Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. The time is now 6 p.m. and the Spring Lake Board of Commissioners regular meeting is now called to order. I do ask that you silence your cell phones and please keep off our conversation to the absolute minimum of respect for the business of the town. I would like to invite Pastor Sappo to the podium to lead us in our pledge of allegiance and invitation. Please stand and join us if you choose to. I was going to ask, Madam Mayor, that you want it in that order or can I put it in the right order? I'll hear.

Amen. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your loving kindness, your presence, your tender mercy, your grace. Lord, we're reminded of the scripture that you said through David, the Lord is my shepherd. And then you said, praise God, yay, though I walk through the valley, the shadow of death, I won't fear no evil because you promise to be right with you. Rod and staff that comfort us. Praise God. Helps us to understand that we're not ever alone, but you're always by our sides, Lord. So, we won't fear, we persevere, Lord. We won't give up. We keep on going and moving forward. We know what right looks like, Lord. And we want to be able to by your allegiance, by your guidance, make the right decisions and do the right thing, not just for ourselves, but for the community, for the people, for those that we represent. And so we give you now the glory and we thank you for your blessings and your presence in our lives. And we give you the glory, honor, and praise in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. God bless you. You may be seated. Thank you so much, Pastor. Bless you there.

I will now uh move on to agenda item three, additions and deletions. Madame May, I'd like to uh take a remove minimum thousand for Derek maybe remove that from the agenda. Mr. Jackson,

I'd like to make a motion that we ei study from the agenda and move to And so just for backstory, um Derek May will not be here because he is sick and so we're unable to get a minimal housing update. And I didn't submit our Lilian black uh feasibility paperwork. I was at ALC last week. So I missed it by a few hours. So we're going to push it back. And I appreciate the board saying, "Hey, you given us a lot of information. Let us take some time to digest it." So, we will discuss um the information for Lily and Black at our upcoming uh meeting. I'm not interested in a motion to approve the agenda with the additions and deletions. Commissioner Cooper.

Commissioner Jackson. Second. I don't know if you had but your light was still on. Any discussion?

All in favor? Motion carries. And I would like to enter a motion to pres approve our consent items which are the draft minutes of the January 12th and February 9th regular meeting. Uh draft minutes for the February 19th special meeting and draft minutes for February 23rd work session. Also appointment to our um board of adjustments for Urasia Anderson and Deborah Clyde as an alternate. And we'd also like to um approve or board support for the Spring Lake Easter egg hunt vendor plan hosted by a chamber for greater Spring Lake. Commissioner Cooper.

Um yes. Um I'd like to approve that. But I'd also like to uh ask if any of the appointees I see Ederson here. Um thank you for stepping up to um to serve the board of guests. So I would move to approve that second uh commission. I second that motion.

Uh is discussion. Is there anyone here from the um Easter egg hunt? I would love because it's going to be a big deal. Um there's going to and based on the flyer there's about 50 vendors coming out to mainstream 70 70 vendors 70 vendors so this is going to be a big deal I wish uh they were here but hopefully we can get some more information on that question.

Yes. Um a young lady was here last I think it was on there and as well as stated why was it in those apartments to Main Street and we have such a big crowd of vendors and the area is bigger. Yeah, I am not sure. That's why I was trying to see if there's anybody in the audience who speak to this

and with the safety and the liability and it's going to be a big deal with 70 vendors and as the officers and I mean who's so I do know that they came before the spring lake especially next um which is comprised of streets planning police fire um all the logistics that the town will provide and the um the spring lake specials team Did they approve this? Am I correct in this? That is correct. When was it when was it approved? It was It was about a month ago. Yeah, I say about a month ago. Only one. It should So, it should be in our minutes.

No, so the special events team. So, it was not approved by the board. It was just approved by the special event team. To approve it now, right? That's what they're they come before the board. If they're expecting a crowd of 150 or more, then that take board approval. Um and so that's why this is coming before the board now.

Okay. And then normally uh Mr. English, this is going to be on Main Street. So you'll understand it's already been uh approved. Uh we used to have this at Mandoa Park and for liability purposes as well as using the employees. Uh thank you should be aware of what's going on in that situation. know we got to get DOT uh to close down our streets as well and I don't know if they've already done that done that and everything because of this is all I have is that one thing. Yes, ma'am. They all went through the special events team. So they do all the approvals, they do the recommendations and they do want to close Main Street. So that's why they need that's why the agenda now for board support for us to say yes or no.

Thank you. Going forward. All in favor? Did you Sorry. any more time. I was just wondering why they moved it from end. We have to ask the organizers of it. So we'll have to ask. So I understand the motion again. All all in favor? I motion here.

All right. We'll now move on to public comments. Again, each speaker is allotted a total of three minutes. Um the topics must be related to the town of Spring Lake. Um and there will be an alert on the screen to let you know um of your time and please be mindful that question answer asked directly to the board will be addressed at a later time but they cannot be addressed immediately during public comments. So we'll begin with uh Charger about Manchester Elementary. Good afternoon. I don't know if I can make this address more important to people that are in attendance versus the people on the board. Miss Anthony, Miss Jack have done a great job trying to support this effort. And if so, can I make my address more people in the audience that you guys?

Yes.

Okay. Um I'm not sure if everybody knows, but um they have been trying to they have saved Manchester Elementary School to be closed down. um they they cited a report that they submitted back in January from a um a research firm and because of Manchester's basically their enrollment rate and the age of the facility they have saved to be one of the three school they're going to shut down with the shutdown in Manchester that would be the only school in the local area would be WT Brown which technically does not belong to Spring Lake. Um, what I'm asking for is that the people in the audience that have not been keeping up with this and which the and that have not been, you know, hear what the parents have been talking about also kind of step up and and show support for Spring Lake. If we lose Manchester, we lose the only elementary school in Spring Lake. Um, a lot of the issues that are going on with Manchester are from the board of education. today that I'm doing um deferring maintenance, not not doing upgrades to the school to make it more plausible, not making um I think the central air problem, the plumbing issue that we all hear. These are things that the board of that the school board had essentially put upon Manchester almost making it like scheduled to fail because they want it to fail. Um the report they sent out is order numbers that have that raise questions. There are some schools that have other scores than lower scores as far as the grounds go. There are some that have a lower attendance um effective attendance rate, but they're not safe to school to shut down. What we want is we need community support from everybody here to basically protect our kids and our kids schools. Um the report is just sort of areas that it looks like it should pick and choose and

why they chose Manchester versus some of the other schools um is a question that we need to bring up we need to show community support for to protect our school um if we lose Manchester all the kids at Manchester going to have to go to Brown um if not other places I don't know the exact involvement rate but it shouldn't be that we're going to be talking about how to get farther and further away to protect whatever interest that the that the school board had when they made that decision. Um, so what I'm asking for is that tomorrow night they're going to have their their district meeting. Um, anybody here that wants to sign a petition, I don't know if we turned them in yet. Um, that should to support our community. If we don't have an elementary school here, what did that say for our county? Bad enough we don't have a high school. It's bad enough that the middle school that we have, they're letting the same thing happen to where the deferred maintenances and all that are not being held and they're making it look like a school that they want to shut down in five or 10 years. If we can't protect our school, we can't even school that.

Thank you so much. Next, we have Deborah Pride addressing concerns. Good evening. Good evening. My name's Edward. Um I because I only have three minutes that next time I decided to switch what I just wanted to say. I love the idea of having any Easter egg on Main Street. We want to revitalize Main Street. We need to let people know that Main Street is here. It's viable. It's usable and we love. So, I thank everybody for that initiative. I'll be there. And I may seem a little tired of the party, but better late than never. I want to remind people that the appearance of impropriy is as bad as impropriety itself. At the meeting on February 9th, 2026, an item was added to the agenda. At the item was close session for personnel action. While the meeting was in session, a gentleman was in the audience. The meeting went into close session and returned from close session. I was shocked that the former manager John Bo was fired and the gentleman in the audience was immediately hired as interim manager. I then found out that not all of the commissioners were aware of the action to take.

It seems that there was a meeting before the meeting and there possibly may have been a violation of the open meetings law. Mr. English, I'm going to be watching. I saw your resume and your social media on on the internet. Fantastic. But I'm comfortable saying I would not have accepted this job. If I watched my potential employers hoodwink their colleagues in my face, I would not have taken the job. I am also concerned as a business owner certainly would be able to put spring legs business. I thank you for your time and attention. Thank you, Miss Clyde. We'll now move on to entry cups and open.

Okay. Um, I'm not going to really talk about the concern. I just kind of wanted to share something with y'all. Oh, and also I was doing a little research looking at hard county stuff and um there's like a lot of um they use like a lot of grants and stuff like that and I was going to um maybe just pass the info on to y'all that maybe if you could just uh look at it. I don't know if it's something that you use but it's something that you're they're using. All right. But um if they can help for me and I have all right so good evening Spring Lake. I know it may seem at times like I'm doing a lot but honestly I don't feel like I'm doing enough. So tonight I wanted to share a story with Spring Lake on what um made me want to speak up for people and family children. So almost six years ago, a beautiful girl named Alana Washington was shot in a drive by shooting and two days later succumbed to her injuries. I didn't need to hear um why why it happened. I didn't even want to know why because honestly it should have never happened. So I made a promise to Alana that I wouldn't stop until we found the people responsible um for her murder. So I posted about her a lot like all the time until her killers were caught. Um, so in conclusion, Allah Washington was more than a headline. She was a daughter, a child, a young life full of potential. She actually would have been turning 13 this year on March 27th. Um, so remembering her reminds us why it's so important to care for one another and work toward a future where tragedies like this do not happen again. Um, so I just want to end it with please never stop advocating for children. um because they really deserve the best. You know, Alana can't be here with us today um uh because she was murdered. Well, her

killers were caught though. Um I will say this, she was murdered on July 27th and they caught her killers on September 10th. So, it was two of them. So, just please advocating for children because um we are their voice and they're um they're our future. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Next, Miss Fred. I concern concerns. Praise the Lord everybody. Hallelujah.

104 drive right here in Spring Lake. I've been here for quite a while and I forced my opinion about a lot of things and I'm going to let you do that. Now, we're talking about spring. We're talking about the school. When I got here, all the schools were working really good and the teachers weren't getting paid enough money. And I know for a fact that they would buy clothes, shoes, socks for the children. So, why are we getting rid of the school? We're going to keep our students. We're going to keep our schools. The other thing is, and y'all hear me talk about this all the time. I want those roads repaired. When you do repair, they're all still bumping and just bumping all around on, you know, on the road. Shouldn't be that way. The other thing is you got potholes and when you when you fill them it's not smooth. It's just like you still got potholes and we need to correct those things. Um I see the kiosk and I don't think too many people use those things and I'm wondering why do we have all those around? So, we need to think about the things that we're doing to get what we really need here in Spring Lake. You know, we live here in Spring Lake. We have children here. And our children need to have somewhere here to go. And I say that all the time. We need to have our children in Spring Lake, not Bed and all those other places. That's what we need. And I talking about the the um the egg hunt. That's fine on

Main Street. We did it on Main Street before, but I like the park because it seemed like it was more open for the children and the children seem to enjoy it. So, we need to think about that, too. Now, on Main Street, we need to get that cleaned up. The other thing is on 87 we got all kind of stuff on 87. Broke down things, broke down businesses. They've been there ever since I've been here and they all broke down. You got one where the guy got chickens and all that stuff and you know, come on. And that's on on the on the main road. We need to get these things taken care of. Understand? We need to get them taken care of. I see the 30 seconds up here and uh but I tell you one thing, we need to do these things and be on the ball. It's not about us, but it's about the community. We're supposed to work together, not separate because none of you famous. I'm not famous and I'm not trying to be famous, but I want to do what I can for the people in my community. You see what I'm saying? And I don't broadcast what I do. And I see the red. All right. Thank you, Miss Welcome. Much appreciated. Next is Barry Jackson. And we have concern concerns. Good evening, mayor, members of the um board of commissioners. My name is Mary Jackson. I'm a resident of Spring Lake. I'm here tonight um because the hiring of the town manager

is one of the most important decisions that this board has will ever make. The town manager is responsible for overseeing the daily operations of our government, supervising staff, managing the town finances, and carrying out policies established by this board. Because the responsibil because of that responsibility, the expectations of the resident is simple. The person hired must be clearly qualified for the job. Across North Carolina, most municipalities require their town managers to have significant experience in municipal administration, budgeting, personnel management, sector, public sector leadership. Many have graduate degrees in public administration, years of senior management experience in local government. Many f also follow the professional standards promoted by an organization like the International City County Management Association. When the residents of Spring Lake look at this hiring decision, many of us are asking one simple question. Where are the qualifications that justify this choice? Our town has already faced years of instability, leadership turnover, financial challenges. Because of that history, the citizens of this town expect a board to raise the standard of leadership, not lower it. This decision has raised serious concerns about whether qualification, experience are truly the priorities in this hiring

process. This is not a personal criticism of any individual. It's just about accountability. The people are the people sitting on the board are elected to protect the interest of the residents and taxpayers of Spring Lake. And when a decision of this magnitude is made, public desires transparency and clear explanation. Tonight, I respect I respectfully ask the board three questions for the citizens of this town. First, what specific qualification make this candidate more qualified the most qualified person for the job? Second, how many applicants were considered um and at what level of municipal management experience did these candidates have? Third, what steps were taken to ensure that this hiring decision meet the professional standards expected for managing a municipality? Public trust in local government depends on transparency and sound decision making. When residents cannot clearly see the qualifications behind a decision, it creates doubt, concerns, and in the community. I have a lot more but my time is up. Thank you.

Okay, we'll now move on to our next agenda items. Um, and before we move on, I would like to um take a point of privilege to make sure that the community knows that um yesterday Commissioner Jackson and um former commissioner Roger Chavik organized a meeting. This is the second meeting I believe in the in the initiative to address the community. And I I'm sure she'll talk about more more of that in her updates, but we were um we were under a form just so we know and we were I was given consensus to draft a letter um on behalf of myself and the board of commissioners um that we will send it off to um the board of education. We don't have any control over what they do as a school or as a school system, but we do have um the power of the pen and we do have a fully pull pin where we can openly address and stand firm together um to let this the the community know that uh we are fully and firmly um united in our decision to uh to to oppose this decision to close Manchester. Um and I'd like to to read it. It's a little lengthy, but this is important. Um, so it is it says, "Dear members of Cumberland County Board of Education, on behalf of the mayor and the board of commissioners of Town Spring Lake, we write to you to express our strong and unequivocal opposition to the proposed closure of Manchester Elementary School. We recognize that on February 9th, 2026, the board voted to begin the statutory process for possible closure of Manchester Elementary with reassignment of students to WT Brown, demolishing

the existing building and transferring the property to Cumberland County for $1. We also recognize that this process is not yet complete under North Carolina law. That is exactly why we are speaking now clearly and forcefully before any other irreversible decision is made that will do lasting harm to our town. For Spring Lake, this is simply not about one building. It is about a pattern. Our community has already watched the loss of May Williams as a public school site. Then we'll watch Lily and Black Elementary close in 2022 with students being reassigned because of serious building deficiencies involving electrical systems, HVAC, roofing, and related facility problems. Now Manchester is on the chopping block. When viewed together, these decisions tell a troubling story. Spring Lake keeps losing schools, losing neighborhood anchors, and losing losing educational assets that other communities fight to preserve. If Manchester closes, Spring Lake will be left with only one remaining Cumberland County school, and that matters. It matters for the children. It matters for working families. It matters for military families. It matters for the future of our town. officials, official districts and federal data show that Manchester serves a high need student body and Spring Lake itself is a community with substantial ch with a substantial child population and is deep ties to veteran and military connected households. Decisions of this magnitude cannot be separated from the realities of who is being asked once again to bear the burden. This proposed closure also sends the wrong message at the wrong time. Spring Lake is working to grow. We are fighting to revitalize our community, strengthen our neighborhoods, attract investment, and welcoming

families who want a safe, stable place to live. Communities do not grow stronger by losing schools. Families do not look at a town that has repeatedly lost neighborhood schools and say, "That's where I want to put my bridge down." National housing research confirms what local leaders already know from experience. Families care deeply about school access, school quality, and proximity to schools when deciding where to live. When a town loses school infrastructures, it does not just close classrooms. It loses competitiveness, confidence, and long-term momentum. We are also deeply concerned about the c the equity implications of this decision. Research shows that school closures disproportionately affect black and lower income communities and that majority black schools are more likely to be closed than others. Spring Lake has felt this kind of cumulative impact before. Our concern is not abstract. It is rooted in history, in geography, and in outcomes. When one community repeatedly loses schools while the district points at deferred maintenance, underutilization or aging infrastructure, people are right to ask whether that community has been given the same level of protection, investment, and priority as others. Those are fair questions, and your board should have answers for them before taking another step towards closure. The maintenance issue cannot be ignored. Cumberland County Schools own facilities planning materials show a direct wide need of more than $800 million in repairs and upgrades with hundreds of million and urgent deferred maintenance need Manchester is an older campus but so are many of the schools across the district.

Spring Lake should not be asked to accept the permanent loss of another school because aging buildings were allowed to deteriorate deteriorate over time. Deferred maintenance is not a moral failing of our children, families, and surrounding areas. It is the system failure and Spring Lake should not be punished for it. Therefore, we respectfully call upon the Cumberland County Board of Education to do the following. halts the closure of Manchester Elementary. Reject any final vote that would permanently close the school. Provide the public with transparent comparative analysis of capital investments across Spring Lake schools and similarly situated schools throughout the district. work with the town of Spring Lake, Carmelane County, and other partners to identify a reinvestment strategy that preserves the school's access in our community rather than shrinking it yet again. Spring Lake is not a disposable community. Our children are not expendable. Our families should not have to watch their town lose another elementary school while being told to accept it as progress. We urge you to to choose reinvestment over retreat, equity over imbalance, and partnership over another decision that weakens the confidence in Spring Lake's future. And this letter will be signed by myself and the other commissioners. So, I wanted to make sure that you know that although we have no control over what happens in our school, we do have a voice and you've got commissioners that are actively working to preserve our schools. We need your Amen. All right. M got me fired up. Move on to taking care of our kids. Our first presentation is one that I always love and this is the recognition of

championships. I love Okay. Well, our Spring Lake Middle School Broncos have won our uh back-to back division three championship titles. Is there anyone here? So, I'll go ahead and read this and we're going to present on behalf of the town of Spring Lake a certificate of achievement to Spring Lake Middle School Broncos.

Yes, go Broncos. In recognition of your outstanding achievement and exceptional teamwork in earning back-to-back division 3 championship titles, your dedication, discipline, sportsmanship, and commitment to excellence have brought a great pride to your school and the town of Spring Lake community. This remarkable accomplishment reflects the hard work of the student athletes, coaches, and supporters who exemplify what it means to compete with heart, integrity, and perseverance. dated the 9th day of March 2026. Congratulations to our Spring Lake Middle School Broncos.

I'll check that on behalf. I'm the Spring Lake family ambassador for Spring Lake. Give this to you. Awesome. Thank you.

All right, we will now move on to um our second presentation of the evening and this is cyber security and our community. Miss Rianne Holly, department chair, cyber security at TCC. You guys are not me. Well, thank you. And that's our

So, may I have any uh members of this commission? It's very nice to meet you guys. Uh, it's honored to stand here today. My name is Curtis Cooper. Uh, behind me I have Shia, Alex, and John. Together we have the cyber safety communities team. Uh, and we're operating under cyber network. So today we're going to talk to you about education, more specifically cyber education. Cyber education. Right. So I believe that the more individuals know the less they hear. And typically when I speak to individuals about cyber security, they tend to talk about phones or their devices and things of that nature. But it always comes from a a place of fear, you know, due to to the times. So we're going to guys because informed individuals, they tend to make better decisions, especially in regard to cyber security. So globally, there's a cyber security attack every 39 seconds. That's significant. In North Carolina alone, there are billions, literally billions of feet of cyber security attacks in North Carolina alone. Why is that important? It's significant. It's significant because technology and networks and cyber security is everywhere from the way we pay our bills from the way we communicate with each other. The way I'm giving you this presentation right now is all technologically based. So today we're going to talk about why cyber security matters to the timeless friendly. We're going to discuss a few common facts or threats that individuals face. And uh finally, we're going to talk about how we can support you guys and help you navigate

some of these challenges. So, without further ado, I'm going have Alex come up here. Take it away. First, like mentioned earlier, everything in our lives today shapes that microphone. Thank you. Thank you.

Like Curtis mentioned earlier, everything in our lives today is in some shape or form connected to the internet. Most importantly, services that citizens utilize or benefit exclusively such as emergency systems on call centers, dispatches, fire monitoring for those that live in apartment, businesses, so on. public infrastructure such as water and waste treatment. Town records. Why this matters to the public services and community trust? Small towns are susceptible to being targeted by hackers because they don't have systems and resources like bigger cities do to protect and deter cyber attacks. Additionally, most small towns and municipalities. A great example of this is the May 2021 colonial pipeline hack which many of us remember resulted in fuel shortages and disruptions throughout the southeastern and parts of the northeastern United States. This is a little bit more close to home because we felt the impact here in North Carolina due to very limited fuel availability and gas stations were becoming crowded and gas prices were soaring. Another great example of this is wastewater treatment facility in Florida back in 2021 February was attacked and remotely accessed. Uh what happened was a system operator was sitting in his station monitoring the systems and he noticed his mouse cursor moving across the screen. So at that point he realized they were being attacked and acted swiftly. Had the attacker succeeded it would have contaminated the wastewater systems of that residents of the quota town. This goes to show how vulnerable our should be and why is important in public services and community trust. Why this matters for personal data? Get a little bit more personal. Now, personal data is what defines us as individuals and further reinforces what we call personally identifiable information or PII. This is information such as social security numbers, credit

card numbers, driver's licenses and banking information which are connected to payment portals and all of the internet, e-commerce, etc. It's important to note that these areas are secured and protected by encryption and resources such as multiffactor authentication. You utilize multiffactor authentication to ensure that it is you yourself make sure that you're accessing those systems and your data is encrypted and secured. The old school mindset isn't always the best more secure way. Most adaptive advanced technology. You just can't leave your password written out underneath the keyboard on a sticky note anymore. You can't leave it written on the board for everybody to see. Anyways, more sophisticated that now you got to use password managers and ensure that it's properly secured and encrypted. and after you give for some more information and respect.

Good evening everyone. Myself uh we see common channels that may lead us to uh security risk. Uh continuously we use convenient online portals that portals may lead us to secure security risk and we pay utility bills online. Our public records are online and our communication services are online as well as our tech systems are online. Uh there's a question is this a responsibility of a IT security person to take care of this security of our services or it is as well as our job to take care of some security at our

Is that rhetorical? So for example we are car manufacturer they manufacture the car but we are the one who are using it I think so we should take care of it safety and security

and the common risk common risk are we make weaker passwords and if we if we are using a weaker password that password can easily be hacked less than a second actually and if they access to our password they can access to our system. If they enter to our system they can literally disrupt any almost all the functions and if they get uh they block the system then they will ask a ransom. So this is a big problem and the next risk that uh we do not upgrade our antivirus system, we do not update our web applications as well as uh there's a fishing uh link in email. Uh if the email is not legitimate, there is a link it is it may can lead us to get give access to a hacker to our system. So that link is called a fishing link. And uh one more thing that we do not make ourselves aware of the cyber security there are many online trainings are available. So we can access that. Uh once you see the what are the problems we can face if the attacker get access to our system they can eventually disrupt our all the services. We cannot access to our e emergency call as well 911 and our water and utility uh services can be disrupted even the data breach our public records can be hacked they can be blocked they can be stolen they are very personal and they are sensitive and the lastly the higher thing is the financial loss if they get access to our system they can block it and they may ask for ransom and even after bit reports everything can be hacked And when our services are disrupt

disrupted, we have to rebuild it and for that we have to pay a payment.

Good afternoon. So we've given you a lot of information in a very short time, but the big million-dollar question is how can we help you guys? So we work with small towns to identify possible cyber risks in a way that's both structured and non-intrusive. Our assessments focus on publicly available information as well as conversations with your staff and employees. Uh we're not assessing your systems or touching your networks. We're simply putting a look at your policies or procedures, but from an outsers's perspective. And all of this comes to the city or the town of Spring Lake uh with zero financial costs. So,

so when we look at cyber risks, we look across the community with a a broad view, not specifically a specific department or an office. Uh, this can include public safety services, town governments, and critical infrastructure such as your water or your waste departments. Previously, we've worked with the Cumberland Road Volunteer Fire Department, the town of Hope Mills, as well as the Mid Carolina Council of Governments. It's a tongue twister. Uh, bringing both awareness and lessening risks across the greater Sand Hills region. So, bread and butter, our follow on training. Another benefit of this free service is helping people understand what basic cyber safety is.

After our assessment, we can provide simple cyber security awareness training that is aimed at our non-technical users. This training covers things such as recognizing fishing emails, how to generate strong secure passwords, as well as common online scams. Uh we also like to place a special focus on our older residents who are too often the targets of these online scammers. Our goal is simple to bring small improvements in awareness while increasing the cyber security posture of the entire community. All right is back. All right. So, uh, a lot of times these devices and these networks we utilize, um, they're they're for convenience, right? But, uh, when you get them, usually get instructions for how to use them, how to set them up, but there's never a list of, uh, inherent risk, right? No one ever gives you a list of vulnerabilities. They really tell you that, you know, with this with this comes these risks, right? So, uh, in North Carolina alone, I believe North Carolinians, they accounted for $234 million of damages through cyber security risk. That's that's pretty pretty significant. So, if I can leave you guys with anything, it's an acronym. Uh, it's called. So, identify, report, and mitigate. When you identify things, you're really going to be cognizant of the various actors and their tactics, right? Click this, click that, the spam emails you get, you know, don't be a victim because uh it's it's really a crime of opportunity. If you give them the opportunity, they will

steal it, right? You want to report it. So, not everyone is a cyber security expert, right? I don't know if you guys have a security manager, but when you come across these things and you get that that weird feeling like, oh, what did I just do? Or something happened, report it. You can report it to your security manager or someone who's more informed than you are that could potentially help you through that situation. And last but not least, you like to mitigate. So along with mitigation, it just comes education and it brings back to that informal thing, right? you don't know what to look for, right? So, if you know what to look for, you can can avoid it. Like I said when I started informed individuals make better decisions. So, u few of these things we can help you with help you navigate some of these challenges if you wish. So, with that being said, I like to conclude. Are there any questions, any concerns, any comments of the board? What is it doing? Um so first thank you guys for doing this. Uh so this was championed by Mayor Bellflowers in Hope Mills who said you have to bring in FTCC cyber security team um to address the potential weaknesses in your cyber security protections. Um I also had a chance to sit down with Dr. and the ending to uh really have them explain um how neat how necessary this is. Um it's not right, but we've got a town password. Our last thing we're presenting our old Wi-Fi password is is literally right here in front of me. So um I know that the need is absolutely there and there's always room for education. So, um, I welcome you guys in if if at the pleasure of the board to,

you know, come in and assess our systems, assess our our practices and policies and show us how we can become better. We've experienced the cyber attacks before. We get fishing emails quite regularly. Um, and so this is a great time to educate the board and the staff on on how we can become more secure because nobody wants their water services to be disrupted. Nobody wants, you know, um, our financial information. We've been through enough. So, this is a good thing and I I welcome it. We'll pass it to Commissioner Cooper, followed by Commissioner Jackson.

Thank you, ma'am. Um, thank you also for coming in on this. Uh, did have a question. Um, what popped in my mind is PCI compliance. That is cyber security, right? Sorry. PCI compliance. PCI compliance. PCI. Uh, what's your uh it's uh payments taking payments. Oh, so online payments and things like yes ma'am.

So would you recommend a town this small have PCI compliance training if they're taking credit cards? Uh I I would because I mean uh it's it's a form of convenience but I mean it's also open to to what it's like or something like that. I mean by volume as long as there are security practices in place that you know risk that um I appreciate y'all coming out. Um I think the importance importance of it is very very to come back and maybe do some type of training with our as well as with us as well because of the email um that we do our personal email as well as our email and then I I'm assuming that the work stuff that we do that you fix can also apply to our personal right

well Um if the board is okay, what we can do is address instruct them to reach out to um Zach through our manager to go ahead and um begin the process to bring them in to address our systems.

Do you work with the IP that we have on staff here as well? I've never I've never met them, but I'm saying if you're going to be doing this and that's our belong. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Mayor and board. I'm Randon Holly. I'm the cyber security department chair at Bayville Technical Community College and I just wanted to step in um in regard to that question. um as students they are working in part of cyber safe and that is overseen by full-time faculty including myself and Scott Macos who is a military and veterans coordinator at Bayotech. So if we were to perform any training um yes it would be working directly with any IT personnel that you currently have um overseen on the curriculum and student side u by myself um that there would be full transparency for anything that is any actions that have been taken um as well as the entire process therein.

Thank you and I I absolutely adore the fact that we can work with our community partners to um help strengthen the workforce that potentially and be a part of what's happening here in Spring Lake. So, thank you. If there are no further questions from the board, we appreciate what you've done. Thank you. Please reach out to our manager for

I forgot that fact that you guys are students. That's awesome. All right, we'll now move on to agenda item. 7C our system development fees Mr. Hunet and

Good evening honey associates principal final conference manager with Miguel. Um, so I'm going to have to talk about system development fees. I think can you pull that mic closer? I just want to make sure that we can here. Is that better? That's a little better.

Yeah. sensitive. Um, so it's so I think some of y'all have heard about system development piece to a degree previously. I'm going to kind of start from the uh from the beginning and go through the what the process is, what this what this is and what we've done in our financial study for adoption of system development. Um, so just a brief overview of what a system is. This was initiated in uh 2017 through a house bill 436 that uh basically addressed or or lined up a process with which the town could review potential for has previously been considered a capacity charge or system development fee within the uh within the system. So the the intention of that uh is to allow town to charge new development for use of the existing utilities, existing infrastructure that you have in place that in general over time over here's that infrastructure has been paid for uh through your existing customers that somebody new is coming home for is utilizing that system that they are taking advantage of or beginning to utilize something that has been paid for previously by your existing customers. So want to be clear that this is something that is only applicable to new customers. applies to and that the SDS act the regulation requires that to apply to subdivision land construction of struct structural change that increases your service needs you got existing business there changing use adding seats to a restaurant going from one one type of business to another that

can apply to those types of that might have an increase in their demand on the home water systems and any any use of land which increases that that service. So it's not applicable to uh to existing customers. It's not a it's not doesn't affect existing single family homes etc system. Um and and the idea here is to to provide a mechanism where growth pays for growth that allows you to collect funds to uh to work force um to to utilize to serve these students as they come into Spring Lake. So uh the calculation is set up to be calculated on a service unit basis um which is and that's typically defined as the level of demand assoc associated with a typical residential unit. looking at a standard equilibrium residential unit term used there being a threebedroom home um I'll talk about later that it goes to the closed or associated with the gallons coming from a typical home or use a basis and then that is compared to other types of development restaurant etc what would typically come with those are they compared to those resial to come up with a fee associated with that type of use. So this is a up to local discretion. The uh the report that I'll say here is a cost justified uh calculation of what your highest your potential charge for systems are. uh the board makes the the final decision there and you can adopt that at any at any level up to the maximum within that system development fee. So you can choose to to not implement a system development fee at

all or if decided that you want to do that at 50% of the uh of the level that is allowable within the calculation and that that's really a decision. It's up to up to the board. Um the That kind of covers my main slide that we just wanted to. So, a couple things to consider there is that the intention here is to cover a portion of the community uh the construction cost of your infrastructure that's in place. Um if you're if you do not implement a system development fee, then basically what ends up happening is that those improvements are covered through your rates. So, as you uh as you grow as um as you try to to pay for that infrastructure, the only income you have in the in the enterprise fund is to be ready. So having a system development fee that allows uh the new development coming in to buy into the system and to help pay for potential future uh expansion of that system. It provides another revenue source where again that growth is paying for growth. The I've mentioned already There are the regulations within this are relatively specific outlines a specific process and methodology. There are a couple of options within that methodology but it's it's generally tax cost justified. previously before this legislation was enacted, a lot of communities had these types of fees, but it was a wide variety of methodology being and implemented, how they were how they were determined. Um so the there were um challenges to that and the state basically implemented this regulation to to help um to help

define that process and make sure everybody was utilizing a similar methodology uh to to justify what was appropriate for a system development cap capital to capacity based charge. Um There are three principal methodologies that are used in that system development calculation. The uh the buyin method, incremental marginal cost method and the combination there thereof. So within Spring Lake, the calculation here is based on the buyin method. Um the reason that we've utilized that method is that the uh the growth within the system and the current capital improvements plan um does not include any capacity based growth projects. I know we have a significant need in capac in capital improvements but those are capital improvements that are are rehabilitating your existing system that's they're not places where we're recommending a larger pipe to to replace existing pipe that's that's passed it useful life. Um similarly capacity wastewater plant capacity on your water system are currently not predicted to exceed their um to exceed the available capacities within the planning period. So the capital projects there um but are future projects right now are not uh not available or not don't qualify to be calculated into a incremental or marginal cost method. Whereas if you were looking for a expansion of the wastewater treatment plant and you had a $50 million budget that you knew you're going to have to pay for that in the next five years that would go into the uh the calculation to say and to start preparing for that as you people that

are coming on board now will be utilizing that capacity in the future. Again, what we feel as a buying method. It looks at your existing infrastructure. It looks at the useful life remaining that infrastructure um and applies depreciation factors which worked with town staff and looking at those items um to to come up with with values. Um go through a lot of of detail within this but there's two primary within the water system. Your two primary assets uh are your water water source pumping storage components that are value remain 1 1 million more 52,000 the and then water transmission infrastructure which your larger water manes it's not your 6 in water manes on an individual street but it's primarily 12 12 in and larger water mans that are serving a significant portion of town that are a capacity for uh that that serves a significant portion of the the uh the community rather than dedicated to individual homes that might that are only served by that that line. Um so and that looks at the next parts for that is looks at your outstanding debt the part of that uh that infrastructure that you're still paying for that's being paid for through rates already. Um and then also looks at so then takes that to a is the value. You look at capacity and that that basically takes down to a cost per gallon per day. Um similarly on the sewer side, the sewer treatment facility has a residual eligible value over $5 million. Collection system within sewer is at $2.8 million there. Uh you also have about a

million dollar over a million dollars of debt outstanding associated with the uh sewer system. Um and then that calculates down to $4.58 per gallon per day of capacity remaining in the in the sewer system. So what the the result of the the cost specified analysis is that for a single family home or equivalent resial unit or you would have The customer pay 400 gallons per day on the water side and 225 gallons per day for sewer. And the the uh the net cost for equivalent residential unit is $1,787. If you were to have a single family, if you adopt at that level, a single family home that's being built on a empty lot, that would be the appropriate fee to assess if that value is being for the system. Um that is my the last slide that I had in here, but I I wanted to uh expand on that a little bit and just the uh and the the process of which you would adopt a fee. So the uh and we completed a professional analysis. The the next steps within that process if you are to want to pursue the adoption system is to seek public input that is typically done via posting this on your website. Um and it needs to be available for 45 days with a period with a allowance for people to make comments on it during that 45day period. Uh then hold a public Um we address

any comments that are received be addressed to the study and by the uh by completing the study. Um and at that point after you hold that hold the hearing and receive receive feedback as to how you want to proceed. anywhere from just shooting off to the system up to the maximum that's all I have. So questions first, thank you. I know this is something we've been working on for quite some time and also I know you as well as we are ready to put some teeth into this project. So just for the sake of of making sure that we are completely clear, can you reiterate um who's going to bear the cost of the system development fees and why this is important for the time we do?

And this is only applicable to to new development. So apply to the areas that are being re redeveloped with a new use on an existing parcel or when you extend sewer system sewer service water service to new developments that it implies that level it can be typically implemented. There's a couple different details exactly when that can be collected, but it's simply implemented at this point of a building permit when you commit service to that entity is when you collect it. It's only help

and again um the impact that these fees are going to have on the town's budget. Um so yeah the the impact um is intended to help that that new development helps to pay for infrastructure to pay for the uh to the work that's been put into infrastructure thus far and for future infrastructure that maintain that capital capital project. Um, as far as the actual impacts to your rates, it's not something that I can address. That depends on how much development that you see is if you are see significant interest.

Yes. just briefly just so the the board can understand like what this means in real dollars. Uh so pick whichever rate you want. For example, uh a few months ago apartment complex and I can't remember exactly how many units 240. So picking just a rate uh no one's going to but what kind of money would that potentially be for the town of Spring Lake that would be paid by the Sorry, Matt. Yeah,

I'm pulling out the calculator. It's like let's just say they're all blocks that room. So math or two bedroom that well we would typically we look at that as equivalent residential unit that matches the calculation on that. So, so if you have two 200 units just to make the math something that would be 357,400 obviously 200 unit subdivision or apartment complex is not something we see regularly but it does have significant attention to that. That's money the town used just for water and sewer or infrastructure. Yes, this does for water and sewer infrastructure and there are limitations on on that is to or it has to be for capital projects. It's not just something that can be used on um on your operational cost but capital

and if they don't they don't money lost it. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Uh, Mr. Part question I was going to ask you a dollar amount. I do see that it states here uh for the system development uh fees that is a onetime charge access to the new constructions on those and you stated uh for the new development for that one time for the economic growth of the town. And this is just an estimate of uh the amount that you have. So I kind of see it as a plus for the town. Uh getting more information on it. And as you did put out there, this just for the the new growth of economic development kind. I was trying having a hard time kind of understanding here. Some go back and do a little more studying as well as u the general chapter 162 to put it out there to the citizens so the citizen can understand and have any questions and with the 45 days and then put it out there and have a public hearing as well. Thank you.

So, um just the purpose of of what we're doing right now is we're pretty much giving uh staff the go-ahhead to work with um Mr. Honey to set up these system development fees. it'll come back for us again and we'll go through that that whole process. Then we'll know exactly what

do you need tonight? Do you need the the number or the percentage that we're we're expecting to um use for the system development be it half or 100 or when you come back with those recommendations? U the percentage would be up to the up to the board there as to whether what at what level you would want the board want to adopt that. Um the procedure generally once uh you post the study on the the website um have that 45day comment period and you can make the decision at the end of that period to to adopt and at what level you want to adopt. So now you don't need to make the decision on on if you want to adopt the full fee or at 50% or you can f I've seen some communities phase it in um some sometimes the the to look on the opposite side of the slight bit is I think the the concern I have seen some communities have is that adopting assistant fee. So it does prov put some additional burden on the developer coming in. Can be a discouragement if it was too high to too high probably not the right word but a higher system can be a discouragement to new development and that they're going to have to account for that cost as they plan for plan for those items. It's something that to consider and it it is safe trying to make sure that the growth is paying for the growth of the citizens like already invested in.

Absolutely. That a famous statement we heard come from this day quite often was we don't want the the years to have to pay for the come years. So basically uh we don't want our taxpaying residents to be additionally burdened by new development coming in being new pipes being installed street and maintenance and the staff that goes into maintaining these developments in these areas. So the point of the system development fees um and and thank you for Mr. Honey for for putting that out there but normally that's not a big deterrent. Most communities have these types of fees in place uh for developers to come in and make sure again we're not placing the brunt of new development on our residents that are already here. So are there you had another question? it was answered because I think uh normally when we have new development come in we try to offer incentive and if we're not offering an incentive then so hopefully that they see that spring lake is attractive enough and we're close to Fort Bragg and we have something to offer them u and that is something to offer but I still thank you all right so um thank you if There any further questions from the board? Um, I'll entertain a motion uh for staff to give their their consent uh to start the process for the system development to be coming in. They'll bring the information back to us. Uh, we'll go through the the um statuto requirements and host the public hearing and make our decision on moving forward with systems. Commissioner

any discussion? All in favor? Motion carries. Um staff will take care of this and bring this back to us once they figure out what happening with our sustain development.

All right. We'll now move on to uh agenda item neither. We're going to move on to agenda item eight. Um and this is our public hearing z26002 initial resoning from O and office and industrial district to R5 residential district or more restrictive zoning district for parcel um comprising 34 plus or minus acres located on south south side of R Street 100 ft west of Broad Street Spring Lake 2390. Matthew Matthew Matthew Minger. Can you correct me?

That's correct. Modinger. Is that correct? That's correct. Yes. And you are planner one for Cumberland County Department of Planning and Inspections. Yes. Well, welcome. Thank you.

Uh, good evening, Madam Chair and members of the board of commissioners. My name is again Matthew Moner. I'm a planner one for the planning and inspections department and the current planning division. I'm here to present case Z-26-00002. The applicant and owner is George G. Frell Third. Uh there's no agent and the request is to go from O and I office and institutional to R5 residential with the intent for residential and the subject property is approximately.34 acres in size and outlined in red. The subject property is currently vacant wooded land and the surrounding uses and a clockwise fashion go from single family residential to the north um multif family residential and single family to the south and institutional as well to the west. This is the current zoning map highlighting that the subject property is currently zoned OI off in office and institutional. To the north is the planned neighborhood district. Um to the east is the to the south is R6A and R six. Fort Bragg Military Reservation is off to the south of the west and O and I is directly to the west. I also like to note that R5 is directly above the property. This is the aerial imagery of the subject property highlighting that it is currently wooded land. Additionally, there is single family homes to the north to the directly adjacent to the

property and to the west is the uh Spring Lake Recreation Center and it's parking lot. This is the hydric soils and hydric inclusion soils map. Um there are no presence of hydric soils or hydrusion soils. There is the Spring Lake water line that is uh currently abing the property along root street as well as Spring Lake sewer lines that are in close parts of the contours map showing us the subject properties very relatively flat. This is the Spring Lake area land use plan that the subject property falls under. Falls under high density residential and the high density residential development goals are as outlined below. And the request to go from O and to R5 is consistent with the adopted land use plan. This is the subject property standing on Ruth Street. The south view looking directly at it. This is a west view of Root Street with the subject property located on the left. This is a north view standing on the subject property looking across the street. And this is an east view of Ruth Street with the subject property located on the right. Both staff and the joint planning board find that this request to reszone from ONI office and institutional to R5 residential is consistent with the adopted land use plan and is reasonable and within the public interest as it is in compatibility and harmony in the surrounding land use. And I'd also like to add that the port 39 acres should

be.34 on this slideshow and that is approximately about 14,800 ft. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. Mr. Jackson. Okay. I may sound crazy, but I'm going to ask for clarity. So, you want to change it from where people can put offices and stuff there to housing? Is that what you're saying? Correct. That is So the OI is the office and the residential is the housing. Yes.

Commission. Um so um I was um looking this up and the property directly beside it was recently changed to R5. Correct. year or something. According to the 10ear uh zone case history, it was not recently zoned in the last 10 years. Well, we bring the next not not the subject property, the property. Yes. The property that is R5 directly next to it. I do not see any reasoning case history for it.

Um and I am not aware of any variance is on this on the property directly adjacent to it. We'll give you just a second. Uh the property uh right if you're looking at now to the right it was reszone from O and I to residential but I would have to look back but it's been within the last couple of years.

Yes. Um thank you. So I I too um struggled with reszoning one potential property uh but finding out that the property adjacent is residential. Um whomever reszoned this area O and I I believe had the future plans of the town of Spring Lake in mind making sure that there was room for expansion um for office and industrial around our town hall. However, again with the the um recent resoning of the property adjacent to it and the properties um to the rear of it both being residential, um I would say that this would be the proper move um just to make that one lot contiguous um RA or excuse me R5. So, um, if you have another

Are there any other questions or comments from the board? Thank you so much, Mr. Wait, tell me your name one more time. Matthew Moner. Monitor. We have one more. I know I know some of them said that it was and you not seen. Is that something that we really need to know for sure if it is or and why it's not on your records when using the having GIS at times some DNA uploaded to the present. So can you just check? Yes, absolutely.

Yes. So that was um that's right next to Phyllis W's home and um we had uh there was some legal issues at her home being zon. So we I think we took it up with the board adjustment. Is that what we did? I'm not sure, but I can find out.

So, if we can do that, what we'll do is we'll um go ahead and move on with the public hearing. Um and we will during after public hearing, we'll be able to deliver on how we move forward with that additional information. Now, this was for resing history. It was for a board of adjustment for resistry. So there since it's reselling case history, it is different from the board of adjustment case history. So that may be the reason why it is not because it's two different things.

I don't believe this one was one that went through the board of adjustment. Any reasoning case would have to be heard from the day it would go through board adjustments. It just counts while the research and K's gonna going to look that up now and we'll we'll have that information hopefully before we make a decision on the approval to not financi that's and we will bring she'll get the information. So what we can do Thank you one more time Matthew

Moner. Thank you Mr. Moner for your report. We will now um move on to our public hearing. Is this the public hearing referring to what we're just talking about right now? Well I'm going to open the public hearing right now. Don't think we need to find out make sure information is correct first.

We'll get that after. So before we make a decision. So, the public hearing will happen where we're allowed to hear um the residents speak for or against what we're going to to um vote on. The next agenda item will be the actual post. So, before we vote on approving what the information here in the public hearing, the next agenda item will have that information and then we can make a decision. If she doesn't have the information you guys want to hold off, then we can do that. I like clarification. understand but right now I understand she said it may be and she think it is maybe two years ago clarification instead of just making that's how I like to have public hearing

right public hearing is fine okay so we'll go ahead and move on I now declare this public hearing uh in order I will call for um anyone to speak in favor of this agenda or this uh public hearing Is there anyone who you want to speak in favor of it? Please approach the podium. State your name and address for the record.

I had George Frell own the property that we're discussing. That property was reszoneed within the last two to three years. I talked to the property owner before I ever decided to do it. And uh I tried to I tried to get with the town over the last decade to see if the town had any interest in the property. No interest whatsoever. So that's the reason I'm trying to get it on. I paid property taxes on it for probably the last four years.

So you have office. So when you say so you own the land. So right now it's all for officers and being that you're not having any you're paying taxes but basically just yeah just and the town spent a decade or longer resolved it for and I never were notified they just

that's all I got to say.

Thank you sir. Is there anyone else to speak in favor of of this resoning? Last time. Is there anyone here to speak in favor of this resoning? Is there anyone here to speak in opposition of the resoning? Is there anyone here to speak in opposition of the resoning? Last time. Is there anyone here to speak in opposition of the resoning? Please podium. And this is directly related to the public hearing and the reasoning. Yes. Um I do feel like Abby said this the the town should do something with that property at because that is right next to the center and getting it off of there would allow the expansion of the town center. So are you speaking in favor or in

against against it being redone because I feel like the city should try to get that because it otherwise the that will area cut off and the extent we could not expand our town hall or our rec center for the police. I do feel like if it stayed that way without it being redone the city could try to find a way to pick it up um so that we can expand upon like you said if they hit O and I look okay they want some extension but the happen if it goes away from obviously the can happen now it's locked to be all five res where the register can be extended to include it other stuff so I in opposition for it because I would hope that the city would try to get it to convection. Thank you. Is there anyone else to speak in opposition of this reszoning hearing? None. I now declare this public hearing closed and we will move on. If there's any other Were you able to? Yes. We'll take comments from Matt.

Thank you. It was 2011 retreat was reszoned June 10th, 2024. Case number zone 24-003. So it was resone here recent recently. Thank you. Does that answer your questions?

Okay, we will now move on to agenda item 9A. Uh and this is zoning 260002 initial reszoning from O and I offic industrial district to R5 residential district or more restrictive zoning district for parcel comprising 3.34 plus or minus acres located on south and south side of Ruth Street 100 ft west of Broad Street Spring Lake North Carolina 28390. agenda that motion or if there's any questions we can go ahead and take those at this time. I just have a question. Yes, Commissioner Jeff.

The one that she just talked about. So, it was a OI but now it's a residential, right? We resoned it in 24. So, the reasoning case happened because she was unable to um get financing for her home with the re reasoning. I'm not sure when all of this resoning happened. us far before I believe any of our time. Um, so with that mandate being on her property, she wasn't able to move forward with taking care of her personal business. And to keep it this parcel Oh, I would probably interfere with her as well, too. No, it's it's a separate parcel. Okay.

So, her lot is fine. It's just that open lot right next to it. That way, he was trying to get reszoned to residential so that potentially a home could be there. Yeah. Versus leaving it open for and it it's not specifically for town business. This is for commercial business. So any commercial owner could purchase that lot and build some sort of commercial entity there. So it's not just for the town to take on and expand the rec center or whatever, but that is a potential um for this area. and noting that all of the areas outside of the the apartment buildings, the gray apartment buildings over there, um, and the two houses that are directly abudding the the um for I think it's Mrs. I think that you guys know that house is residential right next to and everything else around that um on Root Street is office and outside of the one exception we had to make for that lot. That's again trying to catch up. You said street and everything.

Can you bring the pictures back up? Spring Lake uh the Spring Lake overlay that we weren't supposed to build or whatever. So

So that's Well, I know what you said it's commercials and uh and residential. I just know of the spring lake overlay that there was not any commercial res the main street over only using putting mixed use on main street with the overlay district. So this one is not right here, but like again I said before um whenever this was and I I know the dates on the original zoning was was set again the area all around us is office and industrial but we made the exception for a resident that was already in that home. Any other questions? So, um I'll entertain a motion to uh approve or deny the reszoning request from uh ONI Austin Industrial to R5 residential or more restricted zoning district. Mr. Jackson, I didn't know if your light was on for the motion.

No, but I'll make it. I'll make a motion that we approve the reser Cooper. Second. Mr. Rich, did you have discussion or you say? Any discussion? All in favor? I.

The motion carries to approve the resoning from Oi to R5 residential. We'll now move on to administering the oath of office to our interim town manager, Mr. Dennis English. All right. If you give me two seconds to sort through these thousands of papers I got, I'm going to find these.

I know. I got a bunch of papers. here. I literally just had it, but I shuffle the papers around multiple times. These packets get a little intense sometimes.

Awesome. Okay. We will now uh administ administer the oath of office to everybody signing up now. Okay, that's perfect. Please raise your right hand placing your left arm on the right and repeat after me. I, Dennis English Jr.

I, Dennis English Jun, do solemnly swear domly swear that I will support and maintain I will support maintain the Constitution and laws the Constitution and of the United States United States and the Constitution and laws and the Constitution of North Carolina of North Carolina not inconsistent therewith not inconsistent therewith and that I will faithfully discharge and I will faithfully discharge the duties of my office the duties of my office as interim town manager as interim town manager for the town of Spring Lake, North Carolina, North Carolina and that I will not allow And I will not allow my actions as interim town manager. My actions as interim town manager to be influenced by to be influenced by personal or political friendships

or political friendships or obligations or obligations. So help me God. So help me God. All right. Thank you. And we can like Mr. English.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much uh for that opportunity to provide my oath. Once again, I just want to reiterate my commitment to this town and this opportunity. I am very humbled and excited and also looking forward to this challenge and I want to thank my Lord and Savior for this opportunity where I know if it wasn't for him I would not be in this situation. So I just want to give honor to him for that as well. Uh my family wanted to be here but they had some some other things some other obligations with the children tonight coming from Durham. So, I just want to say that uh thank you all for this opportunity and I look forward to continuing to serve the town of Spring Lake. Thank you.

Absolutely. Mr. English has been drinking from a fire hose. Um but I am proud to say that he is he's um doing as best as he can in this position and I can clearly see that. So, thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. All right, we can now move on to um agenda item 9 C and this is our uh fire protection for the Manchester Fire District intern manager, Mr. English.

Yes. At this point, I would like to bring our finance director up, uh Mr. Overton to give an overview of the expenses for the Manchester buyer district.

Thank you. Apologize for getting this to you uh late, but I just finished this PowerPoint about two hours ago. Um anyway, uh we have a proposed new contract with Cumberland County to provide fire protection services in the Manchester Fire District. We have been providing these services for the last five years. Uh however that contract expired. So we now have a new one on the table. Go to the next slide. Uh under the old contract we got two payments. Please get that. Thank you.

Under the old contract, we received two payments each year from the county. The first one was the fire district tax. That is a 15 cent tax to all the property in the district. Now, we didn't get the whole 15. 10 cents goes back to each fire district. The other five cents goes into a pot and they take that money to give out grants to the various volunteer or district fire departments. or they can also give money to the uh lower income districts to make up because they don't get as much money from the property tax as the wealthier districts. Anyway, uh in 2020 we received 104,000 of fire district tax. Then it was 66 75 76 and 74 the next several years. Uh we also received a grant from the county of 82,500 each year. that was for the debt service on the fire station itself and also to pay for one of the new fire trucks that we bought. So over that life of that contract, we received $800,000 in 25 um that we only received $4,600 because we cancelled the contract. The contract expired and so therefore we did not uh Mr. Rory tried unsuccessfully to renew this contract, negotiated with the county managers, was not successful in doing that. So, we cancelled that contract and we hadn't received any other um money uh since then, except they did pass a little bit of the fire district tax. Uh go to the next slide. See uh in that fire district uh one of the things we did was we built the new fire station which was completed in May

of 22 at a cost of 1,250,000. We also purchased two new fire trucks in February of 21. One of the trucks was put at this station here on Roof Street. The other one was put at the new station at Manchester. Uh those two fire trucks were 575,000 each. So we for that district we spent a million8 to build the station and buy a fire truck. Uh we had two loans to pay for this. First Bank financed both firet trucks for a loan of a million150. The monthly payment on that is $10,864 or 130,000 a year for 10 years uh beginning in uh in February in uh 2021. That loan will be paid off in November of 2030. We also borrowed $1 million to build the fire station from South River Electric Membership uh Corporation. The annual payment on that loan is 56,000. Uh, and that loan goes on for 18 years until the year 2039. The interest on that is $1,000 a year. So, $55,000 in principal. Okay. These are uh we set up a new separate uh department for the Manchester Fire Station at beginning in fiscal year 23. uh our expenses uh for that in 23 operating was 409,000 plus the debt on the fire station plus the debt on the fire truck total of 596.

Mr. Before we move on, I just want to do a point of clarity when you say we um separate them. We what we did was take everything from being in one line item on the budget for the fire station and separated into the expenses for Manchester to a separate

separately. So they're no longer joined in one fund. These are the only years that we had a separate uh budget just for the Manchester Fire uh station department. Uh so it was um 596,000 in 2023, 776,000 in 24 and 430,000 in 25. In 26 we did not receive uh uh we did not separate that. and we get away from that fire district after it was the contract was uh not renewed. And you see that uh our expenses in those years were significantly more than the revenue that we received from the county and now we have a proposed new contract um beginning immediately and I'm sorry for that that it says June 24th, 2024. It should be 2026. That's a typo on my part. Uh they will pay us $50,000 to begin mutual aid immediately uh from now till the end of this fiscal year June 26. Next year uh they would pay us $649,000 which is much closer to the actual cost of actually running that district that we had several years ago. Now, when they sent over the terms of the contract, they included a clause that said after next fiscal year, beginning July 127, that we would receive the revenue generated by the fire district tax, which as you see was significantly less. Jason has talked to uh someone county that supposedly uh that was a clause that was in the old contract, was left in there by era. It should not have been

in there. The terms of the contract should be 649,000 per year, not the 649,000 for the first year and then the fire district tax after that. Uh if we do receive this and the county agrees to it, uh we could rehire three of the frozen uh positions we have at the fire station. uh that costs about 70,000 including salary, benefits, and payroll taxes for each uh fireman. So that would be a cost of 210,000. Um but we would need those people to operate that station. Under the old one, under the old uh Manchester fire district, we had nine uh officer firefighters at that station. Um, now the fire district tax revenue, I called the county a couple of days ago, got them to give me the property value for the Manchester Fire District. It's 122 million. The tax rate for all fire districts in the county is 15. So the total tax revenue in the fire district would be 183,631. But only 10 cents of the 15 actually goes back to each district. So we would get 122,000 based on 10 cents. The other 5 cents from each district goes into a pot and then the county can allocate that out with grants or give it to the lower income districts however they see fit. So, we under that term, which is not supposed to be in there, we would only get 122,000. Uh, Mr. Dennis has been in contact with the county manager. We're trying to set up a meeting uh to clarify the terms of this contract so we get it correctly, get our then we'll

have our lawyer review it, put it in writing so the terms are clear because they had conflicting terms in the email they sent us earlier this week. So, we're asking you not to take any action tonight. We will bring this back to you uh with the terms clarified and in writing at our next meeting. 100%. Uh so what the board just received um I received a correspondence from our Cumberland County chair um just a few hours ago addressing this issue and the discrepancies and what was sent to us via email and what has been discussed over um the past several months over year. Um and so I'd like to read this and make sure that the community knows and we have it on record. I says, "Dear Mayor Anthony, I'm ready to follow up on a recent meeting between the county and the town leadership regarding fire protection and emergency services in the Manchester Fire District. I want to express my appreciation for the continued engagement of you and your team on this important matter and to make certain you and the Spring Lake Board of Commissioners are aware of where things stand from the county perspective. Following the meeting, the Cumberland County Board of Commissioner has been reviewing the proposal that was presented. The board takes seriously responsibilities to ensure that any agreement reached is fair, sustainable, and in the best interest of the Manchester District residents in the town of Spring Lake as a partner in service delivery. With that commitment in mind, the board intends to discuss this matter further at its agenda meeting Thursday. I wanted to reach out directly to ensure you and your board that we are aware uh that this discussion is taking place and that the county remains committed to working towards an agreement that reflects the shared interest of both governing bodies. I will be in touch following Thursday to provide an update um and to continue our dialogue. I value the relationship between Cumberland County

and the town of Spring Lake and look forward to reaching a resolution that serves the residents of Manchester district as well. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly in the meantime. And again, this is coming from the Cumberland County Chair to make sure that we know that the information that was presented to us is not the information that has been discussed and they are taking it back to the drawing board on Thursday. Um, and they'll be reaching back out to us as well. So, um, does anyone have any financial credit questions for Mr. Overton? If not, I would ask, um, Chief Williams, if you could just come and give us a quick synopsis of what's been happening and, um, provide a bit of perspective.

Sure. Thank you, Mr.

Thank you. I guess for let's go back a little bit if you got time. Yes, we do.

So, I don't want to be here too late, but um probably 20 years ago, a little over 20 years ago, the Manchester Fire District was there to close. They uh got a deal with the town at the time to run the Manchester Fire District for the fire tax, which was the 7974, whatever that number was. very very low. Um and it stayed that way until I became fire chief went down asked for money. That's where the other stuff come in. We built a fire station out there. Last year um me and Mr. Rory been working on this. It come up. Our number was $611,000 to keep running from out there. The nine firemen was out there. We had lieutenants or captain was out there with awesome fire. We run the rescue truck out there. We were an engine from out there. Um they somehow didn't like our deal and went with west area. West area which is about 15 or 20 minutes away from there. I think that's where the problem starts to become. Um and we kind of told them that wasn't they gave them $500,000. They gave them $500,000 to do that. So they save they had to shop a little bit. They had to save some money. Um but I think Now they've come back up and they realize that's not the best deal for this uh for that area. They know we're right next to it. We know we can do it. And so that's kind of where we're at now. They came back to us and say, "Hey, you know, the mayor's been working on it in this." They came back to us and said, "Hey, we need you to take this back over." They came up with that money at 649. So this is kind of where we're at. Well, they gave us that paper the other day. Me and the town manager was in this meeting and had to have a conversation

with found out that it was uh number three bothered us. I think it's like it bothered all of us. I was like, "No, no, no. We can't do that. We're not going to be able because all the everything we put into it this year would go away. If we put people out fire station, if we put run the fire station again, the people everything would just go away. Uh we already did that last year. had to go to six iron because of the deal that they cut free from so it was a little tough but I think we're on the right path now to do it and I think we'll get better coverage out there I think they'll appreciate us being back they tell us that all the time to see us hey when y'all coming back uh we like when you go there but it's just a little haul for for Western area they didn't do a bad job at it they just go as close as we are is that about what you need at any given time was there any conversation with the county about how much the actual expenses would be to run that content.

There there was Mr. Rory had and myself put together. It was eight. It was right at 800,000. I think he showed the number and we made a deal with them. And how we got to the 611 number was we said since they come back since Manchester will come back into here to help cause 20% of it the time we'll pay for. You pay for the 80%. That's where that 611 came from. So they knew the number. Uh they just found uh another fire station to do it for 500,000. Um and and that's the number they went with. Thank you, Mr. Porter. Yes, Chief can't leave. Thought I was going to leave.

No, not yet. Just uh so the community understands and uh the full board um in case they weren't uh here for it last time, but just to be clear as to why. So obviously we know why the town would be interested because allows you to have the fire department back up to the size it was and it's good for the town. But the reason Kland County uh wants it. I know you've been doing this for a long time. When Cumberland County switched or didn't renew the contract, quite frankly, they didn't want to pay is what I correct. Correct. Uh and went with West Area. No knock on West Area. They're a good fire station, but what did that do to the response time for the residents in that fire district?

That is that's what they caught mostly was the response times. Uh we put that fire station out there. That was one of my dreams when I when I got here because of the response times out there. Um And it was, you know, it takes us 6 minutes or so to get out there when we're running from here. That's still still not bad. Um, but if you have a nine, what we call a nine echo, which is a not breathing, you know, a heart attack, put a heart attack on, it's easier to clean up that way. We have a heart attack, 6 minutes is still a little bit of time. That was what my dream was when I put fire station out there to cut that number down. And we had a lot of them do that. We we could get anywhere two minutes or so. We were we were on scene. It took them 15 minutes

and you get a house fire or something accident which is you know dangerous. Um the time it took for them to get here uh really really uh affect a lot of things. We got mutual agreements which we talked about but we would still be personal on scene or brag or somebody and then they would come in and we'd all work together to uh clean this up. But uh yeah it was it was really bad. Another thing that happened was uh ISO is a is a big deal. Um ISO helps your insurance ratings. You don't know that. Right now the town is is a two. Uh the lower the number is, the better off you are. Uh we're a two. Um and when we took over Manchester, they were a nine. Uh we dropped them to a two. So their whole area got a two out there, which was great. They missed ours. when we left out of it, they were going to go to a 10, which is really uninsurable.

So, but basically that's just to be clear and obviously the board and the town will work together if they can, but as these contract negotiations go forward, that's the county's motivation on behalf of their constituents out there. Correct. Is response time and insurance rates. 100%.

Yeah, insurance was a big deal. Suddenly, you can't like Riverside, things like that, you wouldn't be able to get insurance. Just to reiterate what uh Mr. Porter is saying now, this contract we are negotiating and the reason why we're pushing back so hard is because although those people out in in Manchester area carry a Spring Lake address, they are not taxpaying residents. And so when we pay our taxes, those taxes fund our fire service for the residents in town. And before for 20 plus years, we were operating on an agreement to maintain fire service for non- taxpaying residents, the Cumberland County, Manchester area. Um, and so we had to make a very hard decision um to make sure that we were being good stewards of Spring Lake's tax dollars and making sure that our taxpaying residents aren't paying for fire protection service for people who don't pay taxes. If we could, in a perfect world, if we could, you know, provide fire protection and making sure we keep their insurance rating down and make sure we get there for that heart attack in a few minutes, we could, but we can't do that at expense of our residents taking up that cost. So, just know that this isn't about us not wanting to take care of those residents. It's just that do you want to pay to pay to make sure that when the when 911 is called someone goes to Manchester. So that is the big decision for us is do we subsidize that which I hope that we all understand that we can't because we have to operate as a municipal corporation. Um, and we want to make sure that the county is taking full responsibility for

the cost associated with providing fire EMS protection to that area. So, I hope that just provides a bit more clarity. Commissioner Jackson. Um I was going to say that um what I'm hearing is they were going to give us $6,449. Then they switched up going to give us $187,000 to run that trust for a year, right? It it was it was $649,000 for one year

and then they were going to drop down next year which is would have been 129. So, um um I don't like to use money um for a reason not to try to do something. But at this point right here, what I see is if you can give the 649 one year because you think we need it and then you going to come back and drop it down to there, how are we supposed to be efficiently run the fire station anyway? So is it it's not even really about the residents because if we don't have the money to run it, we can't get there like we need to get there anyway because if you're over here, how you going to get there in time if you don't have enough time to do it? So it it seems like there that the county is putting a dollar amount on somebody's head when it should not be that way because if we can officially we can't officially run it with the money, we can't officially run it without it either. It's it's not going to be officially run period. And that that's one of the things that Mr. Rory pulled together and we worked on the last year. So yeah, it was it was important, but you're dead on. You know, they're the ones that do the money stuff. So

I appreciate y'all catching that. Um, town manager and Jason, I appreciate y'all catching that because that could have been some really bad stuff for us the following year. How we figured we waited so smooth one year and the next year we're like, "Hey, what happened?" we're in a bad shape for that. And I do believe that's why um the county chair made sure that he sent this letter out to say, "Hey, that was a mixup. We are not trying to make you guys pay for this uh with with that small amount of money after we've already discussed full and total payment um to sustain the fire district out here. Can we also I'm sorry.

Can we reemphasize the deadline and the emphasis of when they need to get this done? I know we talked about it. It would have to be the last 31st of this month. They they need to know an answer. So again, it's on their hands, not we've done everything we need to do. Absolutely. It's it's on them to come back with us. You guys can look at it again and see if see what what's best for the town. That's what matters to me is what's best for the town. If you guys agree with it, you get to figure out if you want us out there, we want it out here. It's all going to be in your hands. Well, what's best for the town is that we take care of the town,

not only for our um financial, but for our citizens as well. So, we don't pay rush with this person and that person, we don't want to do that. So, if it cost that much to run, they pay it and then get it over and just keep it moving. But the alternative of that is that if they don't pay, we still can't take on that responsibility because that's $600 plus,000 every year that we just don't have and they're not there and it would be us paying for practically us paying for people who aren't paying into our system. We're paying their bill for them and that's not fair to our residents when we're talking about we need to lower

I don't think about I just think about we don't have the money. We don't have the money. Yes.

And that's pretty much the same thing. So, and and the decision that was made when we pulled out of the contract was pretty much that if you can't pay for us to service your residents, then your residents don't get service. Our residents aren't paying for your residents to get service. So, um, and I believe that's what we're asked for tonight is for us to just, um, pause the decision on, um, Manchester and allow staff to renegotiate, um, to ensure, well, even that Spring Lake isn't picking up the bill for non-S Spring Lake residents, and then come back to us as soon as that's finished and we can make the decision to move forward with the contract if you like it or not. I'm sorry, Commissioner Cooper and uh Mr. English, you both had lights on. You turned your light off. Go ahead. So, I wanted to clarify um for everybody else when we talk about insurance that's homeowners insurance and a 10 means you're not sure insurable. But I also want to thank the fire department and Jason because we had a serious fire out in the United States down Bass Road and I believe it was during um the heavy traffic people leaving Fort Bragg and they although they should were not supposed to they went and responded uh and um they had the fire out by the time west area who was getting paid to to work that area arrived. What was your response? What was that response time for this?

Uh it was 15 20 minutes. They they got to fight the same traffic to go. Yeah. So that's why it's considered not insured. Not insurable because that's not that's not fire. And so this is it's for Manchester and Bra States. any pocket of Spring Lake 28390 that aren't paying town spring lake taxes, those are Cumberland County residents and those are the residents that were referred to Mr. English.

Yeah. Again, I just want to reemphasize and just thank you for coming up with with this information um at the last minute here. So, thank you and also thank you as well, Mr. Putting this presentation together at the $9. Thank you. We've got people who are committed to making sure that we are doing the right thing. Thank you, Mr. Over. Thank you, Mr. Williams. If there are there any other questions or comments from the board? Okay, we will move on to our next agenda item. Mr. Overton, you you are up next, so you stay uh budget amendment BA15 FY2026. Mr. 16. Did I say

16? B816. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. 16. Um this uh as you all know about a decade or so ago, the wastewater treatment plant flooded. Hurricane Florence flooded and did a lot of damage to the wastewater treatment plant. Uh the Federal Emergency Management Agency will reimburse us for that for those repairs. We have a capital project fund uh currently going where we're doing a lot of repairs and improvements to wastewater plants and FEMA is reimbursing us for that. In that fund we have 136,000 in the contingency fund for any other improvements that were not in the original uh plan. The engineers of Meyers Engineering has said that we need to rebuild four sludge pumps out at the wastewater treatment plant. The cost of that is 25,000 for each pump. Uh plus 5 thou well they said plus the cost of freight. They don't know exactly what that is so I just put in 5,000. Um so we're taking 105,000 out of contingency to rebuild those four pumps. 25,000 each. That's 100,000 plus the freight. If uh it's already in the budget, we're just moving it from contingency to repairs. Uh you should have a copy of the uh quote from Cones uh the company that's going to do the repairs and these are recommended by our engineers uh and will be uh reimbursed by FEMA. So again, just reiterating this money was already set aside for a situation like this and There's more than enough funds in there for this um budget amendment and we will be reimbursed that 105,000 should we use any type of thing uh from

Mayor Mad to make a motion that we approve budget amendment VA 16 FY 2026 commission. Is there any discussion? All in favor? motion carries. All right, we'll now move on to uh BA17 FY226.

Uh we currently have a a part-time employee, Casey Noble. Uh her salary is currently being paid out of the administrative department. Previously was paid out of my department. Um uh we have changed her duties. She is now helping Stephanie with planning and zoning and inspections. So, this budget amendment is to move her salaries and benefits for the rest of this year to the inspections department. Uh, we're taking we have a vacant position in planning and zoning from the former uh person who is no longer here. So, we're just moving money from one department to another uh which we cannot do without your blessing. So, we're just asking you no increase in cost. It's just simply moving it from one part of planning its own to inspections.

Any questions or discussion on that? All right. I now entertain a motion to approve or deny PA uh 17 and 1426. Commissioner Cooper second. Commissioner Burgess.

Any discussion? All in favor? Motion carries. All right. We will now move on. Thank you, Mr. approaching to our reports. And I don't have a whole lot other than I just spent the last week in one of the most rigorous trainings um of my professional development career which began probably about 2010 and I can say I've done multiple courses but none of them as directly impactful as the advanced leadership course provided by the school of government. Um, this is a course that I will be advocating for every elected official, not just the ones in Spring Lake. Every North Carolina elected official could benefit from the training. Um, in this advanced leadership course, we were able to be in class with both electives from the local and county level, uh, the school board and with staff. And so, it was an environment that we're not usually in where we could bounce issues. um and solve problems as well as um really take some heavy self-examining of ourselves and our leadership styles. So um thank you Commissioner Cooper. She was actually she actually went through it um in 20 oh the best class 2020 that's highly debatable totally but again um it's multiple applicants from across the state and very few are selected but we understand why um and so I will be advocating for this course hopefully we can eventually send some of our board and we can advocate for uh boards across the state to be a part This um lunch with the mayor was phenomenal. We'll have it again at the end of the month and I haven't checked with Carlin to get the dates for March, but it will happen in

March close to her birthday. Um so yeah, Carlin, we'll have that for you um shortly. Uh as well as our focus group four will meet on the 11th at 6 p.m. uh to discuss economic our economic development task force. So if you are interested in the economic development for our town uh and having a say so and how policy is is uh written for our community come out and be part of that. It is a open meeting for the public. Um the state of the county address and this will be given by our county chair happens Monday the 16th at 6 p.m. on the courthouse. If you cannot attend in person, it will be broadcast online, but this is your chance to stay a breast of what's happening um across our county and that directly impacts our community. Um, and I I'm sure it'll come again from Commissioner Jackson, but I want to make sure I re reiterate and heavily emphasize the board of education meeting that happens tomorrow at 6 p.m. Um, if you want a copy of the letter that we will be sending to them, I will make sure that copy is provided to you. that way if you need additional speaking points uh because the the board of education needs to understand the impact and ramifications of the decisions they make regarding spring lake. Um and that is all I have with them.

Thank you madam.

You're so welcome like to thank you all for coming out and I am so happy I spoke at the last meeting about our school closing down this. Thank you very much. I think our community because this is a great town uh and our children and our town does matter in economic development. It does matter. And so I'm so glad that we had the individual meetings, Miss Jackson or Miss Chadwick, that we did get on this and we kind of rush. I just do believe this just didn't come out come up. It's been out there for a while that these schools was closing. But I do believe if we come go in numbers, we can try to make a difference. And thank you for writing that letter. It's a little late. I think you say that uh Miss Cooper when Miss Staff was talking to you, but we can still make a difference and speak on the behalf. This is women's um national month. This came Women History Month. This came to my spirit and I'm going to say this because a lot of times we don't do this. I like to see a proclamation for Miss Jackie Jackson. Miss Jackie Jackson has been working in this community for over 20 years or more with the teams do hair. She's been giving out supplies. She gives out clothing. She helps individuals and you can write your own story. But it came to my spirit that you've been working so hard. And a lot of times we won't recognize a you know individuals because it's all about I. But I know from when I moved here at 18 years old, you probably don't remember this. You used to live behind me. But you've taken care of children. You've taken care of pregnant teenagers. You've given them clothing. You've given them food. And I would like to see a proclamation in your name, Miss Jackson. You're welcome. Thank you. That's awesome. I'll give you back.

Well, it's Women's History Month and That's a great idea to give to others. So, we'll pass it on to you to M Commissioner Jackson.

Thank you, Mayor Pro. I appreciate that. Um, just to talk about the schools. If you can't come out to speak and you're shy, then just come out. We're going to be at South. They already moved it to South instead of closer to us. They're hoping that we don't show up. But, we're going to be smarter than they are. you. I always tell my kids, be smarter than the average bear. We got to be smarter than they are. We come in numbers and strong. That right there speaks volume right there. Just coming in numbers. Spring Lake has so much history about negativity. The fact that the people came out for the meetings was phenomenal. The care, the the interest in their voice, the sincerity. This is what we need to see. They're not respecting us up there. But now it's time for us to put our foot down and say, "Hey, we are here. Our kids are important. They are our future and we're going to stand behind them 100%." So, like I said, if you can't come, you need a ride, call me. We can see what we can do about giving a ride. I want to say a very, very special shout out to Robin Chadwick. I mean, she jumped on it. She called me and it was just like boom. She has been working hard. I think she got over a hundred names by herself on the petitions. We have petitions um going on if you just want to sign one. But I definitely want to give her her flowers um about that. She's been on it. So please come out tomorrow night. The meeting starts at 6. If you want to sign up to speak, sign up at 12 to do between 12:00 and 5. There are other schools out there that are fighting the same fight that we fight. So I advise you to sign up early as close to 12 or right after 12 as possible or we're going to be there all night. So just make sure you come out and support and if you can't come or if you can't speak pray. Prayer goes a long way.

Miss, can you speak to the process for signing up for public? You can go online. What what I'm familiar with is you go online between 12:00 and 5 to the board of education and they'll just sign up. They used to do 30 minutes. They're doing an hour and everybody gets three minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Burgess. I'd like to thank everybody that's came out tonight. U I work on the appearance committee. We're working on some more girls town boys over on 87 should be getting one in park. They're going to add some more to theirs at their Easter egg hunt on Main Street. It's going to be big. If you don't have kids, bring somebody Thank you, Commissioner.

Oh, thank you. Uh, I don't have much. I do. Um, I'm so glad that Anthony was able to complete ALC like her. I felt it was lifech changing. It made me a better leader. um made me more self-aware of my strengths and my weaknesses in leadership. So, it was a great it was a great class. Um as far as the schools, um I've been I've been me and several others have been talking to uh the school board, talking to Dr. Hails. Uh we met with Dr. Gel about the lack of uh attention for our students. I even posted pictures online where they still had the monkey belt bars at Spring Lake Middle that we used to play on that are wholly unsafe. Uh so um it it they had old bleachers that were messed up and unsafe as well. Um and I just don't understand how you expect children to excel in a place that looks so sad and unckempt. That's the way I feel about it. Uh, you know, I went to Manchester. I went to Spring Lake Middle School. Uh, I went to Manchester when it was oldfield. And, um, the fact that they have not done any upgrades or, you know, have had all this deferred maintenance is just a shame. And we just really, I hope we show up in numbers. If you go, I'll have to work, but if you go, please bring somebody with you because we show up in numbers. Uh we've been walked over uh by the county uh for many years.

Thank you, Commissioner Cooper.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. As you mentioned earlier, I have been drinking out of fire, but it's been a good fire hose. Uh I'm every day um becoming more and more in love with this community. As I mentioned in my first uh meeting, this is a jewel. There's so much opportunity for this community to go to the next level, and I'm excited to be in the driver's seat for that. I will say that I'm continuing my weekly meetings with our auditor, Sher Becker, making sure that that audit will be complete by the end of this month. That was their commitment to us and we're going to hold them to it. I had the exciting opportunity to meet with our public works team and I will say that they their passion is contagious. We have one of the hardest working public works departments I would say that in the state. Yes,

they're underpaid and they work their tail off

and you all know who they are. So, I just reemphasize that if you see them in the public, do me a favor. Do them a favor. Do all of us a favor and just say thank you for their commitment. They're working. I've heard 12 1:00 in the morning while we're sleep fixing our leaks. So, it's just amazing to to be able to shake their hands and introduce myself and just hang out with them last week. It really it really made a difference for me to get that experience. We were fortunate that we were able to add two additional team members to our water ops. So, that gives them help. That was approved and we're moving forward with that additional help. So, I'm excited about that. I know Doc is Doc is just extremely excited.

He finally got him some help. You all

um David Honeyut left, but I want to thank him. He introduced me to Linda Co Pepper. She's a viable utility project manager for the division of waste water infrastructure for the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. on. She is going to be my best friend. And you talk about funding grants that's coming down from the state of North Carolina, the work that she's doing on the viable utilities program. Right now we are working on our mer regionalization feasibility study that has to be done whether we like it or not it's due and we got an extension. So we will be working on that but we will we will be identifying partnerships partnership opportunities for viability and economies of scale across the region. And this is specific to us. We can look at every opportunity that comes our way. You all make the final decision on what we do going forward to keep our infrastructure sustainable. Okay? And that's every opportunity I will bring to you. You have my commitment once uh once he provides us that information. We have fulfilling our budget planning meetings today. Mr. Overton and I, we met with police, fire, finance, governing body, and we reviewed the administration. This will go on continually. We talked about our Manchester Fire District. Again, we're going back to the drawing board with that. We're also posting a position for our uh

front desk here. There was no one there. It's it's it's vacant. And so no longer will we have a vacant uh vacancy right there. It's when you walk in the town hall, someone will greet you and someone will work with us as a communication administrative assistant and will perform advanced administration and professional communications to work directing and executing the town's comprehensive communication strategy. So in other words, this is someone who will provide public information to our community. So you will have access and they will have access to town programs, services, and initiatives that we put out to our community. And that pretty much wraps up my my report. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. English. Mr.

Yes, just very briefly. Um, and this is from Ford and also Mr. Overton. So, I was able to get a hold of Stickerhoff at the Dutch law firm regarding the SLPA uh issue moving forward with that. I don't want to go too into too much detail because a lot of it will be climate privilege. Long story short, we had a very productive conversation. Um it it is fairly complicated. So, I know it's been slow. Uh but she has been apparently working pretty hard on it. And Madame Mayor pretty soon will be a very document for you to have verified but it's a lot and in speaking with her she did just reemphasize it's because it is so separate parcels and so that a little faster but you know uh very productive so that is

that's excellent news awesome um well with that I'll enterain a motion to go into close session which going to NCG 14331816 personel Commissioner Cooper so moved. Second. Commissioner Ger second. Um, any discussion? All in favor? Motion carries. We are now entering into close session uh with a brief 5m minute recess. Um, thank you all for coming out. We appreciate you so very much. Hope to see you in two weeks.

Commissioner Jackson, I'll make a motion that we come out of close session. Commissioner Cooper, second. Any discussion? All in favor? Motion carries and this meeting is now journ. Coming.