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 we keep all sidebar conversations to the absolute minimum out of respect for the business of the town and please silence all cell phones. I would like to call Reverend Smith to call up to do our invocation and Pledge of Allegiance.

Please stand you, Lord, for greatness. as well as community, Father God. Father, continue to give them wisdom, give them guidance, Father God, and let them hone themselves, Father God, as we hone ourselves, Father God, that we may serve our community with love, with understanding, Father God. Continue, Father God, to bless them, Father God, as the leaders of this community, Father God, and give them the insight, Father God, that they may govern the people according, Father God, through the policies, through the guidelines, and the regulations. So we give you all the honor, we give you all the glory, in Jesus' name, amen.

Thank you so much.

We will now move on to our additions and deletions. Seeing no additions or deletions, I'll now entertain a motion to approve the agenda. Commissioner Thompson? So moved. Mayor Pro Tem? I'll second that motion. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. We'll now approve the consent items, which are the draft minutes of the May 11, 2026 meeting and the draft minutes of the May 26th special meeting.

I move to approve the minutes for May 11th, 2026 regular meeting as well as the draft minutes 2026 special meeting.

Commissioner Cooper?

I second.

Motion to move the property seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. We'll now move on to our public comments. Just remember each speaker is limited to three minutes. And the topics are directly related to the town of Spring Lake only. There is a digital warning to let you know when you get close to your time to let you know. And we try to keep to that strict three-minute guideline unless absolutely necessary to extend. And we will begin with Sean Rigner, topic Lillian Black.

The reason I'm here to talk about living black is on the 28th of May, the school board had a meeting, and during the accountability committee time, they talked about their plan to sell the new black to the county for a dollar. The main reason I bring that up as far as it relates to Spring Lake is two of the people, Warner and West continuously spouted how setting it to the county would be an opportunity for Spring Lake. Setting it to the county would give us that we could get it from the county to do economic development. Setting it to the county will help out Spring Lake with everything we have going on. I might not have seen and attended every hearing or every meeting here, But I know at one time they had been discussed about something that was coming with Libyan back as it relates to that property. However, what I'm getting at is that the same people that voted to shut down Manchester, those two, are the same two using our name as a town to try to pass them getting rid of a building that they essentially shut down and have almost been neglected um four years ago and this is four years ago they had tried to sell it for 750 000. um apparently behind closed doors and you can hear all the stuff it sounds like everything was done and they said nothing formal but they got it under 350 000 um and then apparently that's where everything fell through then they were four years um what i'm what i'm in the Spring Lake that if there is news of something happening, in fact, between us and the county, I feel like I should kind of do that for you guys first. It shouldn't be a talking point that justifies the action that they have. And all of the time, those two were literally talking about, you know, it'll be great, the economic order better for Spring Lake. Oh, it'll be this, it'll be that. They can get it from the county and all this stuff. If they really wanted to know about Spring Lake, they would have done it yesterday. and that's what I'm here basically just informing everybody that they're still using our name and they're using our name for what I see exactly to try to get some of their actions thank you thank you sir next one is Mr. Jackson with priorities

Good evening Mayor, board, members, town manager, staff, and residents. My name is a Spring Lake resident, Mary Jackson.

I come before you tonight concerned about priorities, accountability,

and the message being sent to the citizens of our town. Over the past month, our community has heard repeated discussions about budget shortfalls, declining revenue, and difficult decisions that have resulted in resulted from financial challenges. We have seen positions eliminated or reduction in departments that directly affect the quality of life, safety of our residents, including the fire department, police department, and other child services. These are not small issues.

These are decisions that affect emergency response, public safety, employee morale, and confident citizens place in local government. At the same time, many residents observed a significant amount of attention and energy being spent on matters involving cell phones for the board members.

While policy transparency and proper procedures are important, I believe citizens are asking a simple question. Are we focusing enough attention on solving real financial and operational problems that face the town? The members of Spring Lake, the citizens of Spring Lake expect leadership to, expect that leadership is focusing on solution, not expect and collaboration to increase revenue, attract businesses, strengthen economic development, improve budget practices, and identify long-term strategies to prevent layoffs and service reductions.

They expect thoughtful decisions about how to stabilize the town's finances so departments are not forced to carry the burden of financial shortfalls.

Every hour span

plan to grow our tax base, recruit investments, support local businesses, and improve financial stability.

The citizens are looking for progress, not for vision. We want to see leadership work together to protect services, support employees, and move Spring League forward. I respectfully ask this board to redirect energy toward financial future of this town

focus on solution, focus on restoring confidence, focus on restoring employee and residents that depend on our leadership and responsibility in decision making.

Thank you so much. Next is Angelica Rose with some suggestions.

i actually have a lot to do but i just wanted to say that it's um it's a must that you have a capital improvement plan because it's a multi-year uh grant that identifies prioritizes schedules public infrastructure and asset investments um and when was the last time um you had internal audits i mean jobs with your own lives on your own departments um And then with the water pipes, they're supposedly supposed to be good for like 30 years. So just keep this in mind about that water . And also, when they put those water pipes in, when they put it right, are they being maintained correctly? Because if they are, then whether or not, and then it may be also time to add more water lines to your existing water lines, especially if you're gonna consider more growth in the area in the future. And another suggestion with what we can do with the infrastructure money is you can add half a cent on to anything, so like in Spring Lake, and that money will be used, that money can be used to do infrastructure because you can't be charged to do anything else. Also, having a good finance director is really a big deal. And why are y'all not looking for grants? That's important. I should be looking for grants. And lastly, there's money investment. This is just an idea. I don't know how your investment policy is, but you can use property tax to invest into the government bond, but like I said, it depends on your investment policy. And they said you can use your property tax to invest it right off the way, because I guess you don't need it right away, so you can use that. But if you do go this route, you'll need to use an investment company, and they'll advise you on where to invest your money based on the policy. And then the actual cash investments are sitting in regions. All right, thank you.

Thank you so much. Next we have Ms. Beatty Sanford. Ms. Beatty, everything? Our topic of concern is everything.

My name is . Can you hear me? No ma'am, I'm talking to you. Okay, can y'all hear me back there? Okay, but I'm coming up here to find out about these roads, and about these poles that's laying on the wires and stuff like that. I've been talking about that for a long time, and it's time to get that repaired, okay? The other thing is the signs for the children. Now, the parents in our community is talking about it. And they're talking to me about it. Because people are driving too fast. And a lot of the parents are pushing their children and their brothers and things like that. You don't want those kids to be hit and killed. And I've said things to people when they were driving too fast. And some of them put up that one finger. And I just hear God about it because I know he can handle it, okay? But we need to do something about this before something really happens in the community. Another thing is the water. Talking about the water being going up a little bit more. Why? We don't have anything in the community. We don't have anything in the town. You don't have a state rain. You don't have nothing for the children to do in. Not a fight. They don't even have real nice restaurants here. Everything is fast foods. And we need to do better. We need to do better. Now, you've been in office for a while. It's time to do better and get moving. And I'm serious about that. Okay? You talk to someone, rest of them, they'll tell you what I do. The other thing is, you aren't here. We got so many people in the community. Y'all need to ride around in the community and see what's going on in the community. You got people that got yards and grasses way up here. And the people that own those houses are the realtors. They're not doing anything about it. And I think that we need to... get something done about it. If it means finding them, then do it. And we can get the yards in the neighborhood looking good. Because right now it doesn't look good. You got houses that are falling in, in the villages. Not just in Deerfield, but in other areas. And that's not right. We need to move up. And that's what we're going to do. Move up. Because I'm going to keep on talking to you until you do just that. Y'all can look at me crazy if you want to. But I mean what I say. And you know I do. Thank you, Ms. Amber. Uh-huh.

Next, is that Joe Marshall? No. Murr. I can't read. I'm sorry. I can't really read the last name. First name Joe?

Yes. How are you? Welcome. Welcome. My concern is the water here. It's pretty, like, awesome.

I don't know how our people work around here because I am not from this town. So each month I look and I understand you have your meters read every month in this town. Is that every single person, every single home? Some of these not doing the job. I am home most of the time when your guys come to read me your undone delay. You know how many meters I read? Take a guess. Three. Three up on this end. to over here the next month yeah i'll watch them and they get back in the truck and they leave how can we get an accurate reading that they are bills when one month a bill may be forty dollars and the next month our bill is seventy now we're not doing anything different i need an answer and social people here thank you

all right that will conclude our public comments we'll move on to our first presentation of the evening and this is our certificates of appreciation commissioner adrian thompson um yes so last month on the 22nd of may we held our memorial day celebration here um so i do have two certificates for cw by retired wendy and wyan

Wayman and also the NOSHA shark he was the national anthem singer and she was the guest speaker for either one of them she lives in Raleigh so she's not able to be here and the guest speaker has apparently he moved out of town so he's not here so we're going to make sure that both of them well he moved out of state so I'm ensuring that both of them get these certificates thank you

All right, agenda item 7B, hurricane preparedness. Miss? Mr.? Miss? Is it Shania Galt? I know what it looks like. Yeah?

It's okay. So good evening. I'm here today just to talk about hurricane preparedness. Of course, we're right into hurricane season now. So really, I just wanted to say, you know, are you ready? So for the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, hurricane season always stream first through November 30th. Right now we are projected to be right out of a low normal season. They're saying about a 55% probability of that. They're saying maybe a 35% of a near normal. And then there's a 10% probability of a above normal season. For that 55% below normal, they're saying that we may have 8 to 14 named storms, 3 to 6 named hurricanes, and then 1 to 3 major hurricanes. So for comparison, a normal season would be 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes. but i don't want to focus so much on those numbers because you know they're saying well three six hurricanes or one to three hurricanes that doesn't really mean anything because you have to think truncal storm debbie or um Tropical Storm Tom Till that came through. Tropical Storm Helene, when it came through, it was only a tropical storm. When it hit Western Carolina, it wasn't even a hurricane at that point. It was already downgraded. So, you know, when it hits at a certain level of severity, it doesn't necessarily... differentiate the impact that it can make what really can matter is you know what were the conditions prior to that storm approaching us with where we are especially in the sand hills what gets us a lot of times is the rain prior to events for hurricane florence and hurricane matthew it rained so much prior to those events hitting us that by the time those storms got to us you know we were already so inundated with water it had nowhere to go um so you know we we were just in a tight spot with that um and i know a lot of people that are in this room today remember that So the big thing is just knowing your local risk. You know, the local risk here, especially for spring flooding or inland flooding, there's heavy power outages, road closures, infrastructure impacts, the tornadoes that can spawn. The photo on the left is probably Swamp Debbie. You know, at that point in the storm, I think we were looking at water that's about 21 feet, and that's right there at the Little River. A little picture right there on the right, that was Hurricane Matthew. That was at 32 feet of water. So, you know, impacts like that, they definitely happen around here. We definitely want to try to mitigate those measures. We have since then been actively looking at ways of how can we help prevent and actively work on that. How can we help the community with our alert and at the evacuation systems and our infrastructures. So the big thing is just preparedness matters. You know, a lot of people always say that Preparedness is one of the biggest things. You don't want to wait until a hurricane gets here. You don't want to sit there and wait until it sinks up on you either. A lot of people will sit there and wait until the last minute until the stores are already empty or they want to wait until it's right there approaching you and then all the owls are, you know, there. You're rushing for the help and the bread. One of my favorite stories with that is You know, when everybody's racing down the aisles and they're like, okay, well, there's nothing left but, you know, milk, bread, and then peanut butter. Well, what if you're allergic to peanut butter? And that's all we got. Then you're up for it. So, you know, get there early. You know, get what you can get and be prepared. So there's three steps that we always want to make sure that you're looking at whenever you're being prepared. The first one is make a plan. Part of making a plan is looking at what's your communication plan with your family. You know, part of making that plan is how are you going to communicate with them, with your children especially. what if your phones go out you know do they know your full name do they know your address can they get up with you you know without that cell phone do they know your telephone number you know do they have all that information that's needed A lot of people now, they don't go back to those traditional methods. Have you already had an outline method with them? So that if something happens, they have a backup system where they can get in touch with an additional relative or they have an additional friend of a family. do they have someone like an emergency contact that is a neighbor next door or a family member that's out of town so that if you are impacted here in your town or in your neighborhood, there's someone that is in a neighboring area that they can go to for one, safety, but then two, that's your next checkup. Because, and a lot of times, especially for example, like Hurricane Malene, There was a lot of instances where people were saying, well, they were on their way to you, but did they make it there? We know that that's the route that they take, but did they ever make it? They had a point A, B, and C. We knew they made it to B, but did they make it to C? So there's a way, a method of backtracking to that. They knew that they had that route and that method of travel. So being able to know that during that transportation, that evacuation route, being able to communicate that to your friends and your family, even if they live out of state and out of town, matters. And then just knowing that evacuation and the shelter in place. Knowing the difference of when you need to leave and when you need to stay. We always say, you know, if you're able to evacuate, if you have a place to go, do it early. Don't wait until the last minute. You know, with Little River and certain roads around here, we know that once that water rises, you ain't going to get past it. We don't want you trying to go and then get stuck. It only takes six inches of water. before it can sweep someone off their feet. It can take 12 inches of water that could take a car. It does not take much. And a lot of people don't understand that. It takes more out of our responders and our rescue to come out and have to take people there in a minute. especially when we're activated, than probably anything else as far as, you know, near and out hurricane events or near and out tropical storm events. So we want to make sure that we're using our resources wisely. And then just the shelter in place. If you're safe at home, make sure that you have all of those needed supplies. We always say that you want to make sure that you have at least three days' worth of food and water. But you also want to make sure that you have all of your special considerations in place. Do you have elderly relatives or children or pets? A lot of people don't think about medications or formula, diapers, pet food, livestock. There's a lot of special needs that certain people or certain children or animals might have that you don't think of on a day-to-day basis. But if you sit down and actually do some planning about, you realize very quickly like, oh, if there was an emergency, I need that. So make sure that you have that broke down And then just going back to making sure you kind of build that kit. We're talking about having that 3A minimal. You know, some of the things that you want in that kit is you want to make sure you have your water, your non-perishable food, but also, you know, your first aid items, those necessary items, like if you wear glasses or medical devices, your mobility aids, extra batteries for those items. We always say flashlights, weather radios, But also important documents. A lot of people don't carry cash anymore, but if a credit card reader goes down, then what are you going to do? Cash is king sometimes still. But then, you know, going back to non-perishable boots, some people forget like hand openers. And then also, even though you may have a kit at home, I also recommend always having a kit in your car as well because if you do end up trying to evacuate, you know, or if you just end up trying to go to a store, you know, what if you get stuck somewhere? Make sure, you know, that you still have some type of kit in your car as well so that you're safe. But make sure you're building your kit and tailoring it to your family. And I always tell people as well, you know, if you do have kids, especially younger kids, throw some fun stuff in there as well. Throw a deck of cards in there. You know, throw their favorite little stuffy or like a board game. It doesn't always have to be like little dry things. or just like bare essentials make sure that you have some things in there too that are going to get you through those three days or you know the four days or a week and start small a lot of people say that building and kids Typically when we do surveys of have you planned or have you been able to build a kit, are you prepared for a disaster or an emergency, the number one reason why people say they aren't prepared is because it's expensive. But start small. Start with one item at a time. If you can buy a gallon of water this week and then pick up three cans of food next week, then do that. Put it to the side. If you can sit there and buy a first aid kit the following week, then do that. Just do it a little bit at a time. A weather radio, you can pick one up on Amazon for less than, I'd say, probably $20. They have some decent ones for about $15. And weather radios, if that happened down in Texas, it would have saved a lot of lives. Weather radios would have saved a lot of lives in Columbia as well. It kept a lot of people connected. When everything goes down, weather radios, those NOAA weather radios, they still stay connected. And they have been around a long time. So that kind of leads into the next point of just staying informed. It's always really important to sign up for the local alerts. One that we have is Cumberland Alerts. It's completely free. It is a opt-in method that you're able to sign up for where we are able to push out notifications for anything from power outages, water outages, You get weather alerts. But then it's also connected to we now have an access and functional needs registry. So if... you know anyone that has access to functional needs and they might need transportation assistance or mobility assistance, especially if you know that they're prone to needing to go to shelters or needing some additional support, they're able to put their information in and we're able to kind of poll that or survey out whenever there's needs. It is fairly new, we kind of launched that last year So we're still really trying to build that up and engage it. But it's going to be a really great program that we're going to be able to use for the community. But there's also other local learning systems that we have. Social media is great. And then, of course, local websites. The county has local websites. The municipalities have their local websites and social medias as well. But you also want to make sure that you're monitoring trusted weather sources. So we use National Weather Service. That is the only weather service that we use. A lot of people will look at like Dave's Weather Service. They will look at... There's so many out there. I can't remember the name. I don't even know. But the issue is that all of them can differ so much. with their data and their points. And it can fluctuate so much that it can skew numbers. And we see it really often, especially when people kind of engage us on our social media. Well, they're saying that, you know, this storm is going to hit us at this time. Why is your information saying this? Our information is saying this because we use this source and you're looking at this. So anytime that we're kind of getting that information or we're having citizens access these questions, that may be a reason why because they're pulling information from a different source. And then just know where to get that official information from before, during, and after storm. because there is a lot of misinformation out there. And people pushing misinformation has been a big issue in recent times. And then just kind of leading to that is you really want to follow trusted sources. One of the biggest things here lately is an issue with AI. I don't know how many of you know that that's an AI photo that floated around a lot near Hurricane Malene. And why? Why would someone do that? Other than just to, you know, push around and end up... It was a lot for trying to get clips and trying to raise money on their own page, but we saw it a lot. They were trying to push misinformation. They were actually pushing funding to other sources, to wrong sources. They were pushing resources to the wrong directions. It caused a lot of issues. There was a lot of information that was getting out there about more fatalities than what there were. There was a lot of information about resources being used inappropriately. And, you know, you see it a lot and it's going to be a continued issue. But the big thing is, is you just really want to make sure that you're redirecting people to go back to who you can trust. So make sure that you're pushing them back to your website or the county website. We always say, you know, it's never really a good thing to try to correct them because you don't want to get into an argument match with them. That's kind of not our place from a PIO standpoint. But it was just very unfortunate that we had to deal with that, especially in their most hard times. But EM has done a lot of preparedness activities as of late. We have expanded a lot of communication capabilities here in Spring Lake specifically. This past year, we did actually move our OSCOMs or our emergency communication system from 71st High School to W.T. Brown School. That was actually a big thing that we worked with which is our local ham radio club. We really kind of look because we only have we have about say about 20 or so shelters within the county we have about 10 or 15 primary shelters WT Brown being one of them but we only have five that are slotted that have emergency communications and we wanted to make sure that we had one of those locations here in Spring Lake so WT Brown was selected as that location And then a part of that as well is a part of improving that shelter capability was also making sure that we had generator or a full generator built onto that school. So I know it's been a kind of work in progress the past couple of years making sure that that school gets a generator and that's still been a work in progress with the ARPA funds. I know the last I've checked on that is that the generator was locally On the ground here, I just haven't seen or I don't know where it's at as far as being at the school yet, but we're making good progress on that. And then as far as emergency management as well, we've been trying to do a lot of public outreach. I know it's our goal that we definitely want to try to make it out to a couple more first Friday events. We were able to make it out to some, and we had a lot of fun doing that. And then we also recently just applied for the Next Generation Warning System Grant program that closed at the end of April. We actually put in for a little over half a billion dollars. So we'll see, hopefully, if we get any funds for that. But if we do, that will actually give us... We applied for... We applied for acute SID evacuation sirens. So we have done a lot of modeling kind of across the county, but there was a large lesson learned during the disaster that happened in Texas especially and we have noticed that you know there's a huge gap um and want to make sure that you take care of that the our alert and warning system as far as redundancy, because we have our crumbling alerts. So we have our alcohol system that will hit our mobile devices, of course. But of course, you know, if something like that were to fail, the cell phones fail. you know what is our backup method you know we've had our first responders go door-to-door in the past but that's not always going to be the fastest method so we want to make sure that we can kind of do something quicker so we strategically look at being able to play sirens throughout the county as a safer method. And so one of the models that we did for that is looking at the Little River. And so what we did was during Tropical Storm Debbie, we looked at one of our evacuation zones that we already had built into our Evergreen system. So we already have what you see in the light. We use this for any time we have to do an evacuation on the Little River. But we've used or we've gone in and worked with a couple of companies and just based off of this, you know, pinpointed, you know, how many sirens would it take to be able to fully evacuate you know by that area um so it's just kind of cool the studies that we we've been doing is kind of a work in progress um but it is just a continuous evaluation improvement on our part But as far as on a citizen standpoint, if there's anyone that does want to get involved, we do also have county cert. It is an opportunity for the community to be able to receive free training. It provides a class for basic first aid, light search and rescue, fire suppression, and more. We can offer those classes locally. If you go onto gradinc.gov, though, they also have classes all across the county. CERT is all across the state. It's not just something local. It was something that came into a lot of big help, especially during Hurricane Colleen. They were a huge help during that event. So it's just something that we're really trying to also grow here. Wake County and Apex, they have a really great program. There's a lot of counties out there that have a really great program. So we're just really trying to train in our county as well.

Y'all have any questions? First, thank you for that presentation. Hurricane preparedness is very serious, which is why I wanted to make sure that you came out to inform our community. I do have a quick question. You said for the CERT, you do that locally, meaning you would come to Spring Lake to provide that training.

and not have yet because i want to make sure our residents have access to it yes ma'am so we can actually provide that class um anywhere um me and my co-worker uh we are actually trained to teach that class so uh our only requirement typically is we try to have at least 10 to 15 people um at a minimum to teach it, but we can pull that from anywhere. We typically try to have it posted for at least a month or so to make sure that we get those numbers.

I would love to see something like that happening. Are there any questions or comments from the board?

Mayor Fulton? Thank you very much for that presentation.

I experienced a hurricane here and it was kind of devastating for a while for our citizens as well. So get prepared because I see here from June 1st to November the 30th. As well as you stated, the WT ground, the generator is on the ground, but you don't know if it's hooked up yet.

Is that what you're saying? Yes, ma'am. So it's definitely a work in progress as far as making sure that they have all of the... the switches and everything, the wiring set up, and then they had to go through the whole process with making sure that they had the contract process in place. So I know that they finally got the contract signed, and so they're actually in the process now of getting that done. They're under the, they had 365 days to make sure that they had that done and completed.

I just want to see if you need the phone number to contact you for the class yes I have okay thank you thank you so much we are now moving on to agenda item eight

All right, we are now on agenda item 8A, ZON 260023, resounding requests from CD Conservancy District and CD Planned Commercial District.

Excuse me.

commercial district for a more restrictive zoning for four parcels comprising approximately 4.02 acres located west of North Brad Boulevard and 340 feet south of West Manchester Road submitted by the Charleston Group and Tanner Postal Commercial Real Estate agents on behalf of James and Pinniff, Cynthia Goins, Martha Hagen, Harkins, owner, Mr. Fagan.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the board.

My name's Richard Fagan, Planner 2 for Cumberland County's Planning and Inspection Department and I'm here to present KCLN 2623 which is centrally located within the town of Spring Lake as denoted by the red star. The applicant and owner is James and Phenomena Hinton, Cynthia Carter, and Martha Harkins. The agent is the Charleston Group Container Postal Commercial Real Estate. The request is to go from CD Conservancy and CP Plain Commercial District to CP Plain Commercial District. The intent is to develop a subject property for a fast food restaurant with a drive-thru and gas station. The total acreage of the subject property is approximately 4.02 acres. Some of the surrounding uses include residential single-family, manufactured home, industrial, and commercial as well. You have Cardinal State Storage, which is industrial. It's located to the west. And then you have some commercial guns plus and the collective to the south and also to the east respectively. Some of the surrounding zoning districts included. I'll go in a clockwise fashion so you can follow along. We have R10, C3, CP, and RR. We also have R6A, R6ACZ, RR, CD, and R15 along with CD as well. This is an aerial of the subject property, provides some color and character. As you can see, three of the subject parcels contain vacant single-family dwellings, and the fourth parcel in question is currently undeveloped vacant property. The subject property contains now hydric or hydro-conclusion soils, and does have water and sewer lines in close proximity to the property itself. One more crack over. This is a contours map overlay on the subject property. There is a slight elevation, about 156 feet in elevation, directly to the north, which slopes down, moving down southwest to the corner of the red outline portion of the property, The subject property sits within the Spring Lake Area Land Use Plan and has the land use classification being commercial. Some of the associated zoning districts for commercial include C1, C3, CP, and HSP. Some of the development goals, notes, and objectives include... government to provide more in-depth information regarding the basis for RULAC's recommendation and emphasizing the advisory nature of the recommendation. Two, adopt and implement regulations for formal coordination and notification of land use and development proposals that may have an impact on military training and operations within defined areas of compatibility concern, including any area within five miles of the installation battery. encroaching area. The joint land use study was prepared by benchmark planning for the Fort Bragg Regional Land Use Advisory Commission and was completed in 2018. This plan covers a multi-county region surrounding Fort Bragg including the Spring Lake area. It includes information and constraints that must be considered in the development process. RULAC, or the Regional Land Use Advisory Commission, provided this graphic to show in greater detail the accident potential zone, one, PROPERTY. SAM HIGHLIGHTED PARCELS IN QUESTION, KIND OF PROVIDES SOME CLARITY FOR THE BOARD ITSELF. AS YOU CAN SEE, AS LABELED ARE THE SUBJECT PARCELS. AND THEN DIRECTLY TO THE RIGHT, IN ACT, YOU CAN SEE THE PORTIONS OF THE PARCELS THEMSELVES THAT ARE LOCATED WITHIN THE APZ This is the Pope Airfield APZ, generalized APZ boundary map. It extends out from Pope Airfield approximately 15,000 feet, and as you can see in the orange is the APZ1. Denoted by the red arrow is the subject property, which is approximately 7,000 to 7,500 feet away from the airfield. This is a south view with the subject property on your right-hand side. This is the east view looking away from the subject property. This is a north view with the property on your left-hand side. The Joint Planning Board recommended approval after a May 19 meeting. Staff recommends denial of this request. That does conclude my presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions that the board may have. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any questions from the board? So before we take questions, I do want to provide a bit of detail on why RULAC provided or wanted to go against this. And it was simply because, first off, RULAC is not opposed to economic development. They want to see the communities that we serve grow. But essentially, the direct objection was to the change in zoning. or remove the designation in the conservation district. It's in the rear that coincides with the Tank Creek floodplain. The primary concern would be any development or encroachment on the floodplain that would change the hydrology of the flow of water during flood conditions and exacerbate upstream flooding issues at Pope Field. So we do understand that The land is already zoned for these uses, which is why I believe the planning board went forward with it. But we wanted to make sure that the owners were aware of Tank Creek and the reasons why RULAC made the decision, the advisory decision that we did. Commissioner Jackson.

I just want to be clear where the property was. So you're talking about going down Bradbrook and You know where that right on the corner of Manchester where that empty gas station is? Yes. And those bunch of houses right next to it, that's And you're saying somebody said that they don't want them to build there?

RULAC made the advisory decision to recommend denial simply because of the potential, and it's a small potential that what's going there could possibly cause flooding on Hope Field because it's connected to Tate Creek. It's us being cautious. and making sure that we're trying to protect Fort Bragg. But again, this is an advisory council, and it's already zoned for what they're asking for. The owners are aware of it. Correct. So that's why Cumberland County staff recommended denial because they're looking at the same mask that Rulak's staff is looking at. However, the board decided to go differently because they understand it's already going that way. Are there any other questions?

You said the board already understands its zone already. But why is it that the plaintiff don't understand?

Well, so when we created our recommendation for the joint planning board, it involved a couple different things. One of them was the land use policies for the Spring Lake area land use plan, which involved specific land use policies related to board grads. And with RULAC's letter stating that the subject properties were located within that accident protection zone or accident potential zone one, staff wanted to make sure because of Spring Lake's strong relationship with RULAC that we incorporated that into our recommendation.

Commissioner Hoover? Thank you. So the Joint Planning Board approved it. Correct. Or recommended approved it. Recommended approved it. But staff recommends not approved it, although it's already zoned for commercial use.

correct yeah so there are portions of the property itself that are already zoned cdp and by right uh the you know the applicant could develop that property uh without including the cd portion in and of itself so that's that is recognized okay i mean it's just going back to what it was kind of silver it's pretty much yeah

Any other questions or comments from the board? Thank you, sir. I now declare this public hearing open. Is there anyone here to speak in favor? Mr. Charleston? It's great to see you back in these chambers. It's kind of strange looking at you from this direction and not craning my neck.

The last time I was here, you had boats from Raleigh.

Didn't we?

And an old room, so you got out of town a lot. Congratulations on the work that you've done. Thank you. For the record, my name is Jonathan Charleston, 201 H Street, Fayetteville, North Carolina. Couple of things I'd like to bring to mind. We always kind of run into this, you know, the conflict between government and private development. Sometimes government gets it, sometimes they don't. I think this is one of those places where it just isn't getting it. Now, the Cumberland County Board voted unanimously to approve this recommendation. Why is that? Because the only thing it issues conservation district, that little small sliver that is at the back of the property. What's interesting, though, is it's not the CD district that protects the airstrip that Grulak is concerned about. It's the six federal regulations They govern what you can put there. Federal, state, local, everybody has a say in . In particular, this area has been . The board's unanimous vote was supported by detailed, on-the-record deliberations, and it constitutes, in my opinion, the most authoritative local government body's assessment of what the situation is. The Cumming County Joint Planning Board conducted a full hearing, listened to everything. And one of the things I point out to you coming out of the gate is all this stuff they were talking about, the accident potential zone, I want you to think of that in terms of a 100-year flood zone. You know, it means we're going to have a bad flood every 100 years. The accident potential zone is the same thing. Statistically, statistically, Because this is important. And I didn't want to debate this with them. But what's really dangerous about this process that we had is that because the town of Spring Lake and North Coleman County have adopted a policy or ordinance around this accidental potential zone, and because there's nothing on your land use maps or your development maps that refer to it, what you have is private people that spend their own money that come in and they discuss the development of the property they hire engineers and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it without any notice and at the end of the process roulette comes in and says huh in this case this is true stuff man in this case in this case the planning staff was recommending approval before the letter came from RULAC at the last minute. Then it flipped to a recommended denial. Which, if you're a private developer, that's really problematic. and so maybe one of the things that should happen is and the roulette should get involved early on in senior communications so the staff will have the benefit of it because you know this staff works hard they work hard and they didn't get the information to the last minute so that's But look, the basis of the denial according to the denial of recommendation, the recommendation of staff, according to the minutes that you all have, is that 90% of it was based on RULAC's letter, which is important to point out that RULAC says is a binding, not binding on anybody. Simply abolish it. And what you have to keep in mind is that the federal government, which controls what happens at Big Army, controls what happens at Fort Bryan, The federal government has said that none of these opinions that come out, they call them DOD instructions, are binding on private developers, unless they've been adopted by a public body like the town board or the county after a public hearing. So they're just about it. And they're correct. This was a unanimous vote of the planning board. That carries a great bit of significance because the general statute 163, a couple of things. The Spring Lake Area Land Use Plan designates this area as commercial. So, the gas station that the developers are contemplating putting there is just replacing the gas station that's already there. And the gas station that's already there went across the street to build a bigger gas station. And so we're talking about putting a fast food concept on the site. And what's really important for us, and it's in your package on page 70, I'd ask you to look at this. This is a letter from LULAC to me, an email. And it says the following. The information on the compatibility of the proposed uses was primarily for the developer's awareness. And that's the point that you mentioned there. The concern we have with the rezoning is the proposal to remove the conservation district's applicability to the flood hazard. That's it. That was the only concern that they had. And what I will submit to you is there are at least six regulations and laws that would govern any development that goes anywhere. Most importantly, you guys know this better than anybody. You have to get committed any time you disturb, you know, waterways, flood zones, and all that stuff. The states and the local courts get to manage that. So I wanted to point that out to you. In addition, there was a question that came up from the planner. And I'll just lift this straight from the transcript of the hearing that we had. One of the board members said the following. I have a problem with the way staff recommendations are written. I just don't understand the statement when the entire corridor is commercial. Everything is commercial. How is it not compatible to or in harmony with the surrounding lands and cities? based on that i'll make a motion and i would argue instead of saying we are amending the plan i would argue that the plan used is consistent with the new city area based on the zone and the fact that the last recommendation was rescinded after further discussion now what i would say to you i called the folks that we like we had a good conversation with them they're great folks Maybe what the planning staff needs to do when they get those numbers is call them a follow-up as well. That would probably be the appropriate thing to do because, after all, when you make significant investments like this, I mean, people want to do their job. That's my opinion. The narrow scope of this request, as I mentioned earlier, the only thing that's being changed is the CD designation. This is perhaps the most important and most misunderstood aspect of the zoning project. The petition, ladies and gentlemen, does not seek to introduce commercial zoning to a non-commercial site. It does not seek to override residential zoning. It does not seek to eliminate open space or create a new commercial district. The parcels are already partly zoned commercial plane today. It's just that one slip, which is the conservation district. The strip applied to the Taint Creek flood hazard area. So, we changed this. to exceed all the requirements to create a uniformity across four acres. This distinction was clearly established on the record at the planning board hearing and confirmed by both the rooms of the planning board and the planning staff. So it's just that small, I don't have a little click, but it's a little small place on there that has an issue.

So the legal significance of this is really a ministerial reform adjustment.

So the only question I always ask before the board is this, should the conservation district overlay apply to tank free flood and how does it remain in place? When commercial development is already permitted on the majority of the same forests, every flood protection The CD designation might provide this independently and comprehensively required by six layers of federal and state law. And RULAC's own executive director has confirmed the writing of the CD removal, not accidental potential zone compatibility, which you heard her staff talk about tonight. They didn't even care about that. The only actual concern is that the existing law already addresses the CD district. And so, what I would ask for you to do tonight, because of the question regarding the CD district, Six-layer federal and state regulatory framework. I want to make sure you all understand that Tane Creek is protected by federal and state law. Layer one, we have the National Flood Insurance Program mandatory standards, 44 CFR section 60.3. Layer two, we have the Army Corps of Engineers section 404 permit, 33 USC section 13.4. You have Layer 3, State Water Quality Certification, which is 33 U.S. City, Section 1341. You also have Layer 4, which is the North Carolina State Flood Planning Management, General Statute 143, 215.54. Layer 5, the North Carolina Repair and Bunker Zones, which is at 115A, NCA-C02D. And then Layer 6, which is the North Carolina Sedentation and Pollution Control Act, which is now statute section 113A-57. No aspect of the federal and state layers challenged or questioned during the course of the presentation. No board member raised a challenge to the accuracy of existing regulatory protections for paint printing, nor did the planning staff bring to the issue of paint printing. board accepted the flow argument without objection. Now, as to compatibility, won't go into all of that. You guys go up and down breakfast all the time. You see it's all commercial. In your own planning documents, your own planning documents say at this site, commercial activity is encouraged. So, what I would ask in this case is that following the recommendation of the planning board that recognized that RULAC's letter is non-binding. I think everybody including RULAC says that. It doesn't mean you're disregarding it. It's just advising. RULAC has a decision of that initial letter based on a conversation that I had with the director, who I found to be a very thoughtful person. by the planning staff. Remember this. Do you all remember the Postal Air Force base? The standard that the staff is ready And then that, the Army. Didn't tell you that. The Army APZ standard is much narrower. That came out during the presentation for a plan board. So, that's an important thing as well. There's no APZ overlay adopted. Again, I spoke to that earlier. The town of Spring Lake hasn't adopted it. The Cumberland County hasn't adopted it. So, again, the incompatibility finding was rejected. You heard the comments, and I'm sure you've seen the comments in your materials about the discussion, the deliberation of the plan for it. prior gas station there that existed in the corridor a new one had been permitted and so what we ask for you to do is consider really and truly that the board's findings include plan consistency it's a commercial corridor there there's no objection to that RULAC is non-binding the APC standard was in garum The flood hazard has six independent layers of federal and state law to protect Tank Creek and the existing rights and taking into consideration the existing rights and the now more than bringing those four acres in line with the commercial district that is directly adjacent to. So the whole area of the entire question comes down as to whether or not there will be significant flooding to cause an impact on the operations of Fort Braddock. nor the feds will allow development. They won't commit if they believe this is going to affect this or that.

Okay, there's a few questions I have highlighted that can kind of educate me as well as the citizens. You stated, and probably Mr. Richard Parkin, since you couldn't find that little small area, you said that's the only area that we're concerned about, or what is the concern that's not included in this, as well as it states here in the summary and the description. You said it's already commercial. I think he stated that's a commercial district. are to be moved to a more restricted zoning district. So when you state a more restricted district, what are you referring to? I know it's him, but I'm just saying, your name is on here. I asked him, since you couldn't find a small area, then maybe he can.

Thank you for that question. So at the time of the board's decision, the board itself could make a different recommendation for approval for a zoning district if they found that a more restrictive one would be needed based on the information that was provided.

Because of the flood in the area? Is that why we're being more restrictive? It's already commercial. Correct. Okay. In the small area?

Yeah, yeah.

I see that. Okay, and where is it located? That we're talking about? I say here. According to the subject portion within RPZ1.

Are you looking at this? Oh, okay, gotcha. So it's that green portion that you can see, right? That's the CD zoning district outlined in green. And then in this slide here you can see the CD zoning district a little better next to the CD portion zoning district on the subject property itself too.

Just for clarification, I'm not trying to add anything. I just want to make sure the board understands. What you're saying is of these three, four lots, the front half that has road frontage has no conservatory district on it, correct? Is that what you're saying? Correct, yeah.

The portion that is abutting North Bradford Boulevard is on CB.

Alright, so just so the board understands. I'm not trying to sway you all one way or another. Just for clarification. These lots back up to, I take it, a creek? Correct. So the front portion, the road frontage portions of these lots are already sold in some form or commercial. It's the back halves that have some protections on them because there's a creek back there. So the staff, based on that as well as RULAC, because a plane could fall out of the sky, Which, by the way, they don't have one. It's built anywhere where a plane can fall out of the sky. But this whole neighborhood has been there. So you've got a creek in the back and a plane can fall out of the sky. But on the front half, you can already build anything commercial anyways. It's a matter of right now. Because of that, the staff has recommended, I'm just summarizing, the staff has recommended not to go forward. The board has said to go forward. And Mr. Charleston's argument on behalf of his client is that there's already all kinds of other protections that are going to protect that creek, like the tension ponds and all other things that y'all probably know more about. But that's a summary of all the different positions. Is that about right? I'd say that's a summary.

Okay. Is my light off now?

And again, for the same thing with Bruleck, it is an advisory and it is only for, what Bruleck is concerned with is in that CD where the Tate Creek is, if development happens back there, it could change the topography of the land, which could cause flooding on the flight line. Again, it's advisory. But Blue Black's mission is to keep Fort Bragg, keeping Fort Bragg mission ready. And so they're going to point out concerns, whether it happens in 100 years or not, it's still going to be made aware so that not only do we know, the developers know, the county know, and everybody is fully aware of the potential impact that development on that property can have. Go ahead. Oh, sorry, you were next. Go ahead, Commissioner Rupert.

Yes, so I'm really confused because I've never known that there was CD there and I remember when it was all of that became one parcel and it was all commercial. So that's why I'm confused because how did we end up with that CD when I know it used to all be commercial, it used to be CD if I'm not mistaken.

So I can't speak to all four of those parcels in their entirety being zoned CD? that wasn't showing up in our 10-year case history research. As I can explain, those parcels were created by deed, so they weren't actually subdivided through a plat book and pages. Typically, it would be done by a surveyor or developer.

because is it right uh behind the cd uh are those the store is that the storage uh correct correct yeah it's carolina state storage so how is it not in the cd zone at all i wouldn't be able to speak on that unfortunately

Mr. Johnson.

Oh, sorry.

Mayor McEwen, you have something, and then Mr. Johnson. Oh, I'll come on back and see what we're going to say, and then I'll pick up on his name as well. If the water's behind that area, is they concerned about flooding? Of course, they're going to protect Fort Craig as well as they're going to protect Spring Lake. It's a potential thing. Right. Now, how large is that area where that water is?

The tank creek itself? I wouldn't be able to tell you.

Yeah, I wouldn't be able to tell you how large.

Yeah, let me see. I may have a slide that does... So the, and I'll do my best to kind of walk you through this slide. So this is the special flood hazard area. So in the dark gray is approximately Taint Creek based off of Tamarland County's GIS. And then the 100-year flood zone is the lighter grayish blue. If that provides any kind of clarification to you.

Because our firefighters, I remember when we had . They went in there, and we had to . I remember that job for whatever reason. I do remember that . Thank you. Mr. Cooper.

Thank you. The flooding that we're talking about, wasn't that because of the Lake Dam? They opened that up and sent the water down to us. The legislature has since given them the money to fix that, correct? any other questions comments mr. Johnson do you have something else

I would just take the board back to the fact that we have six layers of protection for it and as everyone has indicated Mr. Director of RUAC that you just said, the concern that they have with the cataclysm issue of building and breaking everything to the awareness of the developer and everyone else in the commission. He's going after me and I understand that. That's in his email. of your package where he says that. And so, The APD said it's not. That's not an issue. And that's not my work.

No, that's Greg's. That's his work.

He says the information of the United Arab Emirates was primarily for their awareness. And that's it. So that's not so much an issue. The issue was whether or not there would be a problem with flooding. I think that... that... scooper what happened so we would ask while the recommendations

Is there anyone else here to speak in favor of this request? Last time, is there anyone here to speak in favor of this request? Hearing none, is there anyone here to speak in opposition of the request? Is anyone here to speak in opposition of the request? Last time, anyone here to speak in opposition of the request? Hearing none, I now declare this public hearing closed. All right, we are now moving on to our assistant development team.

Mr. Honeycutt's here? He is. Oh, hi, honey.

And this is Mr. David Honeycutt, a principal at McGill and Associates. He's our smart engineering guy. I brought friends today. Hey, smart engineering friends.

Mr. Dale Koepp, we're here for a few questions. With our financial services analysis, we can't be closer to this thing.

To Dale, it's our financial services analysis to overcome a lot of the math in the financial analysis analysis. I'm going to let you have the mic.

Hopefully you can do better than I do with it.

I just want to say this. Part of the asset inventory assessment work and grant funding that the town was able to obtain is also to provide the funds to support this study. So this is one of the steps within that process. A lot of the town to look at these, the option to institute this fee and to develop good funding for water and water infrastructure for the towns.

My name is Dale Sheepers.

I'm with McGill Associates.

I've been there about 10 years now and before that I was 30 years local government public works director, utility director in four different municipalities. Closer? Okay, I'm sorry. Anyways, from towns of about 1,500 connections to towns of about 30,000 connections. So one thing I've learned over the years is it's the same whether you're small, medium, or large. the challenges are there and we need to look for resources wherever we can in order to maintain a sustainable water and sewer utility so system development fees is allow municipalities and counties and districts in the state of north carolina to charge a fee for capacity that they own and have available in their water and sewer system for the purpose of supporting new development okay so the fee applies to only those new connections and upgrades to existing connections that would demand more capacity out of the system The theory behind that is that the town owns that and those that are getting that capacity from the town should, or as the town prefers, should pay for the value of that asset. And so the law says that in order to do that, it's very prescriptive, it says that we have to do a calculation, do a study, based on the industry standard methodology, which is the American Water Works Association reference manual, M1. And it needs to be done by a licensed professional engineer or financial person or firm. And then once you do the study, you do the analysis to determine what is the value of that capacity, then you have the right to set a fee that goes into your normal community schedule to collect the appropriate amount of money related to the amount of capacity that new connection or new development will take from your system. So we've completed all that process. Part of that process includes a 45-day public comment period, which you fulfilled that as well. At the end of that process, the law says we have to have a public hearing so we can get information or feedback from the public all the way through the process. And then once we have done that, then we can adopt the study process. And once we get out the study, we can then set the fee based on the results of the study. So you do have a copy of the analysis. There are two sources of value. in your system. One is the existing assets, the existing system that provides capacity today, and then future assets that you have planned that would provide additional capacity for projected development in the future. All of this stuff comes back together with a rational nexus that says that we can only charge a fee that is commensurate with the value of the capacity that the new development is taking from your system. So in other words, you just can't make up a number and say, that's what I'd like, and you don't like to go somewhere else. It has to be tied together so we're above board and we're recovering dollars that we've already invested in our capacity in our system and nothing more okay so at this time i'll answer any other questions that you might have

I thank you for that. This makes total sense to simplify, probably overly simplify. We're basically making the people who want to come here and build pay for building here so that our taxpayers aren't, it's not relying on the backs of our taxpayers for expansion. So basically making sure that If you want to build here, you've got to pay to build here. You have to build your own infrastructure so that our tax rates don't go up. So that's pretty much, they tell me if I'm oversimplifying what system development fees are.

I'm not an engineer. That is a very good, simple summary of the situation. Outside of that, then development is subsidizing, is being subsidized by rate payers if you're not at least recovering some of that investment you already have in your infrastructure. Any questions from the board?

Thank you so much. And we are up next, yay, the Tone Spring Lake.

Mayor, you have to hold the public hearing. Oh.

Okay, I now have the public hearing open. Is there anyone here to speak in favor of system development fees? If I could go down there, I'd scream at Cogaroos. Is anybody here to speak in favor? Last time, is there anybody here to speak in favor of this request for system development fees? Is there anyone here to speak in opposition of the system development fees?

I just want to make sure I understand. Please approach the podium.

I just want to make sure I understand.

Because we're in a public hearing, can you state your name and address for the record? Denise Ayers-Dumpley. Four, two, three. Thank you.

I just want to make sure those fees are not passed on to the community. Oh, no.

I just want to make sure that when we get those bills, that's like a starship. What we're doing, system development fees, prevents... the community from having to pay for it. So that's why we're implementing these additional charges. So any time a developer comes in, they have to put new pipes in the ground. And that costs money. And we don't want our tax dollars to have to pay for that. So we want the developers. If you want a building in Spring Lake, you have to pay for all of it. I'm sure I understand. Yes, ma'am.

OK, thank you.

No problem. Is there anyone else here to speak in opposition to this request? Hearing none, I now declare this public hearing closed. Now we'll move on to the Town of Spring Lake FY26-27 budget. Mr. English.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I appreciate the opportunity. Town of Spring Lake, this is an opportunity for you all to provide us with, and I just, it's the agreement that I sent you the recent one. Yes. I emailed it to you. Yes. This is an opportunity for the town of Spring Lake to get a chance at a high level to see what our budget looks like going into 2026, 2027. Our ordinance is on our website. If you want to look at a more detailed budget, you can do that on our website. But my quote and my vision is for the town of Spring Lake is that we will restore fiscal stability, strengthen public trust, and position Spring Lake for success. And what I want to focus on is primarily our priorities. And our executive summary highlights that investing in our employees we recognize is critical. We all know that things are going up significantly. from gas to groceries, you name it. And we recognize that our employees did not have the right level of salary to meet those demands of society. So we took upon ourselves to make sure that they had a cost of living increase. So we went ahead and proposed a 3.8% cost of living, while at the same time, We know that we cannot deny that there is a high-level crime. There's a lot of folks who want to come to this town and do bad things, so we wanted to make sure that we added, or not just added, but we unfroze our positions for our police. We also recognize that when it comes to water increases, that you all didn't have a water increase, a water rate increase going into this new year. So that was important for us to recognize that. We know that we need to hold public hearings and make sure that the town citizens is aware when those rate increases are gonna be needed. So we are not going to do that. Cost of living, again, I mentioned, and no property tax increase in this budget. This is our balanced budget, so it's just at a high level. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm driving, so you can back up.

Mr. English, would you prefer if we asked questions

We can go through the slides, but I'm recognizing you don't have the presentation. Can you put this one in your computer?

Is this the one you sent me before the meeting?

Yes, but it's not actually the same one. So the next slide, you have this slide.

That's the next slide that I have. This is the one I have. This is the one you sent me. Can you connect this laptop? I'm going to need to email it or put it on this.

Bear with us one moment.

That's fine, we can go through this one. So this is our balance budget at 10.2 million. You can move to the next slide. So this is a breakdown of our general fund revenue. And again, this is a high-level pie chart of what the revenue is coming into the town. So as you know, we have an Avaloran property tax, which makes up about 55% of our tax revenue. as well as the Department of Revenue our sales tax at 26% two of the highest revenues our general fund expenditures and we have a cost of living increase again as i mentioned operating expenses administrative expenses as well as our maintenance and repairs another high level overview in the pie chart here 60 of our police public safety is in this is in that uh green pie chart there Our general government at 20%. And again, the transportation, which is where our vehicles and our transportation is at 10%. As you all know, we've done an asset inventory of all of our infrastructure around our water system, and we're going to be focusing on addressing the critical and water infrastructure needs and plan improvements for our water and sewer line upgrades. So this includes valve restorations, water tank improvements, and backup power for this station. This is a list of our asset inventory projects that we're going to be hoping to finance once we get our more grants in, once we get our audits completed. We will try to take out loans. We will try to go after grants. We will look at legislative allocation. All of these opportunities will allow us to get to this 10-year plan of paying our water infrastructure. i've included a show and tell so you all can recognize how old our infrastructure is in this town so when you get a chance you can take a look at this this was pulled up out of our ground friday and you could see that this is about a 60 year old pipe so when you get a chance just recognize this is what we're working on in our town I was thinking the same thing. That came from a line directly to a home that we repaired last Friday. Our general fund capital outlay requests, and these requests come directly from our departments, so you'll see a list of these. This goes in greater detail on our website. But as you can see, we have a significant amount of upgrades. As you can hear, our HVAC unit right now, right? We have to look at these repairs going into the new year. We have different repairs going in. We have, you know, obviously our vehicles for our police are looked at. We're looking at replacing those. We have six Dodge Durango. We have various different vehicles that we need to make sure that we replace going forward. And capital allocation, this is another breakdown of how the spending and our infrastructure upgrades. We have public building maintenance and upgrades, our transportation and equipment upgrades. So these are the total costs associated with those. In the green, our transportation, as I said, is $630,000. Again, we've had a lot of equipment and transportation that we have not been able to replace over the years since the state was over our city, our town. So that's important that we go ahead and start putting these funds into these vehicles so that they're not breaking down. And so looking at the outlook and forecast, obviously we wanna make sure that we're protecting our town's financial health. We are in a good position right now. But we need to make sure that we are staying in a position of strength from a financial standpoint. Looking at financial stability is gonna be very important moving forward. We're going to be having our monthly budget reviews with our commissioners so that you can see what's being spent on a monthly basis. And that's what we're incorporating. And of course our enhanced capacity for economic development. We can't have more revenue come in unless we have strong economic development. So that's going to be a number one priority going forward as well is that we see the growth coming into this town. We know that Spring Lake has an opportunity for growth. We just have to make sure that we embrace it. And the only way to do that is we evaluate and assess. who's helping us with our planning, right? What's that commitment? Are we utilizing the resources that we have in the Council of Government? Those are opportunities that I want to work with closely with the mayor so that we can ensure that town of Spring Lake have growth. We also have a housing opportunity. We can clean up this town. We have too much blight right now so that we can take these homes, rebuild them so that people can have an opportunity to come in and move into Spring Lake. And so we have a great opportunity for us to move Spring Lake to the next level. So that's what I mean by enhancing capacity for economic development in Spring Lake. And lastly, our commitment to transparency and stewardship. Again, making sure our board is aware of everything going on financially. Thank you for your commitment. We approach them as we meet with not just the state auditor, but also our auditor, and how we get that transparency of getting these audits up to speed. Because we want to make sure that we're meeting on a weekly basis, and making sure that these audits are completed. We've already been asked to make sure we come to Raleigh and show that we are getting in front of these audits. It's not just gonna be something that we just sit back and let just happen. We're gonna make sure our auditors are on point each and every week. Thank you for this opportunity. I love to take questions from you at this point. This is your budget This is your these are your dollars. So we want to hear from you if you have any questions This is the time if you have any concern, I'd love to hear your feedback I want to ask you to highlight a

how we're able to unfund or unfreeze and fund those police positions, as well as the steps that were taken to ensure that we did not have to raise the water rate.

Sure. So in terms of the positions that were frozen, we had an agreement with the 911 operations for Cumberland County. and what we've decided to do because of the state law that now requires us to move forward and position ourselves that we don't have to make that payment to the county we pulled back and so we're leading the charge in the town right we're making sure that other towns understand that this state law is in position i did get a call back from county manager career and he recognized that the town of spring lake has moved forward with that there was no pushback so this is the opportunity for us to get the positions in place.

And for the what we did to make sure the water rates stay the same?

Yeah so the water rates are staying the same primarily because we have an opportunity to position ourselves to we looked at the Manchester fire agreement we said look we have an opportunity with that contract in that agreement we also made sure that we are in position to you know continue to be very conservative and so we were able to move those monies around so that we didn't have to raise our water rates.

And the bulk water rates as well?

At this time we are in the process of working on that agreement with the Public Works, the PLC, Fayetteville PLC. That contract has not been signed yet but we will have that in place for you all by the next board meeting.

all right commissioner hooper um thank you and thank you uh mr english um i did have a couple of questions um i know we were concerned about the pay for fire and police have we been able to get to where we we need to be to be um competitive sure so you all have this so you all have a lady

You all have your overview of the raises that we provided to you all. And again, we wanted to have some equity, right? So for us, we wanted to make sure not only we had equity, but we wanted to make sure those positions and those employees who haven't had raises in the last three years had some type of increase. Now, as far as our fire department, we wanted to look at those particular firemen who actually have not had raises as well. So we, again, kept it equitable across the board. And so those who did get raises, we went ahead and did an across-the-board code. So... That's where we are. Of course, this is your budget. You know, I want you to look at that, view it. But our goal was to make sure we had a cost of living increase and those who did not get raises for the last three years had a chance to do that. And that was what the increase was for, for $5.00. So we might give it a bumping in the police department.

I'll come to the mic just so people can hear. So will we not, will we be able to raise the pay to stay competitive? Or...

absolutely yes absolutely yes those who did not receive raises in the last three years will that's the goal is to try to sustain those it was talked about

the county paying us uh for the use of the recreation center right now the county is still in deep discussions with fayetteville regarding the parks and res system they're looking at a potential overhaul so i think we'll hear more about that once they kind of flesh out what's happening with them um i did want to make sure we highlight the manchester fire district the county has given spring lake 802 000 what's the total 649 plus the additional grant funding which totaled to 830. so um the manchester fire district is completely paid for through the county now the town of spring lake will not be paying to man equip anything at that fire station we ran by spring lake firefighters however the county will be providing the funding to totally run the station so it's a we wanted to make sure that bragg estates and overhills were taken care of we've seen in a very scary situation how it could be when we didn't have fire protection for them in our community and so this was a something that that Our fire chief staff has been working on for quite some time, and I'm really, really grateful to say that not only did they make sure that they met our needs, they exceeded them by providing additional funding for equipment upgrades, uniforms, all kinds of things. Our Overhills Fire Station, or Manchester Fire District, is now fully funded by the county and no longer on the backs of the residents.

Do you know what percentage of the property taxes we collected this year?

Off the top of my head, I have to get you that out.

Mr. Alford, 98 or 99?

We're at 99.

Thank you. Thank you. They pay on time.

They pay on time. Okay. Are there any other questions or comments from the board? and just so you know we have had extensive budget meetings so we I mean for hours we've asked tons and tons and tons of questions and those are all available on YouTube so you can actually watch our budget work sessions we're on agenda item nine

Turn around the paper. It's under public hearing.

Yes, because we adopt the budget next meeting. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

It's on here because I got it. But the budget's made. Probably on this, where it is, I think it's up over here on page 103 of the agenda packet. Under the first paragraph, you said that we'll adopt it at our next meeting on Monday. June twenty twenty six can you please for the citizens and I know it's every two weeks what date in June?

June twenty second twenty twenty six I now declare this public hearing open is there anybody you have any questions or comments from the board I now declare this public hearing open is there anybody to speak in favor of the budget Anyone here to speak in favor of the budget? Last time, anyone here to speak in favor of the budget?

Approach the podium, Ms. Sanford.

If you want to speak in favor of the budget, please approach the podium. State your name and address for the record.

I was here last Tuesday when they had the proposal for the budget, and I was very happy with the budget. I will say that I'm in agreement as of the response. I'm still wondering about the cell phones. I think you guys need to discuss that more because you're not happy. Other than that, I'm happy. No border rates, no property tax rates. I am. for what we're doing. And thank you for your hard work. And I want to thank Mr. Roy and Mr. Oak, because he is the one who can give this credibility.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anyone here to speak in opposition of the budget? Is there anyone here to speak in opposition of the budget? Is there anyone here to speak in opposition of the budget? Hearing and seeing none, I now declare this public hearing closed. We'll now move on to agenda item 9A, a discussion regarding draft policy 43, cellular phones for elected officials.

Right on time. And I... Go ahead, Mr. English.

Why? I mean, I think we already...

I have my phone, so I'm not sure... our chief of police who recognized that to us in our last budget meeting that you know when you have public records request for a chief of police and it's on your personal phone with all the private information that comes from our public those who did not need the app on their personal phone it was not necessary so it gives us staff through myself as you mentioned there that's my decision as as town manager but as as it relates to the board's decision i think you all have an opportunity now to have Again, we're a government agency, so our private phones should be used as private phones, and our government phones should be used for our business, and that's an option. I know the apps, as you all mentioned, was a cost potential saver, but as we recognize, it pretty much was not only, it may have been a cost saver at the time, but we recognize that We didn't see much from a value standpoint on how that works with privacy and public information. So that's where I'm leaving it. I think we've solved this issue. I think we can now put this cell phone, unless we have more. But from a town manager's perspective, that was mine.

This is strictly about drafting a cell phone policy for the governing body on how we choose to receive communications. There's an option for us to maintain with our OneTalk app and not take a cell phone or get a town-issued cell phone. And we're implementing this policy just for governance. We are a government body and we should operate by policy, by statutes, ordinances, and not just by wants and needs. And so we instructed staff to prepare a draft cell phone policy stating explicitly what the options are and how we use our cellular devices for the town. So that's what this policy is specifically for. Town, or excuse me, employees, that fall directly under the town manager which is everyone except for the three you see up here those people the town manager determines if or when they can or cannot have a cell phone so this policy is strictly for the governing body looking at the policy discussion and possible action on this cell phone i like it that

They were given an allowance of $50, but it's $39, as well as we didn't have to purchase any hardware. Those items and those cell phones have been here at the town for a while, right, Carly? I had a... refurbished phone that they gave me. I'm still receiving phone calls from an individual that called for a discommission of three or four times. And I know not to utilize it for any personal use, and that's the point. It's just business use. But they were refurbished, so we didn't have to go out and spend any dollars, and we were able to get this for business purposes to make sure that we're taking care of the town's business, and it is a savings, a cost savings. As well as, since they were utilized prior to individuals, board members, I'm just trying to figure out what was the policy prior, and it should have been in place if they were utilized. So that was just my question.

Thank you. There were several policies that needed to be updated, and this was just on the bottom of the list because we wanted to move away from cell phone devices. So if we're going to move back to them, we need to do it the right way, which is through policy. Are there any other questions or comments from the board? Has everyone had a chance to review the policy? Is there any discussion, additions, deletions to the policy? if there are no amendments to be made.

Commissioner Cooper? I make a motion to read out the cell phone policy. Is there a second? I second. Any discussion? All in favor?

Can I see, but I, I, I, I, I, I, were you unready commissioner Jackson? Okay. All in favor. Yeah. I'm just making sure all in favor. Commissioner Burgess. Did you just change it?

Can we do that?

I just want to make sure we do things legally. All in favor, one more time.

Aye.

Any opposed? Aye. Motion carries. All right, we will now move on to considerations of next step in the town manager recruitment process. Commissioner Jackson.

I wanted to go ahead and request that the board, we go ahead and start moving the procedures of the town manager, what we need to do, and I guess, because I don't know if the, has to stay on for 30 days, the application process, to go ahead and get the application process started.

Absolutely, I wholeheartedly agree. And that should just require general consensus from our board to go ahead and instruct HR or staff to open the position. We do need to update the description and the salary. So before we open the position, we have to get the salary in place. Because right now it's significantly lower than what we're paying now.

I can agree that we update the salary. The description of the job description is fine. It's just the salary you say we need to update.

um what i'd like to do is i have called a special meeting that way we can sit down and really go through the process make sure everything is set i know it's been a long meeting tonight and i want to be mindful of your time um let's try if you want to send me some you all send some dates uh to carly where you're available maybe in the next week next and we call a special meeting to get the process started get the description updated payment everything okay there any other questions are coming all right we'll move on to agenda item 10 our new business and this is zon-26 that's zero zero are you skipping 9c discussion i sure did what is wrong with me today y'all

it's okay agenda items excuse me now we're still in all business discussion regarding draft interlocal pwc agreement mr english sure so right now we are still not at a point of agreement with the public works uh commission uh there is right now for me It's all about predictability and where our water would be. We also gotta make sure we have room for growth because there's so many stipulations about how much water we use, And we've got to make sure also that we are not going over those particular, that capacity. So we will come back to you with an agreement and one that you all will vote on. You may have Public Works. Teddy may also participate in that conversation so that you can be well informed to vote on this new capacity agreement with the Public Works Commission.

I would much rather you guys take your time and be thorough than us jumping to an agreement and recording it.

It's not the most easiest agreement to read. Okay, any questions, comments, or reports?

All right, now we're moving on to New Business 10A-ZON-26-0023. Rezoning request from CD Conservancy District to CPD. Planned Commercial District to a CEP, or a more restrictive zoning district for four parcels comprising of approximately 4.2 acres located on, located west of North Bragg Boulevard and 340 feet south of West Manchester Road, submitted by the Charleston Group. On behalf of James and Pippa Hennant, Cynthia Goins, Martha Harkins, And those are the owners. I'll now entertain a motion to approve or deny ZON 26-0023. Commissioner Burgess.

I'd like to suggest that we approve ZON 26-0023. Just to be clear, Commissioner Burgess, you made a motion to approve.

Yes, sir.

is there a second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion carries congratulations to your clients we look forward to some new businesses all right we are now on 10b ordinance zero or two zero two six dash three to adopt our system development fees and sewer system development fees for water and sewer to the rate and fee schedule for the town of spring lake pursuant to ncgs 162a commissioner hooper i happily make a motion to adopt the system development fees All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. I now entertain a motion to approve or deny Resolution 2026.1.2, adopting the Cumberland-Holk Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan. And that was in your agenda packet. This is something that we have been a part of for quite some time, and they have made more updates. Nothing significant that I saw, and so I would recommend if the board has any questions about it did you have any anybody have any questions Commissioner Cooper I make a motion that we approve the Covenant Hoke Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan is there a second I second any discussion All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. We will now move on to our budget amendment.

We received $612 of payment in lieu of tax from the state of North Carolina for fire protection services. They're tax exempt, so they don't pay taxes. They give us a check for $600 in lieu of pocket tax. With our new agreement with Cumberland County, they're going to give us $600,000, $700,000 next year. They also agreed to give us $50,000 this year to buy some equipment and furniture for the So we are mending the budget by $50,612 to buy some furniture and equipment and pay a little bit of overtime in the fire department and get the internet up and running there. So this is $50,000 all for expenditures at the new Manchester fire station. Saved for by the county.

Are there any questions?

you have a question that list that we have I can't find and I guess Jason might be able to answer that this is the list that you're talking about that the new fire station needs $35,000 and that's coming out of the $50,000 that's coming out of that $50,000 what's the budget agreement number VA 24

Any other questions or comments? And I'll entertain a motion to approve budget amended VA 24 for FY 2026. Commissioner Jackson? I'll make a motion to approve the budget amendment. Commissioner Thompson? So moved.

Any discussion?

Any discussion? Go ahead, Mayor Fulton. Thank you.

Just a question, I know this is all new furniture, glad it's up and running, but that facility wasn't closed for so long. What happened to the furniture? It's a beautiful facility if anybody ever wants to go in and look around. But what happened to the furniture that was already in there?

Some of that furniture was really old. When they closed the station, some of that was gotten rid of. Some of the furniture equipment may have been moved to this fire station.

So when they got rid of it, did they put it on the job? Like we normally do, we get rid of any taxpayer dollars. Did we do that?

That's what we do with all surplus equipment. I mean, sometimes... old mattresses and stuff like that.

I'm talking about the other furnishings that was in there and if you did put it on there, can you make sure the board get a copy of that so we'll know and we'll be a good steward of taxpayer dollars. I do agree that if they need new furniture for operation but it was a beautiful facility and I was able to go around and see that the furnishings and everything was in. They gave me a tool. So I just wanted to know if you put that out there as well.

Thank you. Commissioner Jackson? Oh, I'm sorry, you're lying. All right, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right, we'll move on to 10E, discussion regarding draft overhills park sewer agreement. Mr. English?

Yes, so you all have an email, a memorandum of understanding from the Overhills Park Water and Sewer District, Cumberland County. We met in our last budget meeting and you all agreed that In $6.25 that we were receiving for the work, actually the existing sewer rate was too low. So we went back and renegotiated. And we came back with now effective July 1, and I'll read this verbatim from the memorandum of understanding. The bulk sewer rate shall increase to $9 per 1,000 gallons for a term of five years. So if you go ahead and allow me an opportunity to sign off on that. hearing from the county, they will come back with an actual agreement for you all to vote on. But this is just a memorandum of understanding. So this is signed by me, as well as the chairman of Cumberland County. Board of Commissioners.

Commissioner Cooper? Yeah, thank you. So the $9 is for bulk water. I'm sorry we are we are so for the action you're quite ask your question again I'm sorry let me answer that question all right the agreement that we have first with faithful

to go from 462 per 1,000 gallon to 559 per 1,000 gallon. So, Gary. January, we changed the rates and raised that to double the outside rates. The county has said they refused to pay that because their bill went from about $6,000 a month to $18,000 a month, and they said they can't do it. So we renegotiated. The new deal is for the current year to Instead of it being about $18,000 a month, it's going to be about $11,000 a month. So we're going to have to give them a credit for some of those months we've already billed them at the outside rates. Next year, they're proposing to pay us the per thousand gallon charge goes from $6.25 to $9. But the $9.25 minimum charge per household goes away. ball store at $9 per 1000 gallons. However, we will no longer be responsible for maintaining the pump station or the super lines that will be the entire responsibility of the county. So our revenue for next year will be about 27,000 is actually going down, but we're giving up

Are there any other questions or comments from the board?

No.

All right. We'll now move on to agenda item 10F, letters to the attorney regarding FY21 and 22 audit. Mr. English.

But we have received a letter from both attorneys that are going to be able to discuss that.

Thank you, sir.

Did you have anything to add to that agenda item? I know we do have both letters from the attorneys.

No, I'm very grateful for those letters. Now we can move forward with our audit. And it looks like we'll have another meeting with them, an update meeting on, I actually want to speak with them tomorrow to see where we are actually at now that they have those letters. So we should have, what date did we ask them to come and present the audit? We were basically holding them to

And it's been a long, grueling process with Mr. Overton working double and triple time to be through years and years and years of financial reports to get us to this point. So for that, I want to publicly acknowledge you and thank you for your hard work because I know these audits have been a lot. All right, so we will move on to agenda item 10G, discussion regarding draft policy 44, public records policy. Commissioner Jackson.

requests for public records, which is anybody can do that. But what we don't have is a good policy for it. With some of the employees being able to use their personal phone, and then when the public record requests come on, they have to give up their personal phone. So I want to try to get some guidelines and rules for that. I suggest that for the personal phone, instead of the town clerk being able to do that because of the personal nature, they will have to go through the phone, pick out what's personal versus what's business. So that means reading people's personal business. As one of the examples the chief brought up, In one of our meetings, if he's having an argument with his wife, he doesn't need to know. Everybody doesn't need to know his business. And that's, you know, he's right. And I have concerns with that as well. So during my research for public records requests, we can have the public record requests for the phone sent out to another agency for them to do it. It would be at the cost of the person who's requesting them. the public records. For your business loan, of course they can turn that over. I suggest that goes to HR because there's so much personal, HR has all the do's and don'ts, that that goes to HR. So the town clerk will receive the public record request and then turn it over to HR to do. I also suggest that if a phone has to be turned over to HR, that we give the employee another phone while the phone is there, because they have to have something to use. Also in my research with public record requests, Facebook, any kind of social media also can be requested for public records. If it has anything to do with the town business. It goes along with the emails and the texts. Facebook also can be called for a public record request. And not only will, if who's ever doing the Facebook post is doing it, also the people are responding, it has to go up under there too. I forgot my notes to tell you what's natural, what that is, but I do have that for anybody that knows. So we need to get a general policy on how these public record requests are done and who needs to do it.

Thank you.

Commissioner Cooper?

I'll invite Commissioner Thompson.

So, since we're talking about public record requests, I did submit one on April 21st, and I'm not sure who is blocking that, so I'll just ask personally. Mr. Burgess, did you have a problem with my public records request?

I did. Your public record request, I had someone look at your public record request. Some of the things that you requested was more of a board member type, especially with you having timelines for things that's being done. That's at the pleasure of the board. The board needs to vote because no individual board member can't direct anything without the pleasure of the board if they go there. Then you send in another public record request saying each public record request for the statute has to be filled out. That second public request that you had in the memo box that tells you what you need to do, you put see email. We had, and I can't discuss that in closing and what we decided to do, but you know what was decided to do about your person. So when you put in for your second one in the memo box, see email, you can't do that if the first one wasn't right. So you needed to have written out, because that says so in the general statute, what you're having a problem with. Because each board member, when they do a public record request, it has to be handled like a citizen and not a board member. Because board members cannot individually tell somebody to do something. It has to come in the midst of the board. And the board did not discuss the items that you wanted done for the public record request. So now if you want to go back And we go back and discuss that since that personnel has to be up on the closed session. I have no objection for you to go back and we do it, but we do it right and not at the pleasure of what we think is right. Because there's general statutes and I have them all and things that can be listed what we can and can't do. And some of the items that you suggested, we can't do. So that was my problem with that.

So I asked the attorney. The attorney said the requests that I had on that public records request were all valid. Is that not true, Mr. Porter? Can the attorney work?

So I believe the records you requested, honestly, it's been a few weeks, but I'd have to go back and look. I believe most of the records you requested, to my recollection, would classify or would qualify as public records. I think what Commissioner Jackson is saying is just more of the procedure of how you requested them. I think that's what people kind of talk past each other a little bit, but I don't know. But either way, we can get it done.

and and there was no there was nothing on my request that is required of the board i can request what i want whether i'm a citizen or a board member and so either way everything on there is allowed so yeah so your information about the statute

Okay, I'm sorry. Commissioner Thompson. I was just going to say, so if we're going to do these policies, the one that we didn't approve earlier, since we have things that need to be done, we need to update all policies then. And that way there will be no further questions as to what needs to be done. Because we'll be following policies and procedures. And if I'm not mistaken, that... What you're asking for HR to do, that's part of our duty description. So therefore, there's other things that's going to have to be changed as far as that. Yeah, so we can follow up on that.

We can just add policies if that's needed. I was just going to say, in general, in the digital age that we're in now, which we've been in it for a long time, with all of us having mobile devices and computers, I think the overall sentiment from Mr. Jackson is good. I don't think it's going to hurt us. In fact, it would help us just go ahead and have the policy procedures in place. Because obviously this has generated a lot of discussion and frustration. amongst the commission, and I do think if we just get this nailed down, anytime this comes up, it's turnkey, it's not an issue. I would ask Commissioner Jackson, I assume you guys, this is like an example from another board, but if we want to bring this back up, I don't know if we want to task with it. And it looks pretty good. This is the first time I've seen it, and it looks good. You did it? Okay, well, Carly Autry did it. Looks pretty good. But it's not going to, in fact, it will eliminate a lot of some of the issues as far as when a public records request like this comes in, how do we handle it? commissioner cooper is correct she can request anything she wants just like we we all can um but i think we've just never quite frankly gotten requests like this before that doesn't mean it's improper it just means we've never dealt with it so i think the policy is a good idea and good good uh

let me just get it out there i'm finished so miss jackson let me commend you on us to be able to update our policies and put that in perspective of how we should go. Because I do believe in policies and proceed, but we need to do that at all times. then if we utilize another policy from another town or municipality each individual town and municipality is different so we create policies when we come up with different situations and so tonight uh different situations they come up and we said we need to put it in a policy so i do 100 agree that we need to update our policy and it's geared to our town here in Spring Lake and our citizens and not geared to another town and utilizing those because what was stated, I think that ours had not been updated. So I do agree that we should update it. And thank you again Ms. Jackson for the work that you've done. Thank you.

So we just voted against being governed by a policy. and then we're voting to create a policy on public records but we don't want to be governed for our cell phones this is literally not for personal for us this is for governance far beyond so there may not be a board that comes in and understands how cell phones work or it causes conflict but we we're not going to allow ourselves to be governed there but just here i can't rationalize that in my head it's either we're going to do right and be governed by policy or do it the wrong way and not be. We are a governing body. Everything we do needs to be spelled out by the law. The law we create, general statutes and ordinance that the state create, that's a part of our, what we raise our hand, it's a part of upholding the constitutional laws of North Carolina and the constitutional laws of the state. So I just want to make sure that we are aware we just voted down creating a policy in a place where there is one, there isn't one, to create another policy in another place that's causing friction amongst the board. So... Also, this policy has some provisions that assigns a part of this portion or process to the mayor, which I don't believe belongs in the office of the mayor. That belongs in the office of the town manager. I should not be reviewing anybody's public records request. I should not be reviewing or telling the staff. anything about time limits that is outside of the jurisdiction of the office of the mayor and that wholeheartedly lies in the town manager's purview. Yes, in the policy it states that the mayor has a, if it's going to take over two hours of staff time, then it requires the mayor's approval. That should not be. That is not in my purview, and I do not want any authority in places where I should not have it, or this seat should not have it, and that is outside of the wheelhouse of the office of the mayor that's fully dated operations.

I want to ask the attorney something. So you're saying when the public record request, the policy that I'm talking about and the statute, does either one of them say that whoever does the public record request has to be the town clerk? Or does it say that it has to be by somebody?

Honestly, I wasn't prepared to address that question because I didn't see this prior to literally looking at it when we just got to it. Generally, what I will say though, just from experience, is the statutes are fairly vague as to literally individual within a government governmental entity who has to actually do it it just says they will be or they shall be provided but the statutes are fairly vague as to literally what human being because a county is different than a town different than a village you're all going to have different people there's the city of Fayetteville there's Charlotte they have huge staffs And there's Spring Lake, and believe it or not, there's counties that spawn within us.

So with that being said, then to ask for the HR clerk, even if the town clerk, if everybody is persistent in turn doing it, to have the HR clerk to go in there to help wouldn't be wrong. And number two, what I wanted to ask was, I know I saw somewhere, I don't know if it was in our policy or in the statute, that says that whoever makes the public record request, they have to pay for it.

beyond uh if it's gonna it's kind of vague it's been a while since i've looked at that exact language if it's going to be at normal cost like if it's just a matter of like creating a few pages uh that is not standard for a town or any government to charge for that but if it's if you've requested i don't know every email for the last 10 years and that's going to come out to 10 000 pages or something and that was some of the requests that commissioner cooper asked for dated back

different dates it consisted of a large amount of information that she needed so that was more than what a normal request would have been and number two it is coming from his cell phone from the personal cell phone to what is business so for example if i call and i say how are you doing how's your wife how's the family and then turn around and and put it in something business that one text or email has to be separated. So that means whoever reads it has to read his personal business or her personal business. That's why I requested that not the town clerk do it or anybody do it because they are employees here together. They have to talk to one another. They have to be with one another. Even though I do not think Ms. Carly will go and read somebody's personal information and put it out in the universe. I don't think that. But just in case to cover her as well as anybody else, it should be done when it's a personal cell phone from an outside entity who has no relationships with the person whatsoever who won't see them on an everyday or everyday basis or anything i hate for the chief to have something in his email and then she reads it and he's looking like oh you know i did this and you know i did that that right there is personal personal is personal here's what i'll say about both those things so um i'll address the second thing first just because we're just uh you were just mentioning so yes that is always a concern

when public business has been conducted on a private device, which, by the way, is very routine. I mean, we've all done that, whether we meant to or not. When public records are requested from private devices, there's always an issue of who's going to be the arbiter of what's public versus private, and who makes that initial determination. And there may be a fight about it later in court, but at the end of the day, someone's got to make that initial determination. y'all the support to decide i certainly understand your thoughts about uh misogyny mr english because this has to do specifically with mr english have to work together so it might be awkward i think that's what you're trying to say like what if she accidentally saw something even she didn't mean to um and it could cause some awkwardness it might make her uncomfortable might make him uncomfortable but at the end of the day y'all got to either adopt a policy or pick somebody And now as far as how much it would cost to produce these records, the truth is we don't know because we don't know how big the data set is, the batch of data, or whatever these IT people call it. know. I mean I I don't know. Um but I will say and I know this has caused so much friction and I I promise you as y'all's town attorney I might try to like pick sides. Yeah. Um a public records request has been made. Regardless of how the board as a group decides to respond to it. It does need to be responded to. And you know it y'all just need to figure out the procedures y'all want to do to protect private communications versus what our our private And if there is going to be some huge cost to that, we need to identify that cost and then make sure that that is handled appropriately under the statutes.

Commissioner Hooper. Yes.

I just want to say that general statutes trumps everything. North Carolina general statutes trumps everything. Every single thing we do is public. It is public. So you need to remember that. Everything we do regarding this town is public. Okay, so if I ask for certain things, every single bit of it is public. And Carly is the keeper of the records. She has been to classes, taken several classes to be the keeper of the records. So I'm really tired of talking about this. I submitted my request on April 21st. And I know you all were against it. I know all three of you were against it. But you're violating general statute. The attorney said from the very beginning that I am allowed to ask for the things I asked for, and that should have been it.

I'm appalled for you to accuse me of something. Okay. And you have no right to do that. I do. we're talking about the policy as well as social media we're going to get that policy up because if you're going to utilize social media with town business as well that's being closed session and utilizing social media with town business it's coming out in closed session on social media that needs to go in I think we need to entertain our policy. This group, I do think that your public record request should be honored like anybody else's. Any citizens got a public record request, they do have to pay for it. General statute, we have no problem. But when you got hired, sir, but some of the requests from following you, tracking you and all that, if it wasn't done under another town manager, I do not agree it should be tracking you under a town manager. Now, I'm going to go against that, and I don't care what the citizens say or nobody, because nobody should be tracking you if they didn't track the prior town manager. But I do believe that policy, social media, because social media is putting out stuff and whoever is utilizing it is putting out stuff in closed session. And if we're going to go by the general statute, then we need to go by the general statute. Because it states that you are not supposed to come out, use your cell phone, text people while we're in closed session, as well as put it on social media. So I think we have some documentation for that as well. that within closed session they got put out there on social media so we can follow up with those policies and get them in track then you get your requests ma'am now we're going to do it with discussion

I don't know, I guess I'm going to say it. In closed session, when we had closed session and we discussed this in closed session, certain things were said and were supposed to have been done. One instruction came from the mayor. And then I think in the consensus of the board back there in closed session, we agreed that something had to be redone. So I think in order for me to move forward, we need to honor what we said in closed session. that what we did here can't over trump what we did in the closed session. And since we can't talk about it here, then I request that we have another closed session to be reminded of what was supposed to be done in the first place and what was agreed on in the first place. Because my reaction is based on what the closed session said and not what this said. So it's totally different now. So I'm totally kind of confused now.

I think that is exactly what needs to happen is to go back into closed session flesh this out, come out with a concrete plan forward that will respect privacy, be it through the clerk or an outside source, but we're furnishing the public records because it's required. It's transparent and we want to make sure that We know what's going on. Y'all know what's going on. And we can close this out. So let's go ahead and stop this now. We will add closed session to our next agenda. We'll discuss it again. And we will leave out of that closed session with a concrete plan on

I ain't ate today.

My wife snuck me a hamburger right before the meeting and my office gonna smell like onions still sitting on my bed. All right, we are now on to our reports. So I took a small still quiet break after I had a slight medical incident the day of lunch with the mayor. I want to publicly thank the fire department because they went above and beyond. I felt like I had 12 big brothers watching over me and they were adamant that I sat down I waited for the ambulance, and I skipped lunch with the mayor, and they were absolutely right. But I'm all better now. So big, big thank you to Spring Lake Public Department, because they really took care of me. So I do want to touch on Lilly and Black just to offer a bit of background information. So what happened when you see me going through these studies with Lilly and Black, that was a program with UNC Chapel Hill grad students. And all of the students that I was working with were going into seed management, seed planning, things like that. And so I entered Lilly and Black into a feasibility study for two reasons. One, we're helping the UNC grad students get some real world experience, but two, we actually needed to know the value of Lillian Black and its potential uses and how we could go about repurposing the building. So it was a two-fold win-win situation. Spring Lake gets the data that we furnished to the county and the students actually get some real-world training. Now, step two is Spring Lake still has zero authority on what happens at Lillian Black. Now, with this $1 sale transfer, the $1 sale is fine, but there's also ongoing maintenance and liabilities that are associated with Lillian Black. And according to that feasibility study that was completed, it's going to take a lot of money, money that Spring Lake does not have, money that we will not spend on Lillian Black before we fix our infrastructure. So what I have done is I've talked to the county extensively. I've talked to private developers that may be interested in entering into a public-private partnership. I do plan on making sure that before anything goes forward that Lillian Black gets a historical marker so that the building is preserved. The insides may change, but the external aesthetics will stay the same. But again, it all lies in the hands of the school board and the county. This is something I've been petitioning them for since Lillian Black closed in 22, is to not let this building fall by the wayside. It became political. It fell off because I don't want to engage in political activities. However, we were able to re-engage this initiative and we have some developers that are working directly with the county and keeping spring lake involved so hopefully we'll see something happen with lillian black all we can do is voice our opinions make our interests known but the final decision lies with the school board and the county so um We are also in the process of applying for DCIP funding, so we are pursuing grants, and this is through the Defense Community Infrastructure Program, and this is simply because of our connection to Fort Bragg. The max that they are offering for infrastructure repairs is $20 million. I've talked to the town manager extensively about us finding projects so that we can maximize this money and complete projects so that there is no spillage or leftover. We use this $20 million to at least complete a project. Now remember, we're looking at an $80 million total. So $20 million is only a little bit to get us there. But we'll continue to pursue funding as we can to try to address these issues. The Memorial Day ceremony was amazing, and I know Commissioner Thompson will talk more to that. But I do want to thank INVAC for always making sure that our soldiers and veterans and their family members are honored. I also received a letter from the Garrison Commander, and what they are requesting is we provide them a letter, a request for approval. What they want to do is they want to open up their private amenities, the gym, the PX, the rec centers, the bowling alley, the movie theater. They want to open it up to the public. And they have to make this request to Big Army. And they want the communities around Fort Bragg to show their support and endorsement of them doing this, just to make sure that it's an actual desire and they're not just opening it up for no reason. So I do feel like this will be a huge asset for our community, now being able to go to the movies or the bowling alley on Fort Bragg. Until we can, you know, potentially build our town up and bring those amenities to us, it gives you a shorter commute to access Fort Bragg's amenities, like I said, gym, movies, bowling alley, shopping. And so if the board doesn't have any proposals to this, or opposition to this, then I will go ahead and draft a letter of support for Fort Bragg, letting them know, absolutely Spring Lake wants to use your equipment.

That's correct. And you can get day passes.

Now they've made that process extremely easy where you can just go online, you can put in your information and they'll give you a pass for the day and you can Or you can actually go to the access point on All American and go into the Fort Bragg access and get a identification card or they'll just give you access. They got facial recognition now so they don't need to give you a card anymore. They just take your picture and now you'll be recognized when you're going on to post. So they made it pretty easy. So we will be repeating lunch with the mayor at Rice Roots at Rolls on the 27th? No, the 24th, Mayor. 24th. I think I might offer all of them on getting the date right. On the 24th at 12 noon, please come and visit. It's a fabulous restaurant. The owners are super nice, and when I tell you their food is spectacular, it is really good. And that is all. It's right across the street from Cedar Point where Dairy Queen used to be. It was House of the Orient where those two, it's a barbershop and a hair salon in Saladi. That one little plaza right there. Rice, roots and rolls, 12 noon. Spectacular food. That's all I have. May I present?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think this was a very productive meeting. It was long, but we had not had a meeting. Let me... First of all, our town manager, Mr. English, as well as my colleagues, my board members, that we work, and the employees, that we work extensively on this budget. We asked so many different questions. We were considerate for our community, for our water, our taxes. I ran on that. I believed in it, and God said yes. We pay high taxes here. We have a right. The last four years, the water bills went up. So as well as the employees, we have some good employees. They work for the town. They work for you. They work for the citizens. So we want to make sure they still give you excellent service whenever you call, whatever you need. And regardless of who gets sick, that they show up. And I want to thank the fire department. I call 911. They show up at my house and treat everybody equally. as well as Mr. Overton, we thank you as well. We thank you because you're always saying, they said they didn't have any money, but you're always saying you can crunch them numbers and you can move it from one line to another. So we was able to pass this budget with your expertise as well as this audit. When I left off the board the last time I stated that the first time I was here, we was behind in our audit, we've been diligent working on this audit, So glad we got those letters from the attorneys. I've called, Mr. English called, Mr. Overton has been calling, as well as Mr. Overton could not get from the electric company in Harnett County, and Mr. Dennis, you called, and they sent it right on over. So we've been working as a team, and we want to continue to work as a team on this board for our vision. And we had a vision to answer what I've been. The vision was not to raise those water bills and taxes. So that was one of, you know, the vision. So let me thank you all for that as well. For that, as well as the employees, all the employees, all of them, they didn't get raises prior. They got cost of living. They got raises, good raises. So we expect them to make sure they take care of our citizens and do what they need to do. We also are going to, every month, stay into the state audit that y'all visited. As for a monthly report from those P cards, those credit cards, those credit cards belong to the citizen taxpayer dollars. We used to get a month of report. So we're going to implement that, put that back, so we'll know exactly where the taxpayer dollars is spent. So Mr. English, we're implementing that. We had talked about that. Y'all visited the state auditors. And I think that was great, Ms. Jackson, that you personally visited the state auditors and they could ask you questions. And I think that was wonderful. So that, and Mayor, I'm so glad that you're okay and you took some time because we all need to take some time, refocus, work together for the community. But we have a focused agenda. I don't call anybody and tell them to come up here and speak negative about any of my board members. I don't call them because I can call people and say, hey, come up here every single time we got a meeting. and be dissatisfied with everything that's going on. But I refuse to do that, so I'm just going to continue to work together regardless of who we are, and we can continue to move forward. Again, let me thank my colleagues that we moved this budget and then bring it back. Thank you for this opportunity.

Commissioner Thompson? First of all, I want to say congratulations to all the 2026 graduates of Spring Lake High School. And also, don't forget about the summer meals. We have three locations here in Spring Lake. 11 and 1120 is over at the Rec Center. 1150 to 1210 is at the Spring Lake Library. And Mendoza Park is from 1240 to 1 p.m. So if you need, or if you know anybody that has any food insecurities, you can send them that way. That's every day. Every day, yes. Not Friday. I stand corrected. Every day, with the exception of Friday. And it will go from, it's already started. It started on the 1st of June. And it will go until the, I want to say the end of July, maybe. But they do it every day, with the exception of Fridays. But you can go online on the town of Spring Lake Way. stated on the 22nd, we have our Memorial Day celebration here. It wasn't a dry eye after the speech that the lady gave. It was really a moving speech. And I thank her and the National Anthem singer. And also, this past Saturday, there was four of us, myself, Mr. Charles, Mr. Lackman, and Mr. Armand. We did a cleanup. And we asked that, you know, people always say how bad the town looks. But we never get any volunteers out there. I understand that we have employees that do it. And then we have people that complain and they want, we're not there to come and clean your yard up while you watch us. We're there to clean the streets up. So my God, come on, bring that motivation out there and help us, please. And that's all I have.

Commissioner Jackson? I'm hoping with the, if it's true and the county does buy Lynn Black Elementary School for a dollar, I hope the county is in favor of doing what they need to do to help rebuild Lynn Black as a school and have that on their major agenda to do that with that. I was able to go to the office of the auditors. Very, very good experience. Was welcomed back. Plan on going back and get details to make sure that we're doing what we're supposed to be doing to keep these audits done right. As Mayor Pro Tem said that one of the things was that they suggested was a monthly review of what's going on with the PCARs as well as our bank statements. So they were very willing to help and they were encouraged. They liked the fact that we were there to stop stuff from happening because we're getting more knowledge of it. So that was a very fun event for me. So I appreciate that.

Commissioner Jackson, have we been able to move forward on that commitment to civility?

is that the one that we did for when we went up there I you know I told you when you mentioned it I have no knowledge of it so I can't move on because I don't know so you got this you haven't it probably has it y'all tell me about it you did but it hasn't been released by the league to us to register I'm keeping an eye thank you for it you're welcome commissioner burgess I want to thank everybody for coming we're working hard on these houses and new yards

People don't think we are, but we are. It takes a lot of time and a lot of work. You just can't go over to somebody's house and cut their grass. It doesn't work like that. There's a policy. The chief's on it. We're on it. Our manager's on it. We're going to get it done. It's just going to take a little bit of time. I want to thank Mr. English for the hard work he's been putting in. And the glory. Remember what all this stuff was going through? I want to thank the Mayor also. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Commissioner Cooper? Thank you, Mayor. I did attend a meeting, a county meeting on the Area Agency on Aging. And I'll be bringing some of the programs they have to you. and hoping to make sure our people get taken care of. Now, I will say some of the programs do have waiting lists, but I do want to make sure that our senior citizens know what is available to them. So I will start, as we have more meetings, I'll start bringing that. And I did go out of town with New York and New Jersey. My son got his bachelor's degree, English degree, graduated making cum laude. And I also want to say, I don't have a problem with the beginning of life. But this is not how you work together. I don't hear from you at all.

I don't know about trips to the auditor. There's nothing about the trip or updates.

When that happens, everybody on this board should know that our manager and our board members went to see the auditor. again but we are we are one board so everything that happens falls on the whole board and there needs to be more working together just like i told you um focus group three deals with light and yet you are You are overstepping and using doing that. When I said it's focus group three, we need to do what we have together or just do away with the strategic plan.

You're not going to follow it.

I think it's disrespectful to everybody. If you read the strategic plan, whatever your group is, stay in your realm because this is ridiculous. We have to start working together.

Ms. Driebel. Okay, just to piggyback on what the mayor was saying earlier about this spring with the Spring Lake, we're looking at a defense community infrastructure grant. Thank you for the meetings you've been participating with me on. We are submitting that grant on June the 16th. So we have a process for the scope of work that will be submitted and looking forward to seeing what the outcome is. Several updates here, FEMA wastewater treatment plant project, looks like that is coming to a near completion. Looking forward to that. Regina Drive sewer project, that's another project that is actually, that street has been torn up long enough. It's time to get it cleaned up and completed. So within the next two weeks, first part of July, we should be paving that area out. Wow. PT? Okay. It's the type of view. Okay. The stormwater project looks like that is also another project that's anticipated to start early fall. So I'm looking forward to that as well. Our street paving projects, we have Antler Drive. That one is actually going to be starting to come up here. Lake Tree Drive and Duncan Street. So just some projects on the way to help improve our streets as well. That's pretty much the conclusion. I did get a report from our police chief, Chief John, and he mentioned that we had 906 calls for service across Spring Lake, 234 traffic stops, and our areas of concern are high, with high response. The services are speeding in our community. Traffic accidents, domestic violence, physical disturbance, as well as larceny and death. So I want to start looking at these on a monthly basis and seeing some reduction. And that's the opportunity for us to see how do we move forward from here.

For the police numbers, is that for the month or is that 900? Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Porter. I'm trying to remember the last time we had a meeting. Long story short, the only thing I have is on the foreclosure on SLPA from what we bought the note from Truist. The last update I got from the Hutchins Law firm, which was about two and a half to three weeks ago, was that they were taking service on SLPA. Long story short, if there's a corporate entity where no one's actually doing anything with it, you just serve the Secretary of State because all corporations are essentially the creation of the state. So to my knowledge, we don't have a hearing date yet on that, but they should be getting one more soon, maybe in the hundreds. law firm. It's a little hard to get a court date for certain types of things in June because the judges all go to conferences. They have to do training just like we all do. But they are working on that and we all survived a very long meeting. Thank you.

Thank you audience. Madam Clerk. No, I'm good. Thank you.

I'll just be off tomorrow.

But she'll be available by phone and video. Or text. Okay. If that is all, then this meeting is now adjourned.