the uh the flood plane development permit which includes a design for the streamside kayak launch that is being requested by the flood plane administrator. Okay. So that was a very long answer to your question that yes [laughter] we are still dealing with the flood plane administrator. You still got to find a contractor. you going to put that up for business? So the once we have the flood plane permit Yeah. and I don't I don't have a timeline on it. I know our engineer is involved in it and he's

working on the project now. Um we will do a request for proposals on the project. The actual project will probably be a 60 or 90 day thing. It's just it's not that complicated. It's it's sort of like the the seventh street 17th street project that there was a lot of leadup to it and then when it actually happened it was a very short time frame. So not like the fourth street project. Okay. Yeah. Well that one too. [laughter] Not that one. Not that

yeah it's it's just been um ongoing. It's been a a steep uh learning curve for me in terms of the regulatory, you know, aspects of doing a recreation project adjacent to a a flood plane and where there are actual delineated wetlands. And so, um, I'll know better next time, but there's no deadlines on using the money for that fun. There's a three-year window and we have we have gone we were notified October of 24 and so we have until October of 27.

Okay. To complete the project. Okay. And so it has taken quite a bit of time. Right. Uh so that's my no excuses but there's been a lot happening that has has added up to this ex protracted timeline for the project. Okay. And and meanwhile we we have started this similar due diligence process environmental review process on the trail project. Okay. which has resulted in similar feedback from core of engineers and that some of this engineering assistance is likely going to come up as a need for that project as well.

The the team is in place that will expedite what we need to to uh document in order to accomplish the the environmental review that is required by the grant program. Okay. Right. Steve, did you buy a kayak you were anxious to use? No, but I could use it. That'd be fine. [laughter] I I tell you the the um aerial images that Steve showed. Yeah. That's the Grant Creek blue. Oh, I know it is. So, it's a beautiful area that people will be able to access. Yeah. And get to and enjoy. And so it's uh

I think I've had a couple comments of people asking me when's that going to be completed. So that's why I was asking about it. But thank you very much. You're you're welcome. Now I got another [laughter] question. Let her rip. Okay. Uh I noticed from this audit that we have almost $73,000 on this park out here left over. Have we just made have you has any decisions been made on how we're going to spend that money? That that was as of June 30th. So everything you're seeing there was as of June 30th, 2025. Okay. So there has been more money spent since then and more money that's come in too, right?

Uh some and I don't know the balance 49 at this point. I was just looking through the audit. I assume that was well the audit figures again that's as of June 30th. So that's okay that's a snapshot of last summer but uh we you have you determine what you're going to do with that money or are you kind of waiting on what you're going to do?

The the primary the primary thought at this point is this fifth street gateway is one opportunity that we're trying to seek some grant funds for. We have some grant funds not all of them. uh there may be a need to use some for match. Uh we also hope we had hopes for additional parking lot improvements that we weren't able to fund. Right.

So, uh that's another that's another area, but the amount of money that that lingers over out of that project is not substantial at this point to really do a whole lot of extra things at this m now. If we if we get additional grants, donations, etc., then we can start considering other things. Okay. Let me ask you another question then leading to this question. As far as that goes, there was people that donated money to that park and was was promised some kind of recognition as far as that go. Has that progressed on how we going to do that yet?

So, we had we we did that on a temporary basis. We do want to at some point when we've determined the dust settles do that on a more permanent basis. But the the banner that was out there in October, we actually want to install that back out there on a in a more semi semi-permanent semi-mporary installation until we get the permanent recognition in place. Okay, that's fine. Yes. So, we have we have two commemorative markers that we actually need to do. We need to to do a formal marker that denotes the the construction, the dedication date,

you know, the contract, architect, designer, contractor, so on and so forth, members of the board, that sort of. So, there's that. And then there's the uh the honorarium or the the memorial commemorative plaque, whatever we decide upon. And so that that would be an expense that we hope to attain through whatever residual funds there might be in the project at the moment. Okay. Thank you.

According according to my record and what we have discussed after all, Right now it's 4900 when we had our discussion and I

So we have a couple of donors that are paying out over time. Over time. Okay. Significant donors. That's good. That's good. Well, we got money coming in. That's great. I just want to ask about that for you. It It's kind of tricky and and I'll give you an example. We're working on this gateway arch project and we have a a significant grant toward that now. Um but we are intending to apply for another grant to help pay for what is amounts to a $20,000 project. If we do that, we're going to be adding another donor.

And so it'll be a it'll be a different name that another name that needs to be on the on on the marker. And so those are the kinds of things we're we're grappling with. And I I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but we've recently had a uh another potential contributor to reach out to us in the last day or so looking for an amenity that might be added to the park, which we're there there's a lot more discussion that needs to be had about. Thank you. Yes. Thank you for what you're doing. You're welcome.

I I had a conversation with um someone at the uh economic development meeting last week who was very um complimentary about what he was seeing in the town of Spencer. And I think there might I don't know that there's possibility for money, but there might be. Good. Good to know. Bring a bag with you [laughter] next time. I beg your pardon? Bring a bag with you next time. Yeah. Okay. Okay. A big one. Yeah. And I think I know where we could spend some of Kyle's money, too. [laughter] I had a quote at my house. All right.

One thought on the plaques, too. You know, it it obviously I understand we want to get to a certain point, right? and and if we've got folks that could potentially be giving in the near term, we want to make sure to capture those. But perhaps we could go ahead and have one plaque done um with all donors to date and then be able to then amend that with a separate donors from Xyear and beyond. Um, yeah, because the I I would think that over time, you know, the idea would be that we would want to do some parking lot improvements and potentially other things that folks may give to.

So, we um from the day of the dedication um we we've had I think just one additional donor that's not on the banner that Peter created. um it might be logical to cut it off at the end of 2025. Yeah.

Which was the year that the park was dedicated. And in the case of the the archway, um there is actually a blank tablet that's out there that we could explain uh the funders for the the archway on on the blank tablet. So there's there's options for us. We can I'm sure we can be creative and address those kinds of issues. Great. Thanks, Joe. You're welcome. Thank you. All right. Move to the town manager report.

All right. I've I've got a topic that I put in writing and I'll mention that, but I have I have uh two other topics uh that are not in writing and I and I'll mention those first. And and I'm guessing you all had maybe similar experience to me that over the last few weeks you've had people coming up to you and mentioning or not even coming up to you but in in various settings talking about how wonderful the lights are in Spencer. Uh to the point that I uh had a the sermon I heard on Sunday was about how wonderful well it wasn't about it but it included about how wonderful the lights are in Spencer. [laughter] Uh, really? Yes. And and and

wow,

Joel Joel can attest because he got on Monday I I played it for him and he got to he got to hear it, too. So, I certainly want to thank uh our public works team uh for all they do uh to create that environment through the holidays with the lights and it's a lot of work of course to make that happen. and uh and all our staff. Of course, we've talked about this with all these events and all the volunteers uh we saw tonight. Uh our whole team, all our departments get involved in supporting those things. So, certainly appreciate our staff. But I I was very tickled uh in the variety of settings over the last couple weeks where unprompted I was getting positive feedbacks about how wonderful the lights are in Spencer. And I think the addition of the park took it to another level this year that people seem to notice.

They did. Yep. Watch out, Joel. Hallmark's going to be here next. [laughter] I know. Well, that was our plan.

So, what's in writing in the monthly report is all about uh Salsbury Transit's move towards the microtransit pilot project, and that's going to be kicking off next week. Uh there's a brochure that appeared this week. Uh, I don't know how many copies we wound up having here, but this one was in my box that that I think they're distributing, but they Salsbury has received grant funds to do this. It's been many years in the works where the what has been a fixed route uh which was known as route three or the blue route uh that covers um parts of Salsbury but also comes through East Spencer and Spencer and then goes back to Salsbury um and connects over to the the VA hospital in that area is uh not going to run as it has. Uh there's now going to be an ondemand ride share type service that is going to be operated through a contractor that uh uh was actually the the contractor's name is Downtowner. Now the breaking news we were hearing about an update from Downtowner at Salsbury's council meeting this month and the the news was that Downtowner has been acquired by a company called VIA which has actually been the one of the biggest players in this space. downtowner I think uh was maybe seen as a either a competitor or disruptor but they were acquired by VIA for their expertise. Apparently they are staying intact as a as a subsidiary of this overall VIA company but their staff are gearing up to launch the service next week and so things will look a little different um from what we're used to. We will see these colorful Salsbury. The service is going to be called Salsbury Connect. And they're have these uh Toyota Sienna minivans that will operate the service as well as uh a more traditional light transit vehicle. In other words, a

smaller size shuttle bus that will offer the ADA services. Uh but there is uh a lot of information that Salsbury has put out. So encourage folks to check that out if you're interested. Uh generally there's a buffer area of of a I think about a quarter mile around the what was the fixed route uh path that is an area that you can ask for a ride and be picked up and taken anywhere else in that area or to the transfer station to connect in with one of the other two bus routes. uh it will include a free transfer and then when you if you're say in Salsbury on the on the red route um and you need to come back you would ride the bus to the transfer point and then get a free transfer back into the microtransit. So uh some new things but it sounds like a a good opportunity for uh Salsbury Transit to explore this new way of doing service. They have grant funds to cover this for about three years. Uh they're doing some promotional uh fairs for it right now. I think the first two weeks are going to be no fair and then it's going to go to a dollar a ride. Uh that's through the rest of the fiscal year. I think they're going to assess with their budget process for next year where it goes from there.

Any questions about that? I do have one question. So, you know, we know that the people that are using it right now in Spencer and East Spencer are utilizing the stops that we have and we installed the um installed those shelters. Is Salsbury going to be putting promotional material on those shelters to be able to notify folks when they get there expecting a ride what they need to do? That's a good question. Um, I knew they were going to do promotional on uh on their vehicles on their but that's a good question. Uh, so I the last thing we want someone sitting there for two hours thinking that a ride's going to show up and they haven't caught anybody.

Okay, other questions. Um I would mention that um the mayor of Salsbury has invited us to a ribbon cutting at 2 o'clock on the 15th which is Thursday um at the city hall for the Salsbury transit program. So if anyone would like to attend that probably a few.

So then the other thing uh I wanted to check in on uh last month we talked about the potential dates for the annual planning session. Yep. And wanted to see if there was any feedback that y'all have gathered on the proposed dates wi which were I believe uh the 20th and 27th of February or the 6th of March but I'm not looking at a calendar. So those those were three different Fridays um that I had suggested.

And similarly the plan would be to hold a community input meeting the evening before. It could be. We We haven't We haven't set set it in stone yet, right? Uh we've done that for for several years. We [clears throat] could take a different approach this year and and try to do everything uh on Friday or we can continue the pattern. Um but the the main dates I was wondering about at this point were, you know, which of those weeks might be the right the right time. The board's Pleasure. And we're talking February, correct?

That's correct. February, uh, late February, early March. Yeah. So, the 20th or 27th or the 6th

or the 6th. I am wide open. The 6, we would have our pre-aggenda meeting the night before. So that would allow us the opportunity to do a community input session kind of during a regular scheduled meeting that we would have. Um but from a planning perspective, it's a little bit later obviously in the in the year. I'm free any of those dates which is amazing. So [laughter] I'm shocked as right now.

So what uh what's the board's If we're looking at if we're looking at the 20th um and doing something on the 19th, the 19th would not be my preference. Okay, that's so birthday for my twin great grandb babiesies. I don't you need to we need to be there. Anything special, but I'd like to be available and we are. So then now we're looking at the 27th 7th or the sixth. Uh my personal vote would be if we are going to do the community session the Thursday night before rather than adding an additional meeting on the calendar to do it on the sixth. I mean I

I'm flexible. So if someone has a a conflict, let's do it. But if we can avoid an additional meeting in our lives, I'm all for that. I think the march will be better for me. Yeah. Erin, you don't want more meetings. No. [laughter] I told myself I was going to come back in January more excited about meetings. Okay. I love these ones though. Pamela, how does that work for you? Oh, that's fine. Okay. So, that's March March 6th. Does that work? Yeah. So, we would do our community input meeting on the 5th, which is already a scheduled pre-agenda meeting, and then the the day of Friday the 6th for our strategic planning session.

That work? Yep. Okay. Sounds good. Okay, it's now I just need to block it out before somebody else gets it. All right, let's go ahead then and move forward um with requesting comments from the mayor and board. We will start with uh I usually go on the end, but they're both on their phones. Miss Sledge, you want to go first?

Well, I can. Um, I I guess, you know, I want to u again thank all the the town staff and and um all the volunteers who helped us with Winterfest. Um, as I said earlier, it it takes all of us. We're we're scheduled to start the first meeting actually Thursday of this week. Um, I'm not available that night because I'm got something planned earlier in the evening. So, um,

but anyway, um, you know, we'll be working on it, talking about what we did right, what could be improved. U, so if y'all have any recommendations or any suggestions, think about that. U, we're always open to any more people who would like to be on the on the committee,

volunteer. Uh we typically meet once a month um in the early part of the year and then as we get closer to the event uh move it to maybe twice a month and then if we need to once a week up until the last minute. So um I guess that's [clears throat] really I'm kind of brain dead right now. All right, Miss Secret.

Yeah. I want to take just a moment um to recognize a former uh Northran alum. There was a big article in the sports section of the paper today in the digital version about Bo Russell. He graduated in 1969 uh from North Rowan and he led an extraordinary life. He grew up over here on Fifth Street in Spencer. He was an all state wrestler and also all state and track. He attended WCU and he married his high school sweetheart Debbie Dove. Um, Betty Dobby, excuse me, who grew up over here on Salsbury Avenue. He joined the Marines and he stayed there until 1994 and rose as Lieutenant Colonel. He had been stationed in Japan in Okinawa and they fell in love with the Far East and they stayed there and Bo went on to get a a seminary degree as a Baptist pastor from Southeast uh Theological Seminary and opened the biggest uh Baptist church on oak at in Okinawa. So that's where he lived the rest of his life. And he would come over to the States about once every year or so, he and his family. But I I just wanted to mention the fact and I'm hoping it inspires a lot of kids who are in school now. Don't ever think you can't make a difference. And if you have time, look at the North Rowan alumni site or look at the Salsbury Post digital page and read that U sports biography that Mike London did. And hats off to Mike London for all he does to showcase Rowan County at its best.

Thank you, Mayor Peron.

Well, good evening. I guess I want to say thank you again as my constituents said to the volunteers for Winterfest as well as the um holiday caravan parade as well. They were both success. Um looking forward to many more years to come with more people coming as well. Um thankful for the public works, fire department, police department um to help out doing those events and throughout the year and for this new board. Thankful for it and thankful for the residents that also attended the first part of the meeting for the recognition. So, I I do want to also thank the residents and town staff and employees and board for supporting me during this time of grief. Um, as I lost my father and I'm just thankful for you all being there to support me and my family, you know, just giving kind words and encouragement. And with that being said, I hope that everyone has a blessed evening.

Thank you, sir. Mr. Miller. Uh, since I asked so many questions today, I'm going to say I'm no comments, but [laughter] I do want to say something to our mayor pro tail. Please be careful tonight driving, please. Please. Thank you. All right, Miss Miss Smoody.

I think in the um spirit of we were discussing our incoming truck stop, it's a great reminder that January is human trafficking awareness month. um which we absolutely do have in our community and um all communities. So, we want to be aware of that. We have some great resources. If you're interested, you can get in touch with me. Um and lastly, I just I don't think it's a surprise. I'm always a really big fan of how our code enforcement department is run. And um I think sometimes we can get overwhelmed by larger news, but if we keep it close to home on days that are tough, examples such as the proactive and collaborative policing and code enforcement in our community really remind me that we have a lot of care amongst our neighbors here. Y

um which is just another example on top of all the great people we've recognized tonight. So, um, it brings a lot of hope in days that can be somewhat, um, I don't know, stressful, disturbing. Anyway, thank you, Stanley.

Um, I just want to say thank you to uh to all those who were involved in the Winterfest as well as the parade. It brought back such memories to someone who used to be a former parade attendee. So, that that that that excited me and to see all the volunteers to see how uh we came together as a family unit. It it inspired me to want to do be more involved. Um I just want to welcome everyone into the new year. Uh and again to uh Mayor Pro Tim um um Muhammad safe travels as you sjger back home and you do you are continuously in our prayers and thank you to my colleagues as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, you've all said it all. [laughter] I have nothing uh nothing further to say except to ask if we uh need to go into executive session and it doesn't seem like it. So with that, the next question I have is there a motion to adjurnn? So move. Motion by Miss Secret. Second. Second by Miss Moody. All in favor? All right. Opposed. [laughter] Heather's now voting with us to adjurnn. We're adjourned. Did Heather stay opposed? So stay.