Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Oh, wow. You're absolutely right. Good evening everyone. The time is now 6 p.m. and the Spring Lake Board of Commissioners work session is now called to order. I do ask that you silence your cell phones uh and please keep all sides of our conversation to a minimum. Um and I would I would like to ask you to stand and join us for our invocation and pledge of allegiance if you choose to led by pastor Marsh let us know your place of worship and yes location. Yes ma'am.

Let us bow. Dearly father we thank you. We praise you oh God for another day of opportunity to render praise and honor to your name. God, we come, God, as a town, oh God, collectively together, asking for your blessings and your grace to be upon, oh God, the town of Spring Lake. We ask, oh God, all things be done peace and order. God, we pray that all the things that are on the docket, oh God, for tonight, God, be hatched out and uh, you know, just allow to be done according to your will. Uh, Father God, we thank you, God, for uh, this town. We ask, oh God, continue to bless the sheriff department, the fire department, oh God, the EMS workers, oh Lord, and all of the the town workers. Oh Lord, we ask that you keep uh town safe uh without hurt harm or danger. Father God, we ask you God your continued blessings over the town of Spring Lake. Uh and God, we just ask your choices blessings. In Jesus name we ask and we pray. Amen.

Amen. Uh pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Yes, my name is Vernon Marsh, Pastor Red Cross of Praise where I'm at located at 112. Love to have you come out and worship with me at any time. Thank you, sir. I will now call for additional delications to the agenda. Mayor Pro.

Thank you, Mayor. Um I wanted to um found enforcement. Okay. Any other additions, resolutions? Hearing none, I'll call for a motion to approve the agendas. Anybody? Commissioner Lman. May I make a motion to approve the agenda? Mayor second. Any discussion? All in favor?

Motion carries. I'll now uh enter a motion to approve the consent item to draft minutes of the October 13th, 2025 regular meeting. uh minimum housing appeals board uh reappoint application for Miss Katrina Brader and resolution 202515 by the time of spring lake board of commissioners accepting the 2023 appropriations act directed project grant offer for the M street and street sewer rehabilitation and our quarterly reports commissioner second commissioner second uh

discussion Um, so I did want to thank the staff for making that quarterly report a lot more legible. Um, it's much more easier to read and I appreciate uh the information. So this is sent out with the agenda. So I do go back to town and read through our quality reports just a bit of what's happening with the staff. These come out every quarter and a grant for Regina and I know that's been a long time coming. So, I'm super excited to see that we are making more progress on our storm water systems. Commissioner Plazios.

Thank you, Mayor. So, if you haven't if you haven't seen the quarterly report, I echo the mayor on that. You can review that. That's for every stakeholder here in the town of Spring Lake. Um, and you know, I wanted to draw attention to that quarterly report because, uh, part of that is update from the police department. As we know, the police department had been um called to a scene. All our first responders were called to the scene at FTCC uh last in the last couple of weeks for what ended up being a non-event, but it was an event nonetheless. And they put their lives on the line not knowing what they were going into. And so I just commend the police department for that as well as our fire department, everyone that showed up on scene. And as I reviewed this report for the police department for the quarterly report, uh what's great about this is you can see the increase in crime and the decrease in crime. That's excellent. I think that's important for us to know um so we can stay vigilant as citizens. As well as um want to draw attention to the average response time. So July, August, and September, the response time for crimes or calls, I should say, calls continue to tick up uh indicating that we're having slower and slower response time to calls. And so the point of me isn't to draw criticism to this, but it's draw attention to it. Um what is causing lower response times? You know, personnel probably, you know, um other crimes, you know, or calls that are taking up time, but response times, of course, can sometimes be a life or death situation.

And so, pointing that out today again isn't to draw any criticism, but to draw concern there. I just want to, and this could be I don't know, but um I think weather potentially played a factor in slower response times. I know we're getting more deeper into the rainy season when we're looking September is a bit more. So I was thinking maybe weather could be a factor in that. That was something that caught my attention to how the it incrementally went up every month. So that's again something to to [cough] m

I just want to say that I agree with draw attention but I know like two months ago another resident had the same issue about response time and hopefully we'll into this situation to make sure that we're um aware of our citizens and address the needs of the citizens.

Now, all in favor? I motion carries to approve the consent items. We are moving on to public comments. We have a few. Please note that um the commissioners will not be able to respond during public comments. Each comment will be limited to three minutes and you will have a indicator on the screen above letting you know u the time frame you have left. We will begin with with Lynette McNeel our arts program for recreation. Oh wow. Good evening everyone.

My name is Lynette McNeil and we're um we're doing the We just started our art explosion. Pull the mic a little closer.

Can you hear me now? Is that better? Not very well. Can you hear me now?

Okay. So, we just started our arts program at Spring Lake Recreation Center. We do the after school meals and snacks. They're at the center. And we also do it for Spring Lake Middle. And we do it for Cumberland County, Robinson County, Carsboro County, Greensboro, um pretty much a lot of counties in North Carolina. So with the after school meals and snack program, it's a partnership with the state of North Carolina and USDA. And what it does, it gives the kids free after school meals and snacks. It's just like an extension of the lunch program, but you have to think once kids leave school, they haven't had a bill since like 10:00. So when we get that data, they send us out. We usually are in the office looking at the data, but we get these numbers from police stations. We get it from DSS. And when that happens, we come out, we set up, and we bring all kind of nutritious meals. It's the It's the five component

[clears throat]

the fruits, the vegetables, the meal, and we're starting the program over well, we've been doing the meals for parents make for about over 6 months over there. So, it's been going relatively good, but we're adding more programs in the art program. There's no art program here for the kids. This is something that they highly request over there a lot. So, that starts tomorrow. So, we're just trying to get attention to the program. We do community feeding as well for the Spring Lake area. So, we have two sites here. That's the middle school and that's a recreation center. And we're working with Manchester and WT Brown to make sure that the parents know that they can come to the center. And in some cases like the bad weather, we also can deliver meals to the home, especially what's happening now with [cough] with food insecurities. and Spring Lake is a food desert in the needs um and the university program. So that means many kids and many citizens go without the vital needs of nutrition in this area. So I have information after I printed out some information on the program. So if anyone's interested in it, thank you so much. You're welcome. Uh next is John Roy.

[clears throat] Good evening. I have a picture I'd like to May I approach? Yes. Can you state your name and address? Oh, yes. I'm sorry. My name is John Roy. Um I'm new here to the town and I'm here with my wife Holly. And your address? Uh yes. We live in Lexington Plantation 154 C Pepper. Okay. Thank you. [clears throat] Thank you, sir. Sorry.

Okay. Thank you for allowing us the time to speak to you. I'm John Roy. I'm joined by my wife Holly. I recently retired for the third time at age 77, but I need something extra to earn some extra income. We decided on a nice thrift store with an with affordable quality merchandise. We looked everywhere in Spring Lake area to rent building with everything out of our price range until finding the perfect place size and pricewise only to be disappointed finding out that after putting over $5,000 in this that the area had been reszoned in 2014 that does not allow the type of business we hope to open. The owner of the building was not aware of this change as well as many other people we have spoke with. We have over 20,000 new and used DVDs, furniture, and other household items. If we have to move, it would cost us great financial hardship in addition to the lost revenue to the town and our landlord towards income to pay towards his property taxes, which he has went to great expense cleaning up and remodeling his building. With all the empty buildings in downtown area, we were hoping this would be the start of other businesses wanting to come here [clears throat] like downtown Cameron with its antique district in downtown Fagville with mixeduse businesses. We appreciate your attempted bring inventory to us with your first Friday event as Fazville does with its fourth Friday event. If we had more shops for visitors on that day willing to open their doors, people would come back. Like the old saying in the movies, if you build they'll come. So, we're asking you to please consider and allow us to open in your city and rewrite the zoning laws in this election year and bring the town back to the life creating jobs and tax income. Thank you for your time.

Can you give me the address for uh North Main? Yep. And we're actually 110. Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much. Okay, my name is 74 104 right here for over 40 years. And I would like to say this, we need more police. We need more. We need more police in this town. We don't have enough and we need more. Okay, that's one. The other thing is, and I'm about fed up with the the roads, they need to be fixed. I see so many people once you get across that bridge going on that bridge going to port going on to P they can't see the lines and so they're on the other person's side and then when they realize then they move over or they're too close to the ones that are going on to post and then have to move over and that needs to be taken care of as soon as possible. as soon as possible. And the other thing is emergency and I heard heard you talking about that. We need to make sure that when anybody needs an emergency vehicle, they need to be there. They need to be with us. If I get sick, I don't want somebody waiting no hour

before they get to my house. And that includes everybody here in Spring Lake. And I'm serious about that. We should not be waiting no 30 minutes before an ambulance gets to the house. It doesn't make sense. So we need to take care of that. You know, we've been living here long enough. We didn't have that problem before. People were there and waiting and taking care of what needs to be taken care of. When my husband got sick, they were there no sooner than I got off the phone. They were there taking care of my husband. And that's the way it should be. We also need transportation for these people that don't have transportation. And I'm serious about all of that. And I do that, Mr. Black. Thank you,

Mr. Nathan Bell.

Yes, sir. First, I want to thank the board for allowing me to speak with you. I'm the owner of the building that President John has ready. And let me back up. There's something about it. When I first bought the building there, 110 112, I paid $150,000 for it. Paid cash for it. Come to find out that I had all kind of problems. It seemed like the sitter didn't want me in there. I had to take down all this stuff here. Every sheet of it. They want to see what was up there. What did they think was up there? I call my teammates and ask them, "And if I don't have an appointment Saturday, I need you to to come to the office where we going to have a new office. I need your help." By 25 or 30 men showed up, two women. We had to take all that stuff down, every sheet of it t so somebody could look up there and see what was up there. I don't know what the heck they were looking for. Okay, we did it. Then we had to put it back up there. Okay, it seemed to me like they were doing everything they could to sit at the town to keep me from one of those buildings. There was so much junk on the inside of those buildings. 110

112 was all that bad. But there was so much junk on the inside of the building. That building I put another call out to my teammates. I need your help. And I had child driving in 150 miles [clears throat] away to help us clean that place up. When we got through cleaning that place off, we had so much junk in the back in the attic. So I called my young man to come and move it for me. He told me $300 to move it for. Unbelievable. And since spring lake is so proud of the city, don't want certain things downtown. I don't understand that. I also don't understand the sidewalks that go down in front of my building. In front of my building is okay. [clears throat] But down north of my building, build restaurants, there's a disgrace what people have to walk in going into restaurants, you know, and I know they had to see it, you know. And uh also when I bought my building, they told me that I had to have 18 parking spaces. 18. I only had four that went with the building. I found this out after I spent my $150,000. Okay. So, I had to find more parking space and I couldn't use the parking spaces across the street.

Mr. B, nobody parks over there. It will blank all the time. Mr. B, your [clears throat] time is up. My time is up. Yes, sir. Thank you. No. Okay. I didn't say I didn't say nothing about that. You can always come back. next meeting. Well, it might be too late. Thank you, sir.

Why don't you tell me to talk first? I will now move on to agenda item 7A, planning and development for NCGS 160D for extraterial jurisdiction uh presentation. Mr. Rory [clears throat]

that is me. So this is another topic worthy of conversation especially as it relates to relates to even some of the comments tonight in regards to what planning and zoning and development looks like in and around. So um commonly it's referred to as our municipal influence area but there is no statutory provision that talks about a municipal influence area. This is just a carryover from the past but it's commonly known now as municipal extr territorial jurisdiction or ETJ. So keep that in mind as we we go back and forth between those two terms or those two um abbreviations MIA and ETJ. We're talking about the same thing, but there are some subtle differences in the fact that the statue hasn't been updated.

Um, excuse me. Can that be repaired? Can you fix that? We can't answer questions. The screen. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Sorry about that. That's all right.

All right. So, let's back up for a second. What you see is an email um dated March 4th, 2025 um that's come to uh Patricia the patches submitted preliminary plan that is within the Spring Lake MIA. The subdivision is provoke proposing 95 lots with seven proposed public roads being within this is why it's underlined being within the MIA of Spring Lake because the town of Spring Lake anticipate adopting the proposed roads and the dedication of recreation space. It is not abuing the town limits. Just an FYI. And additionally, would the town require annexation? Um, I'll come back to that. I just want you to keep that in mind. This is a development with 95 blocks and seven proposed public roads that do not abut the town of Spring Lake. So, why are we having this conversation? It's because of this whole concept of extr territorial jurisdiction where we can apply our zoning and our subdivision regulations or this MIA that you commonly hear referred to. Um, forgive me once again for reading to you. The above project is located along Johnson Farm Law Brook Road along the outer edge of the Spring Lake MIA. Per the MIA, sidewalks are required on one side of the road. This project is not located near the town city limits. I understand from Richard Fagen that the town decided several months ago that they were not going to take over the streets. We're not annexing the property into the town. Please confirm that the town intends to take over and maintain the sidewalks within the development. The streets are riven pavement with ditches and sidewalk is not conducive to this type of development. Please contact me with any questions. So, if you're

wrapping your head around this thought process, we're being um asking our opinion and asking to take over seven public roads in a subdivision that's not even near the town city limits. All of you will be very aware of what my response will be. No.

All right. We got enough roads that we need to fix right now. Why would she why would we make our community poor by annexing a 95 watt subdivision outside of our city limits? We need to be fixing what we got in here. So, keep that in mind as we keep talking about these things. Uh this is just an overview map of the Cumberland County. You'll notice up in the left hand corner what is northern Cumberland County. In pink is Spring Lake, green is Fatville. Um all the rest is here up bills then east and so forth and so on. Um but the the tan areas are unincorporated Cumberland County in the sense that they're not part of a municipal limits. They're not part of city limits. Blow it up a little bit. You'll note here that the pink is still Spring Lake, but now all of the light blue is what shows up on the county GIS as Spring Lakes, MIA, or what we should refer to as extr territorial irrigation. Notice that there are several blue spots surrounded by pink. These are donut holes that are not part of Spring Lake, the town of Spring Lake. Note that one of them um is along the Manchester Road area. We typically refer to that as SLPA property. Another one is Bragg Estates out 690. Um and then there's another one right smack dab in the middle of town or two of them in particular is and this is important to grasp. One of them is the gun shop on Rag Boulevard. Believe it or not, that is not inside the town for a city municipal limit. They pay zero taxes to fix roads, zero

taxes to take fire protection, zero taxes, taxes that have police protection, but they're expecting that service even though they don't pay for it. Another one is Mcneel Street. If you get on McNeil on the other side of town, you'll drive down a little portion that's in Spring Lake. Then you'll go to a portion that's not in Spring Lake, that's in Cumberland County, and then you'll come back into another portion that's in Spring Lake. The portion that is in Cumberland County typically becomes an illegal dump site on McNeil Street. This is very important to understand because not being uh critical of Cumberland County, but they don't come out there and force codes to clean up those sites inside or surrounded by Spring Lake. The expectation is for us to do it, not for the county to do it. You see that little red square up there? That is the property we were talking about in this first email. That little red square, look how far out or away it is from pink of the town of Spring Lake, but it's in our MIA, our municipal influence area, or what we should define as our extr territorial jurisdiction. Here's another rendering of that. Notice all the blue, it just blows it up a little bit. There's a red circle um that shows that area. Once again, see all the blue to the left our MIA, but it's not yellow. It's not in spring lake. It's surrounded, but it's not in spring lake. Where's this going? Chapter 42 of our zoning ordinance says that on and after effective date of this chapter, these regulations shall govern the use of all lands lying within the town's planning and development regulation jurisdiction, town of Spring

Lake corporate limits and extr territorial jurisdiction, ETJ. So what applies in that blue area? What doesn't apply in that blue area? We can apply our code enforcement, junk files, weeds in our ETJ. We don't enforce the codes, but we can apply our zoning uh some of our police powers in regards to the regulations and subdivision. But it even gets a little bit more interesting than that because now here's another component. You got to wrap your thought around this even though it's kind of a separate pushing in the clutch and changing gears. And I'm going to talk to you about the municipal fire limits. Under the statute 160D1 1128, you'll see that uh towns are required to establish municipal fire limits. That is not our fire district. All right? It is a specific specified area and in that area you're not supposed to build wooden buildings. Got to go back to great Chicago fire to go Wisconsin or any of these places. here lately here lately. I think there's been some things done like surf seed or something where you have this rapid fire spread. Um and you'll note there no frame or wood building or structure. Most towns all right establish their m municipal fire limits as their central business district i.e. known as uptown downtown main street. Are you following? So, as you see a building come down on Main Street, if it was established that that was our municipal fire limits, which we have not done, by the way, okay, we would end up not allowing wooden structures in that area. So, you got to wrap your thought around here. Here's

160D that says we're supposed to do something, but we haven't done it. So, we need to follow that through with this and move forward adoption. adopted through primary fire limits um within the the town of Spring Lake. All right, pushing the clutch going back now. Going back in reverse. We're going to talk about this municipal extatorial jurisdiction. This is why I brought up McNeil Street where we can't take and apply code enforcement to this illegal dump site because we don't have the authority to do code enforcement under the general statutes as it relates to our ETJ. We can only do it in our city limits. ETJs are established by statutes for cities and you see it goes through here. Depending upon what your population is, you can go a mile, more population, you go two miles. Cities have an interest in development in and around their area because the thought process is that eventually that area will be annexed and therefore when you annex it uh and it becomes part of the city limits, you're also annexing all of those problems in and the development and things that they've done. A critical point to bring up about that is uh things like storm water regulations and pipes. You know, you might be able to take into a storm water type CMP out there that last 25 years or you could take it and pay a higher cost into a storm water pipe that lasts 50 years. If we were going to annex, we would want to make sure that the roads were built to a DT standard. They weren't dirt with an inch of asphalt on them. We want to make sure that the storm water pipes are built to a standard to give us longevity and get a return on that and so we're not having to take this life cycle cost associated with annotation. That's what applies when we start talking about ETJs and the limit is based on the statute in terms of a mile or two miles or whatever it

may be. However, C says county approval of city jurisdiction notwithstanding subsection A that that section that talked about distances and population. Um, no city may extends this extra territory powers into any area for which the county has adopted as and is enforcing county zoning and subdivision regulation. However, the city may do so where the county is not exercising both of these powers or when the city and the county have agreed upon the area within which uh each will exercise the powers to bird by his chapter. Though city may extend those powers beyond one mile from its limits without the approval of the board or boards of county commissioners with jurisdiction over the area. I can find nowhere other than an adopted map that shows a light blue color or a GIS. I can find nowhere in the minutes, nowhere in our structure where we have an officially adopted municipal extr territorial jurisdiction. Period. Period. So now, does it mean it doesn't exist? No. Just means I can't find it.

So if we can't find it and we make assumption that it doesn't exist. What do we need to do? We need to adopt it. We need to get it corrected. We need to officially make make it happen. And then then of course that code personal question as it applies to that. So we need an ETJ that we can exercise our police powers in terms of zoning uh subdivision regulations or whatever it may be um outside of the city limits. But it has to be approved and it has to be agreed upon. Not by just drawing something on that. Okay? It has to be something that is officially done and I can't find any record of that or at least clerk. [clears throat] Sorry, just a little. So, basically, if you look at all of that blue area, how far out do we go?

Not that far. All right. Now, I know you can't really see this, but if you see up there, that little section in blue that looks like a subdivision. Yeah. Mouse to it. I'm sorry. That's okay. It's all right. Yeah. Pick that and then just mouse put your pointer on it up there in that right corner. See all that subdivision up there?

We had nothing to do with this development yet. There it is. All right. Um about six months, eight months, I'm not even sure the time it seems to fly. We were approached about annexing a strip of land uh basically straight across the street from Manchester um Millington up above uh what was then the Manchester Fire Station. This board uh did not move forward on annexing that property. Therefore, they had to go to the county for get this reszoning that property to allow a specific uh use and occupancy of that property. So, I inquired, well, if it's in our ETJ or our MIA, why isn't the board of commissioners for the town of Spring Lake hearing this case?

You didn't hear it.

All right. So, one day is ETJ and MIA. The next day it's not. We do not have any official um documents other than maybe a handshake from 800 years ago. Who knows how long it is how long it's been. So the corrective action is to go back now and actually officially adopt this and get county approval. Um because if you don't um you have no control over that development and without control over that development on your borders, you're losing things to like connection to your sewer system, to your water system where it comes from. these things that are going to impact you um because they can restrain growth inside your city limits if you give away your resources to outside the city limits. You just simply can't do it. All right? You don't have the resources to give away. Um here's another ETJ MIA. I think I finished with that one if I'm not sure. It just shows you those uh the the tan areas surrounded by the pink area. All of the pink area is the town of Spring Lake. All the tan area are Cumberland County. And notice that we have completely surrounded some of those, but they are not in the town of Spring Lake. So, um two components to think about when it comes to ETJ. One of the primary arguments about uh having applying your police power in this case zoning or subs regulations outside your city limits is um that applies if people don't have representation. They don't get to elect people inside the city limits. Um so they you know the argument that's been struck struck struck by many times um talking about the fact that yes that may be true but there's other ways for them to do that. Um and then second uh you

know we're dealing with these issues related to uh response and doing different things and associated things. Um the the bottom line is um in some of these areas you either need to annex them or just simply do not provide any services for it. Just comes down to that. All right. We can't. Um, and I'm gonna pick on the fire department here just because I don't see the chief here. Um, he is at a meeting tonight. And so, one of the things that we're concerned with is we tax everybody in the town of Spring Lake. Um, if I remember correctly last time I done the math, roughly 31 or 32 cents of our tax rate goes just to the fire department. So if everybody inside Spring Lake is paying 31 cents of their tax just for fire department, it is unconscionable to me to have them do twice as much and then send them out of our city limits for free.

It just makes zero sense to me. And so, um, it doesn't matter how it happens, how you know what what's going to do, but you got to be thinking of that because all you're doing is when you send those resources out of town, you are weakening your response capacity internally inside the city limits and those are the folks that are paying for, not those that are outside. And so, um, that's a concern and something we have to focus on. Um, with that, what's the ask? Um I expect um that we should have a followup and officially move. One of two things should happen. We should not be obaining on any development outside the town of Spring Lake. Period. Until such time as we have the statutory authority as agreed upon between Cumberland County and the town of Spring Lake that clearly establishes those boundaries of ETJ. Um, and second to that, we can't do it with code enforcement. So, you got to recognize that you're going to ride through town and you're going to see this and you're going to see that, but you may not be in town and we may not have the power to do anything about it. Then, we're going to have conversations about um, are we going to take over the streets two miles away? No, that's not a hard choice. No, we're not going to do it. We're not going to debate it. Are we going to fix the sidewalks two miles away? No. you know, we need to fix the ones here now. I get it. I understand. That's all the stuff related to ETJ. But a lot of this is because this is what we've done now. And what I saying 100% accurate, maybe not. Maybe we have a an adopted. I can't find it. So, the only thing I know to remedy that is to make sure that we dust that off and get it squared away

now into the future. So we don't have to keep having those questions. So why would you have something that says it's in the MIA ETJ but then it's heard by the county and you have no decision making on it. That's my takeaway. I think moving forward I wanted to update you on this because we're talking about a lot of provisions related to code enforcement in town planning and zoning building height main street overlay districts. all of these things that are functioning in our four focus groups and this is just another scratch, you know, this is just another itch that we got to deal with. It's it's a lot of stuff. So, with that, um there's no ask, just know that more will come.

So, should there be an ask that we at least do maybe a draft ETJ um so that we can see what our boundaries potentially look like just to kind of get ahead of what's happening with the county or if we Yes. And I would suggest that they be limited to one mile. Absolutely. Well, we're statuto.

I thought it was 25. Um, but if we could go ahead and give staff consent to move forward with drafting doing a draft ETJ um ahead of the county. Is that okay? We need to do a vote. No, we can let's go ahead and do a vote. This consent can get a little wonky. Um, so I understand a motion to allow staff to move forward with creating a draft draft ETJ um ahead of meeting with the county or establishing if we actually have one.

So moved. Um, Commissioner Pio, sorry. Any discussion? May just for clarification, what focus group is this going to? Do you know what focus group is going? Yours, Commissioner,

Mr. Rory, thank you very much for for looking into this. I can I can see and understand that there's going to be lots of communication back and forth and concerns not only from the county but also from us but this is something I guess that has been overlooked for quite some time and needs to be addressed and thank you and the staff for for looking into this and let's kind of look forward with this and see what we And so just something to be aware of, there is legislation right now um being presented to um remove control of promote municipality their control over ETJs. Um it's stalled right now in committee. Uh but there is legislation right now debating this uh exact issue. So if we're going to move, I suggest we move now before our powers are if they are removed. Just something to be aware of. Commissioners,

thank you. Yeah, I agree. We need to have something in writing that we can all understand regarding the ETJs. Um, and then I just wanted to get clarification. So, that parcel of land that we denied a couple months ago, we largely, it was denied, but we largely denied it because we wanted to ensure that we didn't have to run water and sewer to that property. Um, and with them going to the county and the county whether or not it comes back to us, even if they approve that, it still wouldn't have what we the reason we declined that was we still wouldn't have to go run water and sewers, [clears throat] right?

That's correct. Okay. All right. And in that example that you gave us with the streets for that that development, if we do not annex that property, we do not have to maintain those streets. Correct. Okay. So, all right. It's it's my position that we should not be annexing maintenance liabilities. If we chose to do that though for some reason, uh developmental fees that we talked about before play a factor into that as well.

That that is underway right now. We're expecting to have some type of final report for this board to look at for January in terms of development fees, system development fees. Um it just takes time to do it because you have to dodge your eyes and cross your tees. There's all kinds of impact stuff associated with that in terms of the legislation. Would that play into annex properties as well? For instance, that 95 lot property. Yes. Keep keep in mind that nobody um nobody has a right to annexation, but they have the expectation for zoning. So nothing says you have to annex them. So when you have annexation, you can have these things in terms of what the zoning is going to be, but you don't have the exceptions. Um, and so yes, if it is a development and you annex them to those development fees, that's part of the key thing that they have to apply equally to all. You can't just pick and choose when you're going to do it. That's why we're having to get these things written out to make sure that they um are correct instead of what we have a fee schedule that says we have them out there. And then lastly, first responders. So we currently I don't know if it's just the fire only but we don't have an automatic mutual aid agreement right now. We have mutual aid agreements with our surrounding departments that provide mutual aid. We do not have an automatic aid. There are two different things. Automatic aid means that we provide services on behalf for the other department.

There's a motion on the floor. So I don't want to get too far away from this is all in regards to that. Uh so okay we don't automatically go through the process of the mutual aid is what I was trying to get an answer to. Mutual aid there is no auto mutual aid. That's correct. Mutual aid is a mutual request. Auto aid means that anytime there's a dispatch you respond and you do it on behalf of the department that can't provide those services. All in favor motion here.

We are now on to our new basis and we will begin with the mayor's report. Um few things that happened. Um lots of meetings, lots of junk tanks deal with the fun stuff. Um, I definitely want to thank um, First Baptist and Pastor England for inviting me out to their fall event. Um, I'd like to make sure we send a special shout out to uh, Lieutenant Sutton who took it upon himself to dump me multiple times [laughter] with a big smile on his face. So, thank you. Appreciate it. It was a really, really good time and they made sure the water was warm, so it wasn't that bad. haven't had a whole lot of fun. Um, also got a chance to go to the Fifth Lake Ribbon Cousins. So, we have a lot of new developments happening around town. Um, if you haven't had a chance to drive down Fifth Street to see um the new uh town houses, they are gorgeous. Um, and they are setting a new standard for what we are expecting developments to look like in Spring Lake. Um, so please stop by and see it. Uh, we had our growth group four meeting. This is economic development. um good turnout, good talks. Um we are garnering a lot of excitement around uh redevelopment and economic development here in the town. Uh and so I'm looking forward to uh continuing these meetings and uh hearing some great feedback from our residents. Um that is going to be instrumental in the development of our town, the continued development of our town. Um, I also had a chance, the mayors of Cumberland County had a chance to sit with Congressman Rouser and we had a chance to talk um about regional infrastructure. Um, how the federal fund if we can receive federal funding um to help our county. What we did learn is

that the same sentiment is coming from every municipality. Uh, and one of our biggest issues right now is water infrastructure and a regionalized water source. Um so he that's something that he is going to take back to our federal delegation and hopefully we'll get some good news from them. Also attended the fast stakeholders meeting. This is the second feasibility study meeting where we are discussing um additional outpost for fast transit system. Um they're proposing three locations being one being spring lake. Uh the other two are Hope Mills and Gillis Creek or excuse me Gillis Road area. Um and so uh we've had a chance to really really uh let them know that Spring Lake is ready uh and we want transportation here and we're willing to work with them to see how we can um provide some transportation to our community to the other municipalities. be it um the bus station itself or something that is more likely which would be kind of a park and ride for us um and a transit service that will take us to one of the other um depots where they disperse. So uh we'll have another meeting coming up here soon, but just know that Spring Lake is uh at the table during the conversations about bringing transportation back to our community. Um, Commissioner uh, excuse me, Chairman Debier did an amazing briefing um, on the federal shutdown that is on his social media pages. It's also on the Cumberland County website. So, um, I highly encourage you to watch that as he lets us know how this federal shutdown can potentially affect Cumberland County um, and municipalities. Uh this weekend I had the chance to uh meet up with our UNCC Chapel Hill grads who are doing the feasibility study on

Lilian Black. Uh we got to actually go and walk through Lilian Black and they were excited with just the data that we provided them. But taking them inside and to see these young minds just blossom. They are so excited about what um is going to come from this. uh they've gathered tons of data and they are really really really excited about uh this project. I was actually speaking to uh some other electives and they brought it to me that uh they're hearing about what's happening with Lilian Black. So um it's very it's a very unique and perfect opportunity for what they're doing. So I can't wait to see uh what comes from that. We should be hearing back from them or hearing their full presentation in the next few weeks. They have invited us down to Chapel Hill um to attend their presentation, but I've also invited them here um so that they can go on record at the time and we can hear directly from them what's happening with Lilian Black. Um lunch with the mayor is on 10:29 12:00 p.m. at Aloha and that's right next to uh REA, my absolute favorite place in Spring Lake. So please come out and join me. Um, and remember that early voting ends on the 1st of November. There are three locations, uh, Fountain Head Lane in Fagville, the Quantis Rec Center, and the Clifdale Rec Center. [clears throat] Um, you can still register to vote during the early voting. Um, but after that, you will not be able to register and vote. Um, and election day is on the 4th of November, right across the street at the rec center. So, um, that is all I have and I will continue to report.

Thank you. Um, so, uh, I have a few things. First, uh, I've worked with, um, I've been working with, um, Second Harvest, and there's going to be a food distribution at Milda Park on November 6th. Um, if you would like to volunteer, they're asking that you show up at 8 a.m. Uh, and they'll start around 9:00. Uh, second focus group three, which is 9, will be meeting on October 29th. Everyone is welcome to come and we will be talking discussing the Main Street Overlay District as well as our 160B because we know there's a lot of work we need to do there. Uh last Thursday I went to Chapla Hill and attended a affordable housing seminar and um learned a lot about some of the constraints with uh afford affordable housing and some of the um some things we can do to get more of here. Um, and then also, uh, as far as the shutdown, if you know anybody in the uh, the United Way has done a really good job of updating the NC211 because like a month ago, I looked at it and there were there were all kinds of um, defunct nonprofits in there, but when they put it out there uh, uh, during um, Deier's updates that that list have been cleaned up quite a bit. Um so if you know anybody in need in North Carolina has 211 and they can offer all kinds of um assistance. And uh for my last name, uh a close family friend of mine and a really great um

tribute to our committee, Miss Amy McCrae Jenkins passed away this past weekend. I'm not sure what your arrangements will be. Um but please keep her family in your thoughts and prayers. Um I just want to tag on to what mayor protein was saying about um making sure that we are helping with these food drives because if you're not aware that um SNAP benefits and wick benefits will be paused on the 1st of November um and you just heard how lake is a food desert. So we really need all hands on deck to be um aware and reaching out to as many resources as you can so that we can try to close that gap. Um the town will not be able to do it all. So, we we need community partners. We need our citizens. If you have connections to a nonprofit, if you're part of a nonprofit, our church families, we need your help. Um because we know that we have um a high number of people who receive SNAP and WIC benefits in our community. Um and there will be a shortage um you know, just in a matter of days. So, please um reach out and help us help our community.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh just want to put out there we got clean up this Saturday 8:00 a.m. meet at Southland Plaza. Go out and clean up town Spring Lake. My last official cleanup for the town. So, just want to put that out there. Uh impact meeting is tomorrow night, 6:30 p.m. right here in this room. If we got anybody that would like to attend and participate, we got the impact meeting tomorrow night. We do have one opening. We still have one opening for the impact. Friday, November 7th, we've got the Veterans Day event that's going to take place over at Veterans Park. All are welcome to attend. Speaking of food, on Thanksgiving, Operation Turkey, we will have approximately 1,000 meals that will be able to be handed out. Uh we will be right here in the boardroom. People can come here, pick up a meal, or we do have delivery. Um, we've got people that are willing to to participate and deliver the meals. So, uh, please get with us on that so we can ensure that everyone has a meal on Thanksgiving

and they can sign up on the website, our food website to receive a meal. Yes, absolutely. And lastly, focus group one is going to be Thursday here and discuss water and waste water here. So, uh, town is moving along with a lot of events, a lot of things going on this month. So, thank you, mayor.

Thank you, mayor. All right. So, we have our municipal arts allocation that's granted to us or given to us rather by the county arts council and we appreciate them for that uh money that they're able to provide. So, we get murals up, art, um, and obviously do everything we can to increase pride here in the town. And so, we've been able to put up some murals. We also have a mini grant that was awarded to the town. We bought a sc art art sculpture. Uh we got approval from the local DOT and that's going up to the stage. [clears throat] So we should get final approval on that here shortly to place that uh and hopefully in the next coming weeks. So John over there is really smile in his side for a while. Uh so when that time comes, we will out a invitation to the entire town to show up for that dedication because that'll be an exciting moment to have our first art sculpture here in town and we have our award that was given to the town for $4,000 and we're seeking public input on what to do with that money. So, we have a survey that is available on our town website as well as our Facebook page uh so that you can give your input on what you want that money to go towards. Of course, there are no guarantees, but we want community input uh so we can see the direction that the town wants. So, whether you're a citizen, a business owner, uh or you travel through town, we want to hear what you have to say. And uh right now we have around 30 input uh surveys completed. So we'd like to increase that number to represent our community. But that is again on our town website and on our Facebook page. Please share that information. Thank you. I forgot to mention First Friday uh is

still coming up on November 7th. And do not forget to download the Town of Spring Lake app. It's available on Apple and Android platforms. This is your way to be directly connect connected to the community and report any issues or concerns you may have. Um commissioner um the updates that I was going to share have already been shared by Mayor Tim. So I don't have any further updates at this time. M I didn't do anything the last meeting did. I don't make it up for lost time.

No, I'm not going to do that. keep it really simple. So over the past uh month, if you will, in the lack of a thing, one of the key things that we've talked about over and over again, and I want to make sure that we continue to keep it in front of us, is that without water, there is no growth. All right? So, we can talk about a lot of different things, but if we don't have water, then there is no growth. Limited growth, if you will, but no growth. So we got what I've been doing is reaching out to um LPWC regional trying to access more volume more capacity at Spring Lake. Now what does that look like in the future? I'm not sure. Um that is one of the things that we'll be talking about with the water um infrastructure group as well. And but keep in mind that just because we can get more or we may get more, we still need to be able to contain it.

So we still got this $80 million repair bill um that we need to focus on in terms of fixing our leaking water line, replacing our water lines. Um you look at the uh resolution tonight in regards to Virginia Max Street rehab project that's another $40 million. So all water and sewer is broke. We estimated they pay you million dollars. Um how do you fund it? How do you finance it over time? We can't borrow the money. We can't get enough grants to pay for it. Um we can't cash flow it. So basically we're going to continue to struggle. But we're going to keep trying to make sure that we have quality drinking water. Um, and we're putting it where it needs to be other than on the side of the streets in the ground.

That's right. That's just a simple update on it. Um, we just need to make sure that we're continued access to try to get more production, more capacity. Absolutely. Listen, after the I just saw our focus group meeting,

Mr. uh no grand details other than to say that uh this course is being by Mr. U but have been continuously working on the SLPA issue to wrap all of that up. Um I don't think that's going as fast as either one of us would like it, but it is going. So even if you don't always see uh specific updates from me or from him, just know that is still being pushed slowly down the field and we're trying big play on uh but we're getting there and people are employed to do that and then also um I hope something goes back up but it was really nice to see that structure down which I had nothing to do with that was all y'all so hats off that looks really it actually looks better just

just so you know he's referring to the uh demolition on main street yes I'm sorry but no that's But yeah, so I follow that people are asking what's coming and the answer is opportunity and possibility. So just keeping that in mind. Um if there are no further updates from the board, this meeting is now adjourned. Have a wonderful evening. Get home safely. Thank you for coming out.