Town Council - Regular Meeting

I'd call this June 1st, 2026 town council regular meeting to order. The council will be seeking to go into closed session pursuant to 143.318.11.A.6 to consider qualifications, confidence, performance, character, fitness, condition of employment, or condition of initial employment of an individual public officer or employee or prospective public officer or employee, or to hear or investigate a complaint, charge, or grievance by or against an individual public officer or employee. Do I have a motion for council to go into closed session?

I make a motion to council go into closed session.

Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye. Do I have a motion to come out of closed session?

I make a motion to come out of closed session.

Do I have a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. I'd like to welcome everybody out to the June 1st, 2026 meeting. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Remain standing for the prayer. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Pastor Kirby Whitley from High Praise Church will be coming up now to lead us in our prayer. He's not here? Okay. I'll lead us in. Everybody bow, please. Lord, thank you for this day, Lord. Thank you for all our citizens and our visitors. We pray that you put your hands of protection around us. We pray that you take these people that are in authority here, vested through the people here, to make the best decisions going forward, God. We just pray that you keep us all well, you make our minds work in the right ways, and do what's best for our town. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, Mayor. Very nice.

All right. Again, thank you all for coming out for our June 1st meeting. Does any member of council have a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest in regards to any item on the agenda? If so, please state at this time.

Mr. Mayor, I do. Go ahead. Item number 10-2 for the ORMA, the fence. I have family that works for that organization, so that's one. Okay. And then the other one is 15-3, the ground maintenance. In the past, I've used one of those vendors, and I would use those vendors again. And in the time frame of the length of this contract, there's a possibility I will use them again, so I don't want any perception of any type of conflict. Okay. Okay.

Anyone else?

Yes, I have a conflict with 15.8, the election dates. That could possibly personally affect me, so I need to recuse myself from my discussions as well as vote.

Well, I think there's three of us there. We'll go ahead and discuss that, but I think with three of us that it would affect, I think we definitely will. I expect each one of us to have something to say there.

I think Councilor Reggie did not discuss, not for me to, I asked to recuse myself totally. I don't think you should deliberate at all. That is the law that you should not deliberate at all on an item that you have a conflict of interest in.

Well, there's three of us that it could have possibly affected, so all three of us would be stepping back. I'm speaking for myself, but for you, I think that's what you were going to say too. Yep. How about you? You good on everything?

No, I don't have anything.

Okay. I'm good. Okay. All right. Coming out of closed session, as of June 30th, our planning service would have been up. We took applications, and after reviewing applications, we've authorized the town administrator to sign a contract with Anchor Point Planning, continuing as of July 1st, 2026 is when we'll be looking to go into this.

Anything else?

Approval of the draft agenda. Anyone got anything that needs to change? Do I have a motion to approve the draft agenda?

I make a motion to approve the draft agenda.

Do I have a second? Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. General counsel discussion. Individual counsel. Anybody got anything? Mr. Arnold?

I've got some information from GSTAT's meeting that I went to. Myself and Mr. Posdell went to that back on May 19th. And I'm just going to share some just general information with everyone. There really is one item that's kind of exclusive to our area, and we got some information on crash data. And one of the things they show in the crash data is two intersections in our community. And it's basically 904 at 179 and then again 904 at Sunset Boulevard. There's been accidents there over the last, this study shows for the last four years. And like for instance, that 179 and 904, if you're not familiar with the numbers, I use numbers, but that's where the circle K is. Anyway, there's been 50 crashes there between 20 and 24. And out of that, two of them were serious. The rest were not. At the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and 904, 16 crashes there. And the information received does not show that there were any serious crashes, just that there are crashes. So my point being, we live here, I'm sharing this with you, so just be on guard when you're going, if you're in those areas, and just be on the lookout. We don't know, for instance, like the turn lane that was installed a year and a half or two years ago, if that improved 179 and 904 and made the crash numbers go down. We don't have that information, but that's just some things to think about in regards to that. that's directly associated for things for Sunset Beach, us and Sunset Beach. There's some things that are outside that I just want to share with you, but you're probably going to be traveling around. If you're going up and down 17 between here and say like Chalot, both ends of Main Street where it meets 17, a good reference would be where you see Ashley Furniture at 17 and Main Street and then the other end of Main Street where like the Chick-fil-A is. There is intersection improvements in those locations. Just be on the lookout for people working and there's potential for lane closures and things of that nature. So just be on guard. Also, traveling up and down Hickman Road, if you're not familiar with Hickman Road, that's also Route 57. And basically from the state line back to 17, there are different repaving and improvements in those areas. And again, just be on guard for people being out there working. And one more thing I want to bring up is if you go to the NCDOT website, you can then click on a link to DMV. From the link from DMV, you can go and select what DMV office you want to go to, and it'll tell you the wait time. And what was reported to us was the wait times have increased, have gone down greatly, gone down. Five people starting to use that, seeing what the wait time is. And they're encouraging you, if you have business at DMV, to please do that to help you getting through that. GSTATS did approve the 904 study. that we voted on here last month, so did the planning board also approved it. So thank you very much for that. And I believe that's all I have. Mr. Posdell, do you have anything else? Nope. Okay. Good job. Sounds good. Christian, you got anything?

Mr. Mayor, I have a few things. I only have three. We had a town employee to retire. Her name is Cindy Nelson. I'm going to refer to her as a town employee because she has had so many roles and responsibilities with our town. And she's always been positive. She looks for ways to make Sunset Beach citizens happy. Her extensive experience spans decades. throughout all the departments, making her a very valuable asset to the town. She's a Sunset Beach treasure. I know that you all share in my thankfulness to her for her dedication and her professionalism. She has a lot of institutional knowledge. She's going to be sorely missed, and we just thank Cindy Nelson for her work. Second is on May 2nd, excuse me, May 9th, The Environmental Resource Committee, we call it the ERC, held their annual Green Wave. I'd like to thank our event coordinator, Amy Goodrich, and the ERC members for their hard work and coordination for all the vendors. Many of the booths had many meaningful events demonstrations to help out with the environment, which is what the ERC is to do. Just wanted to thank that committee for their hard work and due diligence for everything that they've done to make sure that it was great. It was the, I believe, the second one that we've had. And the third thing that I'd like to mention is I'd like to thank the committee for honoring Americans veterans. I think we call it CHAVE, but they had a nice Memorial Day program at our town park. So many people there. I wish to thank the committee for coordinating the event. Many of these committee volunteers are in our audience. Many of them have been town council members. They're very valuable to our community and I just wanted to say thank you to them. Also wanted to thank our Public Works Department for ensuring that the park is always clean as it was for this event. fire department for their role in the ceremony and also would like to thank the police department for keeping us safe like to thank the event coordinator to make sure everything was coordinated and like to thank our town administrator mr kramer for your leadership throughout all that yep i don't have anything okay thank you mr mayor i got one more yes um

This is for Public Works. Matt, this is one of your employees. I don't know which one employee it was, but we had a race here in town on a Saturday, maybe like the 10th of May or something. I'm sorry, April the 10th or 11th. But there was a citizen that found a hole in one of the numbered streets and was a little concerned that someone would probably get hurt if they stepped into it. And this is what she shared with me. As she was finding this, she suddenly realizes that there is a town employee from Public Works coming down the road. She stops him, tells the individual about it, and immediately went to work, made some phone calls. And within an hour, that problem was solved. And she was very satisfied and very complimentary on how quick we responded to it. The employees responded to it and the quality of work they did. So Matt, if you could please share that with your employees, I'd appreciate that very much. And that's all I have.

And just one other thing to add to it before we go forward. Please remember that we have started our summer concert series. We had a great crowd this week, great show. We have a possibility coming up this week. So there's going to be a lot of activities, a lot of time where our citizens can actually sit down beside each other and have a chance to meet each other. And I encourage each one of you to meet somebody new at these events so our town can become closer because it is a town where we're spread out and a lot of us come from different places. We don't know everybody, but this is one of the biggest opportunities in our town, I feel, that we can actually sit down and communicate with other people that live here that love this town like we do. Thank you all. We'll be heading on now to the public comments on agenda items. Anyone on agenda items only is welcome to come up. Please state your name and your address. I'll give you three minutes, but I'll be courteous with you if you're courteous with us. Anyone would like to speak, you're more than welcome to come up. Yes, sir.

I'll hear that, right? No. You know it. Okay. My name is Mike Hargraves. I live at 612 Deacon Court in Sunset Beach, here in Sunset Beach. I'm speaking today in regards to agenda item 15.9, the municipal election dates. Municipal election dates. 15.9 includes a proclamation to change Sunset Beach municipal elections from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years and to change the length of the mayoral term from two to four years. The current North Carolina statute for municipal elections was established in 1971 by the state legislature. Reasons for this change was to make municipal elections nonpartisan and to give more attention to local elections. That's the idea of what we do now. For all of us here, this has been our first time, it's been my first time, hearing about the proposed change put forth by staff. I think we would all agree that this is a major change. for our town, for our town citizens. I strongly believe that it is very important for the public to weigh in on this proposal. Our voters should be educated on the pros and cons of such a change and they should be allowed to express their opinion in a public hearing before any vote is taken by council. So that's a thought number one. Thought number two on 15.9 is my second concern with the proclamation is its cancellation of the regular schedule election in 2027 in order to make the transition to even years and make the change in mayoral term length. The resolution as written proposes canceling the 2027 elections and adding one year to the term of the current people sitting in the positions set to expire in 2027. Because the election of council members and mayor should be driven by voters, a more appropriate method would be to hold the 2027 election for the two council positions, and the mayor and educate the voters at that time that they're voting for people to be in these positions for five year terms only once They would vote in 2027 for a term to expire five years later in 2032. Beginning in 2032, the open seats would revert to four year terms. The current three council members that the people elected last fall that are sitting here today, sitting in a dais today, For four-year terms, their terms should expire in 2029, as originally stated. To facilitate the transition to even-year terms, these positions should expire in 2029, and at that time, the voters will decide who to elect to five-year terms and do that only once. Vote in 2029 for a term to expire five years later in 2034. But beginning in 2034, the open seats would revert to four-year terms. Election of town officials should be driven by the voters. Arbitrary extension of term limits, term lengths, as currently proposed, negates the role and the power of the voters. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hargreaves.

Anyone else on the agenda items?

Yes, sir.

John Corbett, 1313 Canal Drive. The first thing is just to support what Mike said. One, there's no way we can do even your elections and have them not be partisan. We would be affected by the national elections. His point on Having our current members extended for a year just kind of violates the election we went through. Our people were elected for a certain number of time. You know, as Mike proposed, extend the time out there. A little technical issue. If you didn't do that way, as council has pointed out, three of you would be have a conflict of interest and have to be excused and you wouldn't have a quorum. So we can't vote on that. So that's a complication there, too. Second item, UDO 10-1. I would recommend you pay attention to the experiences and expertise of our planning board members and the consultants that we have had. It appears going through the staff study that there's been no changes in that since the last meeting. I recommend that the attachment to be planning board recommendations, the clean version be adopted. Number 3, quick comment on item 15.2 biweekly pay. This has come up pretty quickly. I think it would be very important that you consult with the staff members and departments who would be affected by this since it directly hits their pay. Since we're talking about the pay, I just reiterate the point I made the last meeting that you dropped COLA. That's the cost of living allowance that is tied to the standard of inflation, to the inflation rate in the country and the standard of living that our members have. I really think you should put that back in. One way to do that. would be to take up to the 3% COLA, $162,000 and change, and take the money out of the $1.2 million that are in facilities maintenance and repairs that's there and roll that money in. That way you don't have to change the bottom line of the budget. you can make that decision fairly quickly and to be taking care of the town staff with a clear significant message of the concern we have for the people that work for us here in this town thank you thank you thank you mr corbett no one else on agenda items only

Hello, Mark Farrell, 1404 Canal. I want to talk about 10.1. So I recently retired as a technical leader at Ford Motor Company. What that is a fancy way of saying I was responsible for design implementation decisions about parts and systems that went on our vehicle. And the very first thing, as I assumed that level of responsibility, I figured out, you know what? I don't know everything. And when it was time to make a decision to move forward and put a part on a car that could potentially injure someone or cause myself to be in a court of law or put a... you know, onus on the company and put a risk on the company, the first thing that, as I would go back through and look at the design decision matrix was, did you consult experts? Okay. So here you talk about a UDO administrator. That's probably a similar civil position to maybe the position that I had at this corporate job that I had. A single individual, while they're responsible ultimately maybe for the decision, cannot possibly know that entire document in and out, have the experiences that individuals that are on the planning committee have. I mean, you've got some people here who are civil engineers and they have decades of experience. I couldn't ask them, I need to dig a ditch. I'm not looking it up and figuring it out myself. I know who to ask. So I guess what I'm saying here is I think it's a disservice to downplay the role and maybe even cut out the planning board's responsibility. looking at uh more eyes looking at a project so that all of a sudden when something pops up at the back of food line you're like what in the world is going on there there was more one than one person or a council that was involved in the in the decision so i'd really like uh i'd really like to keep it the way it is or with the planning board's recommendation for any amendments okay thank you thank you thank you mr farrell anyone else and adam's on

It's a bit hard.

Good evening, Chris Bauman for 1740th Street. I'm here to talk about three things very quickly, short and sweet. 14.1, business employee parking. Beach parking is beach access. Businesses either own or lease land and have parking spaces associated with it. Those businesses should decide how to use their own spaces for their customers' employees. Government should not be diverting limited public parking to solve a private business parking problem. 15.9 the portal if anonymous comments are creating extra work work for staff to review and research the town should consider eliminating the portal residents already have numerous ways to contact elected officials and town staff and meaningful public input is most effective when it comes with accountability No name, no accountability, zero credibility. If you stand behind your opinion, put your identity behind it like I'm doing now. 13.1, employee educational incentives. I thought only associate's degrees, bachelor's degrees, and master's degrees and up were discussed at the last budget meeting, but I could be wrong. I could have misunderstood. What exactly are intermediate and advanced certifications? Plus, this recommendation goes back to July 1st of 2025. How much is this going to cost? Hopefully someone can answer those questions when you do your deliberations. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bowman.

Anyone else?

Agenda items only. Last call. Thank you all.

We'll be moving on now. Of course, the electronic portal comments is on here, but we have those printed out. The next up is our consent agenda. The 429 draft minutes, 429, or excuse me, 5-4 draft minutes, 5-4 closed session minutes, 5-14 closed session minutes, 5-24 closed session minutes are monthly reports from Code Enforcement, Building Inspections, Finance, Fire, Police, and Public Works. Does any member of council have any questions in regards to any of these?

I do not.

I have a few questions. Go ahead. First is a comment. Who knows what page it's on? We've changed this agenda. But the code enforcement report, we have a new person, Kathy McVeigh, and it's really good to see. these violations being cited. Mr. Klamer, I wanted to just thank you for overseeing this. Then I have a few questions. Each month we look at training hours for our fire department. I could go through here and I could tell you each month, but the last nine months, it equates to a little over 4,000 hours. How much trouble would it be for us to see, not the name, but the title of the person and what the training is? Because, I mean, training seems to take a lot of our talking. Could that be rolled up to see – Not necessarily, I don't know, we need to know who the employee's name is, but what their title is, and what their training was, and how many hours were spent in that.

Sure, sure, no problem. I can work on putting something and adding that to the monthly report.

That'd be great, because I know that the state, we have training and standards, and we get a lot of calls about how much training we're doing, and I think it would be great for the public to see this is what we're investing in our employees.

There's just going to be 2 separate. So there's going to be certification training and the majority of the hours that you see on the weekly report is daily training training. We do at the same station. So it's going to be separated somewhat in that, but I'll, I'll make sure that's clear for you.

Thank you so much chief.

No problem.

Then I have 1 other. Sort of in tandem, we're looking at all of the public works duties, and it's about, I don't know, eight or nine pages. Is there a way that we could have that by employee, what their duty is and about how long it takes? so that we can have a fair assessment. It's kind of, you look through the here, there's a lot of redundancy in what the duties are and it would be nice if you could break it down by employee.

Yeah, absolutely. We can. We, um, we, um, utilize our work system. Yes. So through every single work order, we have the employee's name and a time on them so we can incorporate those into the weekly reports.

That, I think, would be helpful for us. Thank you for that.

For clarification, you don't want the employee's name. You just want their title.

That's right. It's not to pick on an employee. It's to see what they're doing, what the duties are, and the time frame. Thank you both for that.

Any other comments? If not, do I have a motion to... Accept the consent agenda.

I'll make a motion to approve it. All right.

Do I have a second? Second. Any more discussion? All in favor? Aye. All right. Thank you. All right. Now we'll be moving on to our public hearings. First one up will be the UDO text amendment. Amend various sections of the UDO to reflect the Board of Adjustment and Planning Board powers of duty. composition of membership and eliminate the planning boards as the approval body for the major site plans and major subdivision plans. Mr. Ryan, you want to come up and speak before I open the floor up for the up here?

Sure, happy to do so, Mayor. Is this working? Everyone hear me? So I don't have a new presentation from last month. I can go into as much detail as you want. One of the things council did request was a clean version of the code. You have that. You also have the red line version. So you do have like a 2A and a 2B and a 3A and a 3B. Again, I'm not sure how much details you guys want me to go into. I'll have to go as much as you want.

Just an introduction to it. All right. So open it up.

What you have before you is back in April, I believe it was, you guys had asked us to move forward through the Planning Commission, the Planning Board, an amendment that would potentially change some of their rules and procedures and how they operate, the composition and so forth, as well as their roles and responsibilities with major site plans and major preliminary plots. Okay. Staff took that directive, went through the entire code and identified where we believe things should be amended to achieve that goal should council move forward with it. That, I believe, is attachment 3A and 3B. 3A, meaning it's the red line version. 3B is the clean version. Then went to the planning board at their May meeting. Sorry, April meeting. twice, April 16th and the 23rd. And so the version they have was modifying some of the composition and things like that, but also keeping them in the planning, in the plan review for major subdivisions and major site plans. And I believe that's attachment to a red line version to be the clean version. We had a conversation at your public hearing in May, quite an extensive conversation, and we answered the questions. I answered questions I could. You heard from the public. The attorney was here as well to answer some questions. So, again, just here to listen, answer questions council may have or whatever you need me to do.

Thank you. If you want to, Ron, I'll sit right there in case we've got questions. Do I have a motion to open the public hearing for the UDO text amendment?

Make a motion. Go ahead.

I'll make a motion to open the public hearing.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Public meeting is now open. Anyone that would like to come up and speak on the UDO text amendment is more than welcome to come up.

Do we need to come up with where we spoke?

You can. I mean, it's up to you, sir. You got it. Okay. Anyone? All right. No one. Do I have a motion to close the public? Okay.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak in the public hearing. Richard Dysinger, 704 Fairway Drive East, a citizen and owner in Sunset Beach since 91, and I have served on the planning board since 2022. It is somewhat of a surprise to me that this has been proposed. We had an excellent meeting two on two with Mike Christie, myself and Ronald Bruno. And we kind of filtered through some of the reasons why this came up. And it feels like this may have been the result of some legal advice that the council got. And I guess my reaction to that is, is this is not a legal question. And we, the four of us agreed in that meeting that the current method of adjudicating subdivision plats is in legal compliance with all North Carolina ordinances. The proposed amendment is also in compliance. So this is a question of what's the best policy? What works best? And I think the history of the planning board in Sunset Beach reflects the fact that this works really well. Now, there was a suggestion in that meeting that perhaps we should amend it to the extent that a planning board would recommend approval. And that ultimately the council, I mean, you guys bear the political brunt of anything that we decide. Although if you're on social media, people don't make a distinction. It's those rat bastards on the planning board and the town council. But it is fair that if there's going to be political heat as an appointee that serves at the pleasure of the council, I don't suffer from those kinds of declarations. But clearly, you all have a responsibility to the community. And while it does create some issues, I think it's not a bad proposal. So we would preserve... The preliminary plat approval process for subdivisions by the planning board. We would continue to exert our expertise that supplements a UDO administrator rather than usurps it. And then, based upon that approval, in the following town council meeting, the ultimate approval would go to the town council. Now, one of the drawbacks of this is it does add a certain amount of time to the approval process, which, from a developer's standpoint, is not a good thing. But ultimately... whichever one is decided upon, preserving the planning board's role in reviewing preliminary plots, I think is crucial. Sunset Beach is Sunset Beach and not Ocean Isle. and not Little River, and not Calabash, because we've had a very good process in terms of how the planning board works. And if there's one thing I've learned in business, 30 years as a business development executive, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So I urge the council to adopt the planning board's amended. I think it's 2.0 as a that had some improvements that the revised included, and but preserves the planning board's role in approving and reviewing subdivision plots. And in full disclosure, in terms of the future of sunset beach, Residential development is pretty much done. The decisions have been made. Now, these areas may not be built yet, but the conditional zoning has been approved. What lies before us is really the decisions about commercial development in Sunset Beach. And we may find out from the land use plan that the Sunset Beach residents are perfectly happy with their village center being a grass field. But I suspect, from the surveys that we've seen, that there is some need for commercial development in a guided and appropriate way, and that's something the planning board can help do. Thank you for allowing me the extended time, and good luck.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dessinger.

Anyone else on this public hearing for the UDO? If not, do I have a motion from the council to close this public hearing?

I'll make a motion to close the public hearing.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. In regards to where the council stands, we have before us a summary of the consistent statement. So it would be up to you all to make a decision whether to accept it or to deny it. And you need to read the consistency statement with that.

I was going to just add to that. If you make a decision tonight to approve, if you wouldn't mind identifying which version that you're that you're approving. Instead of just also reading this consistent, we do need the consistent statement. I appreciate you.

It has to be read whether. Yeah, you're right. Whatever. What's the pleasure?

Can we just talk it out a little bit? You know, the text amendment that I'm looking at is attachment 3A. And that text amendment is language that talks about what the planning board and the board of adjustments duties are and what their duties are not. There's been a little miscommunication that this version is going to take away the public's ability to weigh in, and that assertion is just not true. None of the language in this text amendment for attachment 3A diminishes public input, public hearing, or any other avenues for public engagement. The text amendment empowers the council and the board of adjustments to perform the duties that they have the legal authority to perform. And this is by North Carolina general statute. If we could talk a little bit about the distinction between an administrative task and a legislative decision, that would be from our staff. I want to be clear that an administrative task is for the UDO administrator.

An administrative... Go ahead, you finish.

And it simply involves checking boxes of does it comply with the UDO or does it not comply with the UDO? It's a simple of matching things up. That is what I would consider and what our lawyer considers and what in discussions with you, that is an administrative task. That's not a legislative decision.

That is correct. And our code would say that.

And in here... in attachment 3a it does not diminish that because that's the administrative authority or the administrative task that has always been granted to the udo administrator so we're not taking that away from anybody because i guess how you want to look at it um code currently would say that a site plan major site plan and a major preliminary subdivision plat would still be reviewed by staff

And when I say staff, it's not just the UDO administrator. We have a technical review committee that involves the police department, the fire department, NCDOT if there are DOT streets involved, Brunswick County utilities because of the water and sewer, Brunswick County engineering because of stormwater. They have the stormwater rules. So it's not just the UDO administrator trying to understand every single little rule that may impact development. We do have a unified development ordinance that the UDO administrator is, I'm going to say, responsible for administering. It's about a 300-page document or more, and it's legally written and so forth. But we do seek the expertise of others. So the current – I know it's a long way to answer your question. Currently, we have a UDO administrator and other staff – both internal staff and external staff involved in the technical review committee. We meet with a developer after we've gotten their plans and after it's been reviewed by that technical review committee, and we provide them comments on what they need to do to bring their plan into compliance with town rules and whatever other rules may apply. They resubmit a site plan once we believe, as well as what I call a resubmittal letter, which says here's what the comments were, here's how we've addressed those comments. As you, the administrator or planner, we go through those to make sure that, okay, you said you did this on page so-and-so, did you actually do this on page so-and-so? And once we get comfortable, we then schedule it for the planning board. And it goes to the planning board at whatever monthly meeting. At the planning board meeting, it is an agenda item. It's advertised as with every other item that is on the planning board. And the public, similar to what you guys had at the public comment on agenda item, the public has an opportunity to come speak, whether they like the development, don't like the development. At the end of the day, though, Ms. Bordeaux, this is what you're getting at. If that plan complies with the rules, the planning board has to approve it. So their options are to approve it, to not approve it, or to approve it. The code says with conditions. I think I like to say approve with corrections. If we get a North Arrow, the planning board can say, hey, we approve it with the fact that, you know, put a North Arrow on the plan. They cannot condition approval saying, okay, I know the code requires 20 feet, but we want you to put in a 50-foot level. So ultimately of the day, if the plan complies with the rules, the planning board is supposed to approve it. Similarly, if the amendment is made, the UDO administrator, after consulting all the other experts, if the plan complies with the rules, the UDO administrator would have to approve that plan. And again, that is an administrative review. I think you want to go into legislative next. That's your decision as a policy change.

That's right. And I wanted us to be clear on that. That would be a legislative decision. We have to notice the public, public ways in, and then we take those factors and we make a decision.

As an example, this amendment tonight is a legislative decision.

That's right.

It involved the public hearing. You make that decision. Planning board provides you a recommendation to what they believe you should or shouldn't do. And so that is a legislative decision. It's a policy decision made by council. And you also have the next item is also a legislative decision. Just for clarity's sake.

Referring to 3A. Yes, sir. I'm just making sure. 3B is exactly 3A without the redlining. Yes, yes. Okay.

That was the intent anyway. That was the intent anyway. Yeah.

I love a redline because that shows me what's taken out, but we can go either way. So 3B, Mr. Postle. Thank you.

I'm just making sure we're on the same page.

Yeah.

Well, either 3A or 3B.

So just the difference, the major difference in 3A and 3B, it sounds like for the most part, everyone that's spoken against this thing is more about taking the planning board out of the process of site plan. So that's going to be the big difference, whether the site plan is approved by the planning board after complying with the rules or by, I'm going to say, staff, TRC, even though it says you to administrator. Again, it's not just the one person reviewing it. It is a comprehensive review. That seems to be the big, if everyone is okay with the other parts of the code, that seems to be the biggest difference. Does that help any at all?

Very much. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to go ahead and make a motion that we approve attachment 3B, the proposed amendment to the unified development ordinance and finds that it's neither I excuse me, one, consistent or inconsistent with the town's comprehensive plan, 20-2017 Town of Sunset Land Use Plan, as there's no specific policy pertaining to appointing boards and their roles, and two, that it is in the public interest.

All right, there's a motion on the floor. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Any more discussion? All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed?

All right, next up, we'll be moving to UDO text amendment, amending section 315, fences and walls with U-5 ordinance to allow a privacy fence or wall and an entrance gate for the single family residential subdivisions in the MR3 zoning district to specific criteria. Do you have anything you want to give on this one, Ron, before I open public hearing?

I can go over just the briefings on that. So this is an applicant-initiated text amendment, meaning it did not come from staff. So we have Ms. Catherine Hall on behalf of the Haddington Place neighborhood has actually reached out to us with their desire to gate their street. And the way that the code is structured, we felt like a text amendment was the best avenue And so they have submitted that application. And just for real quickly, it would be to allow a street to be gated if the property is in zone MR3. It's also only in the NTJ. Would not apply to any developments in the town limits. And there's five or six factors. Serves a single-family residential subdivision only. All the streets are privately maintained and located in the ETJ. The gate does not exceed four feet in height, and it's also designed as a privacy or decorative fence element. Unrestricted emergency access is provided and basically approved by the fire department. The design would be approved by the fire department to make sure all emergency access is available and that it doesn't obstruct any or preclude any future connectivity. Planning board has made a recommendation on this and they do recommend approval and Ms. Hall and I think some of the residents in that area are here.

to present or add to it or even maybe speak during the public hearing thank you thank you all right now it's a pleasure of counseling can i get a motion to open the public hearing motion to open the public clearing can i get a second second any discussion before all in favor aye public hearings now open in regards to the eu text amendment on the fences and walls if anybody would like to speak you're more welcome come to the front all right No one would like to speak?

Sure, if there's any questions, they may be willing to ask questions that I'm not able to.

Okay. Anything?

I'll make a motion that we close the public hearing.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. All right. Now it's the pleasure of counsel in regards to this. And again, you'll need to read the consistency statement. Motion.

Could we ask our public safety officers a few questions?

Most definitely.

Now you're going to have the police chief hat and now you're going to have the... If there were an emergency and for whatever reason that gate does not work, electricity's out or can't get the code right and somebody's on the other side that burglary or somebody's having a heart attack or a stroke, what do you all do?

So when they install those gates, they have to have a main system, which is siren activated. So any police, fire, ambulance could get through it, no problem. There also has to be a backup system. So a knock system, a lockbox that we have access to as well. A lot of them are single person handled. So there's a backup system for that.

There will not be any hiccups.

I can't say there'll never be a hiccup, because it's mechanical, it can always break, but we will get in a gate like that. We've got lots in our response area, and we've never had any issues where we couldn't get through. There's always a backup system in place, and that's per code.

Okay. So you've never had to run through a gate, that wouldn't make them...

I haven't. I'm sure somebody somewhere has, but we hope that doesn't happen.

Concern of damage to our equipment, you know, obviously.

Of course.

It's very expensive equipment. Of course.

Well, the gate's going to be expensive, too, that we would have to repair the gate.

Correct.

Correct. Mr. Klamer, as the police chief, a gate, what is the purpose of a gate? I mean, does it give people a false sense of security?

It can. It can give you a false sense of security. It's no different than, you know, you click the key fob on your car and your horn beeps, but you've left your windows down. It gives you that false sense of security that nobody's going to get into it. People tend to take the path of least resistance, and if they have to go through a gate, they're going to find another neighborhood that doesn't have a gate. But if they really want to get in, they're going to get in.

how many um communities in sunset beach do we have that has a gate we have palm cove river sandra those only two uh within town limits we're getting one installed in uh sunset villas

That's a secondary access, so that would not really be relevant to this situation.

That's just for you all to get in there, right?

Correct.

Yes. Correct. You all mean in public safety.

Same mechanism still, siren activation and a backup. Off the top of my head, I'd have to get back. We've got a couple.

So if I wanted to go see a piece of property over there, how would I get there? guess i'm out of luck i won't be able to go over there if i don't know the way to get into it so it does prevent somebody from wanting to come into our area to possibly purchase a home correct go through it depends i guess if they had a uh an access through a realtor but if they saw it online themselves and they just wanted to take a drive-by yeah they're not getting in okay

The Vaughn Park, Oakland drive, there's a couple more coming back to me as we talk about it. She's out of order.

Public comment. So. You got any more questions.

question the only thing I'll say me being in the profession I'm in I deal with these communities and anytime I need to get in they know I'm coming they let the gate know so I'm not having any issues getting in anywhere so if there's no more comments go ahead I have um a comment just concerned that we are going to be inundated with gate requests because um it seems everybody wants a gate is what I'm hearing all of a sudden and um Is that something we want to be known as, that everybody has a gate? You know, what's next with gate requests?

Well, right now, this particular amendment is for ETJ only. Right, correct. So it's not within town limits.

Right, but I know of some other ETJs. Well, so do I. Based on this request. I know you do. Yeah, so that's my concern there is, are we opening ourselves up here to a...

So we're making a text amendment that will affect everybody, not just the ETJ?

This text amendment would apply to properties on MR3 only and within the ETJ. So if they're in the town limits, it would not apply as written. So just the ETJ, Angel's Trace is an example, is now in the town limits. So their primary access is public, you know, will be public streets, open. There is a gated emergency access connecting to this neighborhood, actually, that's submitted this application between them and Angels Trace.

MR3, is that just single family homes? Yes.

A single family, I believe there's some multifamily allow with a special use permit, if I remember the code correctly.

So it could be others, not just the ETJ and not just Angel's Trace.

This would be MR3 zoning and in the ETJ only. The sanctuary is zoned MR3. Okay. This property, and there's not a lot of left to be honest with you because with angel trace being annexed, it was the biggest portion of the was brought into the town limits. I'm trying to memorize the. Remember the zoning map and the corporate limit lines. I should have looked to see all the developments that are zoned in MR3 and in the NTGA.

And Mr. Satterfield, in one of the planning board meetings, I believe I recall there was discussions about there's some parcels in there that are town parcels.

Pardon, when Angel's Trace was developed, there was 13 lots within this subdivision that are in the town limits. but the road in front of them is not in the town limits. The road is private and it's in the ETJ. But there's 13 lots. I think it was listed as phase 1A of the Angel's Trace development.

I believe they're all- When I tried to look it up on the map myself, I wasn't seeing that, but I know that was discussed and I was like, what?

It was part of the Angel's Trace development that was brought into the town limits effective June of last year, June 30th of 25th. I believe when I met with Ms. Hall and the neighbors, there was at least one person that lived in one of those 13 homes that was in support of this. Okay.

So those are lots, though, that we do provide all services to for those lots? Yes.

I know we provide police and fire protection for sure.

Because in theory, for the ETJ, we don't provide police, even though sometimes we are, through mutual aid, the first responder. Fire, we are obviously providing there.

And I believe there's been some confusion from my mistake, if I recall, some calls occasionally. Those in the ETJ portion will call the town for service and vice versa.

Right, yeah. Because basically, well, other than the 13 parcels, it's a neighborhood that does not pay regular taxes to the town of Sunset Beach. Correct. They do not pay town taxes.

But they do have, you know, they are in the ETJ, so you guys do decide the land use policy. Right, right, right.

And they do receive our services, fire and police protection.

Those 13 lots?

Yes. Well, the ETJ does, too.

The ETJ will definitely get the fire piece under the... But I'm not sure. I don't think they do fire. Excuse me, police. Well, they do. They get it if requested. Through mutual aid. Mutual aid.

Which often they're requested because they're the closest agency. Sure. If not, you're waiting on the county.

No comment? No. It was a pleasure to counsel.

They motioned whichever way. Either you're going to approve it or deny it.

i'll make a motion that we deny the proposed amendment to the unified development ordinance and find that it's one it's not consistent with the town's comprehensive plan 2027 town of sunset beach land use plan and two that it is not in the public interest of do i have a second second any more discussion all in favor aye and opposed no both

If that's a tie, that means I'll be the tiebreaker. That's what we wanted to do too. Well, I'm going to vote to approve it.

Okay.

That's what I'm going to go with. Like I said, I know there's things that can happen. I understand. I mean... Like I said, I've worked in different towns, or not different towns, well, a bunch of different towns, but in these areas, and I've never had an issue, and I would hope and I would think that the people that live in these areas and our police and fire, if it comes down to a life or something, we're going to get through there, and it's not going to be a worry about the cost of a life is a whole lot less than what the cost of a gate is. So I don't think there will be any problems there. I hope and pray they're not, and if they are, then we'll see. We'll have to deal with them, but common sense has to prevail at times.

If I may, the motion was to deny, and it was a two to three vote to deny.

To deny, we'll have to make a new... Okay, that's what I was asking. So that died, the denial. So do I have a motion? No, the motion will be made. You have to read the consistency, if that's what you're going to go with.

Okay. Let me get to it. Make a motion to, let me get to that.

Make 114.

Yep. I got it. Make a motion to approve proposed amendment to the Unified Development Ordinance and find that it is consistent with the Town's Comprehensive Plan 2017 Town of Sunset Beach Land Use Plan and that it is in the public interest because of the amendment allows gated residential streets in a limited fashion preserves emergency vehicle access and use in a manner that is not detrimental to the residents of the neighborhood.

Motion's on the floor. Do I have a second? I second. Any more discussion? All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Aye.

We want you to do it again.

Sorry, that's the first time ever.

And we wanted you to have that opportunity.

Thank you all so much. You're welcome. All right, next up, we'll be moving on. Town Administrator Report. Administrator. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes, sir.

I appreciate it. First, I want to recognize Lieutenant Gaskins with the Sunset Beach Fire Department. Give us one second. Let these people go that way. Thank you all for coming out.

Had a lot of new faces show up today. See you next month.

All right, go ahead. All right, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. I first want to recognize from the Fire Department Lieutenant Gaskins, who recently was awarded the Booker Juma Fire Service Leadership Award at Fayetteville State University. This award is presented to the student in the Fire and Emergency Service Administration Program, who best exemplifies leadership, professionalism, and community service. Lieutenant Gaskins has been with the fire department for many years and exemplifies public service. And that's an award that he and the town should be very proud of.

Yes.

I want to talk about the rollback program. There's been a lot of discussion, a lot of emails, a lot of comments on the rollback program. And I think that there's still an opportunity that the town can manage this program, but not necessarily be the person or the entity, if you will, that's responsible for that program. I do first wanna talk about some numbers that were given to me from our Deputy Public Works Director, Vicki Todd. April numbers for hands that were moved back by our staff prior to notifications going to the town residents that the program was going to be stopped, our Public Works Department moved 1,378 cans during the month of April. After notifications went out for the month of May, They moved, and this is just through 521, they moved 503 cans. So the notification appears to have had a significant impact that over half of the cans, more than half of the cans that were left out in the previous month were not on the roadside in May. But as I mentioned, I think there's an opportunity where the town could manage a program through a vendor similar to what we do with recycling. One of the questions was, well, what's the benefit if I can contract with a vendor to do it myself or if I contract through the town? Deputy Director Todd also sent me a, not a proposal, but I guess a proposal on it. and this I don't believe was solicited by the town for this proposal, but there's a significant cost savings that's shown by this vendor if it were contracted through the town. So if we put together an RFP, and asked services companies that provide a rollback service to give us their best. What can you do for the entire town of Sunset Beach? So if I live in Sandpiper Bay, a community which previously was not offered the rollback service, though their tax dollars funded it, through this program, they would be eligible. So if I just decide I don't want to touch that dirty can and I want to pay somebody to do it, they'll go and do it. So the town, and this is to be worked out, but the town takes applications to be part of this program. There'll be a fee. The vendor will tell us how much that costs. If the council agrees to have an administrative cost so that staff time is covered to manage the program, let's say hypothetically we have your applications in by december 15th of each year starting january 1 you've paid the town for one full year worth of rollback service no matter where you live in the town limits of sunset beach we send the spreadsheet december 16th if applications are due no later than the 15th to the vendor that we select through the rfp they facilitate the program for the year And then we go through the same application process the next year. I think this is something that we could manage in-house. I don't know that the lift would be entirely too heavy for us, but time will tell. But that's something I'd like to bring to the council for consideration in July, if you'll hear us out.

Definitely want you to do this. Miss Batchelor and I met with you before it was ever voted on the last time. Could we possibly vet some companies to see? And I don't know that we had enough time to do that. But we were, you know, it was on the agenda. We had to vote on it. And, you know, we were scared about liability. We were scared about somebody getting hurt. We were. I'm not real happy about our town taxpayers having to pay for that benefit that it may not even benefit them. So, I mean, at the time, I think we made the right decision, and I think this is the right decision, too, that you vet some companies and see and offer the service where individual people have to pay for that rather than the whole town paying for it. So, thank you. I commend you for doing that.

Yes, thank you. I second that.

Do you need a motion to do an RFP, or do we just give you direction?

I think the consensus is sufficient.

Everybody's good? Okay.

You got anything else on your report?

I have a couple more things. I was asked by our event coordinator, Amy Goodrich, about the potential of having a vendor provide alcohol sales, beer and wine, at our Wednesday night concerts. I don't know if that's something that the council is interested in pursuing.

I've been asked by a lot of residents that they would love to see that because they love to see that offered at some of our special events so they don't have to lug a cooler and everything along with their chair. I've definitely seen interest, and to me, liability-wise, we're not liable. The vendor is licensed to sell whatever they're selling and do that, just like it does at our special events.

The vendors that we use for special events that I'm familiar with, they have the ABC permit so that they can sell off-site.

Right, and these would be the same vendors, is my understanding.

Correct.

Only question I got that is, is that going to change what we have going on now where the citizens or visitors or whatever can bring their own? Is that still going to be allowed?

It would be allowed, yes. Anytime there's a permitted event, it just changes the ordinance.

There's no alcohol in there unless there's a permit, but that's what I wanted to ask on that because in the past, a lot of our people have brought their wine or whatever their drink choice. I wouldn't want to say, you can't come, you've got to buy here. I don't like that.

They could still do that, and I think the vendors would just need to be made aware that This is an option if someone wants to purchase from you, but if they want to roll in a cooler, that's also an option. Okay. Thank you for that recommendation. Okay. I've been made aware of some anonymous letters that have been sent to council members either at their homes or here at Town Hall. A complaint has been made with the police department regarding these letters and the police department is looking into these. The last thing I have is I just want to also recognize Bill Arp, who did a wildlife presentation last weekend. And I asked Bill this morning, I said, did you put a slide up that said, if you liked my presentation, email Chief Claymar, because I was inundated with emails. And he said he didn't. But it was very well received. So the residents were happy with the presentation that he gave. That's all I have.

Do you have any questions for TA? Anything else? Thank you, sir. All right, next up is our discussion item, catchment seven project, contractor evaluation project completion. Adam, I'll let you come up and give our public some information on this because this is a hot topic. We all know there's been some issues with it, but we want to resolve it sooner than later.

I completely agree with that. So, as you all know, the project for Catchment 7 was awarded back in August of 2025 with notice to proceed in September of 2025. I did send you all a timeline, a brief timeline today of events that have happened. This particular company did not even start on the project until mid-October with a deadline of it being, I believe it was December 10th. At the December 10th deadline, they weren't even December 12th. Apologies. December 12th deadline, they were not even halfway done with the project. Running into some issues with utilities, water lines. They weren't filling in the holes after they put pipe into the basins. There was erosion problems after rains and things of that nature. That's just general maintenance when you're doing stormwater. Once you put pipe into a basin, you seal it up. That way there's no erosion. That was neglected at that time. In January, when we, Vicki and I, took over this particular project and other projects was we reached out to the contractors, had a site visit. Talked about all of our concerns. Some of them were addressed almost immediately. We did find some other issues over the past couple of months with a sewer line, for example, that's been an issue since March 11th of 2025. We're now in June again. So there's been a lot of issues over the months. I do have some information as far as even the general project notes from the plans themselves. If you would like me to read those, I gladly will. But it does state that utility lines should have been located, not just through 811, but actually dug down, seen the elevations, the size of the pipe, things of that nature before construction had even started. There was none of that done that I'm aware of.

Who should have done that? The contractor? The contractor. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Clarifying that.

Yes, ma'am. We've had multiple rains over the past couple months. And on 6th Street, for example, the lowest point of 6th Street does not have a drain. It used to have a drain. It no longer does. And it's not even on the plans. It was missed completely by two and a half inches. That's the lowest point on all of Sixth Street. By two and a half inches, it does not have a drain at all. We are in the works with the engineering firm right now to remedy that. That will not be a cost by the town. We did not miss that on the drawings. And we're not the ones installing it. So that'll be between the engineer and the contractor, in my opinion. So to date, the last pay app that I have, just for budget purposes, the original base bid was $417,130.56. To date, now this last pay app was March 2nd. We have not had any other payments since then. was $472,411.10. $55,280.54 in change orders. Those change orders were utility lines that were found. The contractor did not have a utility license to move these utilities. So a subcontractor had to be used. Obviously, going out for a different contractor is gonna cost a little bit more money rather than doing it in-house on your own company. So I just kind of wanted to give you guys an idea of how much we have spent. There are other contractors that bid on this job that do have utility licenses. But they were, at the time, they were more expensive. But now with what we have now, we're about $50,000 away from what that original contract, the next highest or next lowest bidder had. So you guys have any questions, I will gladly answer anything.

What's the total price or the total award that was awarded to this contractor?

The original?

Yes, sir. $417,000?

$130.56.

And we've had $55,000 in change orders.

$55,280.54. Yes, ma'am.

And were these actual change orders that were done in advance or change orders that were retrofitted? Because I understood when we took office, there were not change orders documented at all. Is that correct?

From my understanding, there was at least one that was not documented, and that was the very first one. Okay. Since then, we've checked them and there have been delays on our end and their end because going through change orders, changing the base price, we have to go through you all, which you guys have approved some since being in office. So that is the correct way to do it because it changes the whole price. So yes, that's been a delay, but not seven months worth of delays. Right. I agree.

Mr. Klamer, is our legal team, are they aware of this?

I have talked with them about this and my perspective on this, and of course I've got a crash course in all things stormwater since I've been doing this. And that's a very valuable resource, but in the short time I've been doing this, I'm very frustrated with this project to the point where it's almost my recommendation to the council to say, let's just get somebody new, have somebody else finish it. With that though, I think comes more of a significant cost to our taxpayers. We want to get it done right. I think that if we were to ask for a new contractor to come out and finish the work, it's going to require another engineer survey to see where are we at. It wouldn't be fair to ask a contractor to come and Matt, correct me if I'm wrong, it wouldn't be fair to ask a contractor to come and look at work that's done by another vendor and then give us a price that they feel is accurate to either finish the job or if there's anything that might not have been done right. Because you can't see under the ground. That's where an engineer would come into play. We're close to completion. I feel like we are. Barring any other obstructions that they might come across that are under the earth. I feel like, and this is where I'd like to have direction from the council, I feel like, let's get through this and then see where we're at. I've had conversations with our engineer on this project, McGill Associates. They've assured me that there are going to be some things that are going to change before this is all signed off and the last check is written, such as lowering the basins. I'm not a stormwater expert. When I stand on a street, though, and I see that the basin is a couple inches higher than the load, the water's not going to run uphill. It's not going to go in the basin. We know those have to be lower. We know when it rains hard for your 6th Street residents that are listening or that I've talked to last weekend, there's going to be a pond on 6th Street until that drain is installed that is going to be installed, as I'm assured by the engineer. As I mentioned, I think if we get through this project with this contractor and see where we're at, get the project to completion, hopefully if we get a satisfactory project, we just seed and straw and move on down the road. Otherwise, I think we do need to get perhaps legal involved and have an engineer take another look at it and then come back to you to talk about perhaps a budget amendment so that we can do it right.

Yeah, I feel like there's been concerns since we took office. I mean, we had an island project meeting back in December for a reason because it was clear that that was not going well project-wise, and they were set up so high, the drains, and like how in the world it would have to be flooded there for them to even work. So it's discouraging that that's happened, but thank you, Matt and Ken, for all your work. I know this has been frustrating to say the least, but hopefully we can get to some sort of conclusion to this. And then I do feel like we may need to relook when we have new, possibly new engineering firm to relook at making sure stuff's as right as it can be. so that we don't have a problem or investigate it in our legal, whatever needs to be done.

In regards to the sign and off on it at the end and all, what money is left that they have not received? I mean, have they received all this money? No.

No, they have not.

So we've got something to hold there to make sure things are right. I just didn't want us to get into that kind of hole.

Do you have the dollar amount that we've paid them so far?

I believe it's up now. So the remaining from what I'm seeing is $133,834. That was from, like I said, that was from March 2nd, I believe.

So we've paid them about $350,000. We've paid them $350,000. Is that about right?

Total completed and stored to date $338,576.

There's a contingency, am I saying, is that the right word? There's money that's held back. $20,000. There's $20,000 there too. Yeah, there is.

So we've got money sitting there that they've got to complete this before they get it. That's the main thing. It wants to be without a leg to stand on. Because, I mean, just from what I've heard and what I know about this project, If we start all over, we're going to be in a mess. It's going to cost our taxpayers a lot. And this has been going on for 10 years plus. I've seen wasted money in projects, and that's what we talked about as a council has got to be cut out. We have got to look at things all the way around, not just, I mean, I understand you've got to go with cheapest on biz, but we've got to hold our engineer accountable for getting the right people in here and doing the job that they quote us on instead of coming up on this. This money here is just ridiculous.

The concern, though, is I think that we all feel this way. If it's not done right now, it's not going to be completed correctly next week or the next month. And then this is going to be laid at your feet. And that's not fair to do to you. It is going to take money to make it right. But I don't know that we want to give this company any more money. But we need to know what's wrong with it. We come from different backgrounds. but i've not heard this is what's wrong with it i don't know that we even know this is what's wrong with it but we need somebody that we trust perhaps maybe our new engineer i was looking at The agenda can't even say to them yet because we haven't approved them yet. But we need an expert or experts to tell us this is what's wrong. This is how it's going to be remedied before we make any decisions. Because if we let this group, whoever the coastline contractor, if we let them continue to acerbate this problem, we're going to continue to have the same problem. We're going to continue to pay more money. I don't want to have a special call meeting, but we need to move quickly on this, but we need to know from our attorneys, do we have a leg to stand on? Can we litigate them to get the money? What do we do to get our taxpayer dollars money back so we can move forward so we can get this? Because it looks awful over there. We get letter after letter after letter, portal comment after portal comment, and it does look terrible. It's awful. I'm glad you went through to explain, but it still looks off. It does. And our public wants it to look.

So does your DPW.

Yes, and I didn't mean you did, but I'm just saying we've got to help this man. He cannot continue to try to manage this. We have to have some type of legal – advice a legal opinion of what we should do and i know we don't like to spend money for for attorneys this is an appropriate use for the attorney would it would it be

agreeable to ask mr norton from mcgill associates to come in and provide an update of all the things that he knows need to be corrected with this project before he before he would sign off on it i mean his name's on this project at the end of the day and if it's a failure then it reflects poorly on his company which i'm sure he does not want but he's shared with me some of the things those catch basins the the catch basin that's going to be installed on sixth um i don't know if that's something we want to schedule for the july meeting to have him come in or if we want to just send another get another set of eyes on it from an outside perspective i think he needs to be in hot seat a whole lot quicker than july i'm sorry but we had the former

man that was in charge of this in December told us it was going to be completed by December 15th. And we know what day it is. We're in June now. We need my opinion. Again, we need an expert to tell us. And if the attorneys should be involved or not, we don't know. You two gentlemen know more about what's going on. But get the attorneys involved, get an opinion. Mr. Norton could come to a meeting. I don't think we ought to do the two by two by two. We've done that, and that gets us nowhere. I think the public needs to be, and I hate to say he needs to be in the hot seat, but July, we've got so many people coming in June. We need for him to come sooner than later. It shouldn't take him long to figure out what the problem is. He's the engineer.

We got a little special meeting for catchment.

So for an update from McGill, I would propose that you all, I just hate to keep kicking it.

Yeah. And I feel like it's been discussed and I feel like we need to make sure as a town that we have everything clearly documented our concerns and everything that has gone wrong. that we know of from the beginning. It needs to be, like I've said in numerous emails, I've dotted T's crossed to make sure everything is documented clearly, what's in writing, what was spoken, all of that. There should be somebody with all that information given and we need to make sure that we have what we're showing on there and then they can show what they have, but we need to have our list in writing and it needs to be sent if it hadn't already to them and get them to agree, even if it's agree verbally, not verbally but electronically, to address them. It sounds like some things they've agreed to address, but do we have that in writing? I don't know. I haven't seen it in writing. Do we have it in writing?

No, not from the contractor. It's all verbal.

But what about from McGill? Is it in writing?

I don't believe. The only thing that I've seen in writing is the missed train on 6th Street.

I think all that needs to be in writing because if not, you may not have a leg to stand on on that is my concern.

Matt, was there any emails or anything that you're aware of from the previous gentleman that was in charge of this that might have raised the flags about anything that was going on?

Have you seen anything like that?

No, we have not. Okay.

Any conversation or anything like that?

no all right there was was there a time that you walked at home project uh with uh mcgill and uh the coastal contractor we walked in january okay all of us the owner of coastline um engineer with it was not michael norton um alex lapinski was his name with uh mcgill Myself and Vicki Todd all walked the project, stated our concerns, and needed to address areas.

So you made a punch list of what your concerns were. Of that list, what's been completed of that list?

Well, the sealing of the pipes has been completed. That were neglected, like I said. They came out and tried to... lower the basins but they were not low enough they've already cut them once um i got emails from the manufacturer i'm saying you can cut up to six inches off these boxes they were not cut six inches they were cut maybe a couple of inches all right um so i gotta go back and do that again you're gonna have to do it again okay yeah and and the engineer has stated that in emails as well okay they will come back and okay lower them talk about the um talk about the pipe that you told me about that you saw in one of the boxes where the pipe that runs in comes here and the pipe that it's drains into is higher than that all right so so there is a uh i'm gonna throw streets out there east main street and sixth intersection closest to the east side of Main street, um, towards seventh street. There's a basin there that was installed. The pipe coming into that basin is two inches, two and a half inches lower and the pipe going out, which is supposed to drain out down Sixth Street out to the canal. So there's negative flow. So what's going to have to happen is the water's going to have to pull up and then push its way out through that system. I was not part of this job when it started. I heard concerns from a lot of different folks. And I don't know, I did hear that, you know, there may have been a utility line that was gone up and over on 6th Street. I wasn't there, so I don't know. It's been backfilled, so. Only thing I can see from the elevations that I shot was that pipe parallel with 6th Street is higher than the pipe parallel with East Main, which should be the opposite.

I've heard the same thing you said. Mr. Lipinski or McGill has seen this and they are going to address that? They have no other options.

Okay. So that would either be between them and the contractor because there are elevations on this plan, set of plans.

that either they didn't set the box right or the elevations weren't correct that doesn't fall on the town in my opinion yeah but thank you for checking because i did see you at their survey in a couple of months yes you know mr arnold you and i were out there together and this exact this was cold it was like february we mr arnold and i were out there and you showed us that it was on the wrong side in fact i rode with christy one day too yes i mean we've

Yes. Well, we hate you for dealing with such a mess, but it's clear that there's problems. I feel like there's problems even with what's been will be completed that we're going to have to probably go back. And it sounds like we need to get it right from the correct. Um, and whatever that takes, because if not, it's gonna be if if what we believe is true, which it sounds like it, but I also think there again, all of these concerns, everything, every, every, every 1 of these need to be written out clearly documented. When was it addressed? and it needs to be sent to michael norton and mcgill and be addressed to get feedback on because to me we don't need this somebody said something we need it clearly documented to move forward and see what they say and if they're going to fix it or handle it that's great but we need that in writing if if they continue to work every day starting tomorrow when do you think they could be done if they had no more problems

If they had no more problems? Yes. By the end of the week?

That close. If there's no problems.

Theoretically, it shouldn't have taken more than a month.

Okay. There's a cut across 6th Street. If you come down Canal and you stop at the stop sign, there's a cut across the road. Who's responsible for that cut?

Their road repair. Their asphalt repair through the contract. Through the contract. Yes, sir.

As well as the part of the road that's missing. There's a part missing by some of the drains and everything. Yeah, exactly.

And when you say end of the week, does that include lowering the basins and installing that basin at 6th? Yeah. It could do it.

Yeah, I mean, you bring six guys out there, then yeah. You're not going that deep.

But based on what we've seen, that is not likely to happen. Would that be a good statement? Well, I'm just saying, we've got to make sure our residents don't think it's going to be finished Friday, because I'm thinking not.

Everyone's giving you all time frames of when things are going to be completed. Mid-January, February, March. Even the contractor engineer. I'm not going to do that. Sorry. Because I don't want to lie to you. I don't want to lie to the citizens. Glimmer of hope. They did move the sewer line in front of 401 East Main today. For an email that we got today, the contractor will be out here tomorrow. Starting back on the pipe. Do we know if there's going to be any more utility lines? They say there's not, but we don't know. So I'm not going to say the end of the week. If there were no more issues, absolutely. I don't see any issue with it being done by the end of the week, but you don't know what's under the ground. You should know, but you don't.

I had a good many folks out there today. I texted Kenny because I said, somebody's out there working.

Yeah, they were moving that. That was the subcontractor.

Yeah, I was glad to see something like that.

So if I've heard you correctly, we'll call a special meeting for the Catchment 7 project. I'll check with Miguel, see his availability, or with Michael Norton, and we'll also send what we have to our attorney for review.

Thank you, Matt, for coming forward with that. Thanks, Matt. Moving on now, a question about the educational incentives for town employees.

Mr. Mayor, this was initially brought up during the budget talks and it was brought up again last week in some conversations I had with members of council to allow for educational incentives for all town employees. Currently, the police department has approved by council in a previous budget session, which was around 2018, I believe, when I pitched it, that would give police department employee a 5% increase to the base pay for an intermediate certification or bachelor's degree. and an additional 1% increase to the base pay for an advanced certification or a master's degree or graduate degree for a total eligible award of 6% to clarify what an intermediate or an advanced certificate is in order for, a police officer to receive an intermediate certificate from the North Carolina Training and Standards Commission, they have to have at least four years service as a police officer and an additional 600 hours of training. That's over and above the training that they would be required to do yearly as part of annual in-service. In order to be eligible for an advanced certification through North Carolina Training and Standards, the person would have had to be employed as a law enforcement officer for nine years and have an additional 1,200 hours of training, and again that's over and above the mandatory in-service. What was discussed in that budget session was to allow for a 2.5% increase to the base pay for an associate's degree in any field of study, a 5% increase to the base pay for a bachelor's degree, and a 5% increase to the base pay for a graduate degree. And I should note the bachelor's and the master's degree are in a related field of study where the associates is any field of study. For a total stackable award, if you will, of 12.5%, it is on here to recognize, to continue to recognize the intermediate certification and the advanced certification as that was previously approved by council.

Got a question. If somebody walks in and applies for a job and has the associate's degree and the bachelor's degree, do they automatically go up 7.5% over what we would have offered?

Yes.

When I guess Ms. Batchelor and I were looking at the payroll sheets, we saw that this was not in what we approved last week. And we were concerned because our whole thing has been about education. If somebody has taken the time to do this on their own, that they should be rewarded for that. That's part of an incentive. This in itself is a step. a step program where you're doing extra work it takes time to get these certifications um it's a lot of training hours it's not just giving to them it's not just taking a simple little class and getting something um so when miss bachelor pointed it out that these employees were not getting anything because what we approved, it was missing. It was omitted. And we did not want our employees to think that we did not appreciate them getting the degrees and the training. Do we know how much money we're talking about that this would cost? And the reason why I ask that is because I don't know how that's going to affect our budget that we have.

Alicia is next door waiting patiently for this moment.

Oh.

And there she is.

I've got a question. Yes, sir. One question. The employee pays for the education, not the town.

So for the degrees, associates, bachelors, or masters, yes.

All right. Just make it clear to everybody.

And then the intermediate and advanced certification, they pay for that too? They pay for that?

No, the town pays for that.

Okay.

Yeah, the town sends officers to training over their years of service, and it's just something that we're going to do, whether STEP's involved or not, because we want... to reduce the risk of liability to the town by having qualified and trained professionals in the police department. And the longer they're here and the more training they receive, they will become eligible for those certifications.

I am only aware of two firefighters that have received degrees since July 2025. One received an associate's and one received a bachelor's degree. So the total cost will be $6,560. I will say in that personnel spreadsheet that we've gone over, each department has education slash certifications built into their department. So I feel like the fire department could absorb this cost.

Okay.

What about the police? Are there any affected employees for that that earned any degrees or certifications?

You can correct me if I'm wrong. The police have two. One received intermediate certification. One received an advanced certification. Those are already in the budget since that policy is approved. Terrific.

Oh, so that's right. We did find out that police already had this as a part of your program that's in your manual, but fire did not have this.

Correct. And there are employees since 2018 that have either obtained a degree or achieved their intermediate or advanced certificate that has already built into the salary line. So those weren't pulled out.

One question from the budget we had last week, and I know there was a revision because I believe one that got the advanced degree in police was only figured at the 1%. So if we were to approve that, that number would increase, correct?

Right. So for the one position we had where there was a 1% increase, that would change that by 4%. Correct. And we also have that money budgeted for education.

Okay. And as far as fire is concerned, Chief Childress, the other dollars we looked at on Monday at meeting that we had with you and Chief Claymore, is there plenty money? I know you were going to double check those figures and get with...

We're okay.

So we're good. Okay. Okay. So all that, so that'll give some people in your department staff that before we realized we're not getting it at all. Well, good.

How many is it too?

It was more than two.

Okay. That's okay. And you, you have enough money built in that budget for the training. Yes. That line item that Ms. Freeman was talking about. I'm sorry, Ms. Armstrong.

Okay, thank you. And as we discussed in the meeting last week, that if this is approved, the recommendation is to make it retroactive to July 1 of 2025.

And in the future, it won't just be two police fires to all of the states. Yes. This is for related fields, so it goes off of that.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

That was just a discussion, so I don't think we have to do it. I think we have to do it.

Well, this is going to be before us on the 15th of this month, so this is set for discussion with possible action. If there's no action, this is not going to be included in the budget on the 15th.

So we should take action?

We would need a motion.

So I'll make a motion that we... Do you want to wait until Mr. Paulson comes back? I'm sorry. Okay, all right.

I need some music playing.

Short recess. Short recess.

Well, let's just, here he comes.

It won't be but a second. Ken needs to take a recess.

Ken needs to take a recess. Okay, Chris is going to take a brief recess and we'll be right back.

All right, continue.

Mr.

Puzzle, did you have anything to speak on this before making, I was gonna, okay.

I would like to make a motion that we offer an educational incentive to all town employees as follows. A 2.5% increase to base pay for an associate's degree in any field of study. A 5% increase to base pay for an intermediate certification or a bachelor's degree in a related field of study. 5% increase to base pay for an advanced certificate or master's degree in a related field of study. Total eligible award is 12.5%. Second.

All right. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye.

Any opposed?

Aye. Moving on next, go to our old business, Island Business Employee and Patron Free Parking.

Mr. Kent? Mr. Mayor, we discussed this at the previous meeting with some options that were given to council for consideration with... Island Business Parking. As you're aware, there is some businesses that have only a few, maybe one or two. free passes that were given to them, and there are other businesses that have upwards of 20 passes that were given to them. One of the things that I thought about during this time since we didn't take action the last time since we tabled this was perhaps to give the businesses a window tag or a window hanger, something similar to like a placard that would hang in the window for employees to use. So we'd issue the business several passes. We heard from a local business owner at our public comments that said he's got maybe three employees at a time that are working. So if we find out what the average number of employees that work at any one time at a business on the island And we issue them that number of placards. So if the number's five, we give them five. And when they have an employee that works, they hang that tag in their vehicle. Our parking enforcement, our police officers would know to look for that tag. Similar to they do for a handicapped. placard and when that employee is done for the day they return that tag to the business employee takes the tag home which will maybe happen um the responsibility is going to be on the business owner to make sure that they get that back so that their employee has um the ability to park without having to pay for that time that sounds like a good idea I don't know of another short of designating a space which would require us to have maybe 15 spaces available. And as we heard from that business owner, if there's only three or four people working on the island at a given time, then we've got 10 spaces available for parking with nobody in it. And that's a bad look. And we really don't have the space to do that. I can't really think of another way to do it to limit the number and to still be fair for our businesses so that the employees can come and go. What this tag would also do is it wouldn't be valid for anywhere else other than the streetscape, so in the business area, so maybe up to North Shore, but you wouldn't see somebody with a tag at 40th Street or on the far east end because we know that they're not there to do work. Yes, sir?

5 and 12. Is that it?

As I recall before, one of the business people speaking here said that they have three employees and then they're rotated where three more come on and they leave. If we give them three passes, there's going to be a gap between the new ones coming in for work that day and the old ones leaving where one of them's not going to have a tag for a valid time that they're there. I don't know how to deal with that either. but I just thought you were going to hear that.

Maybe that's a situation where if the average number is four, we give eight passes, and this way they have them for coming and going. At no time should there be eight out there, but they have eight. It's certainly not 20. With those 20, those plates are entered into the system, so that vehicle could park seven days a week, anywhere on the island and there's no way to tell that that is for a business this is a cleaner way to do it i think it accomplishes what the council is seeking to do in not having you know for i don't know the number off the top of my head but if it's 40 um it would definitely limit that number by issuing these passes

Yeah, and I talked to John Hopgood with the trading company about what you had suggested, because I'd asked Chief Claymore last week what he had, because he'd heard from all of us individually, kind of what did he feel like could work together. And I talked to John about that, and he said that, you know, like you were saying, Mr. Postle, that he normally has three. The issue is the transition. So almost if he had six, that way people would have one versus having two.

park and run in to try to get get one from somebody type of deal when they're trying to work and run a business so there's a little bit of overlapping it sounds like schedules so could we just ask you to manage this do you look to see what they have and we have confidence that you'll make the decision on how many passes they need to have if they have 84 employees you give them eight or whatever the configuration is

um i mean this to me would be an administrative task rather than a council task then at the end of 2026 when the beach and the parking and all this comes up to take our year in review this is something that can be reviewed then and see how we need to tweak it going forward but it's going to be hard to keep changing things during the year whatever you decide to go with we need to go with and in regards to that one business out there. I just want to clarify this because I've seen it and I just want this to be clarified. It wasn't like they asked for 20 certain people. Half of those things that were on there were commercial vehicles that they used to transport their items out there. So it was just like a commercial tag. It wasn't Joe, Bill, Bob, Sue, Mary. It wasn't like that. It was like 10 commercial vehicles where half their passes. So And I think, um, cause they didn't know which one would be delivered at which time. So they were just trying to do that.

The same business owner made the comment that, you know, if we issued 10,000, uh, parking passes for our beach, they don't all show up at once. But this is a way that we can ensure the people that we are giving free passes to that are not homeowners, that it's not abused. I can definitely manage this if that's the pleasure of counsel.

And Chief Claymore, I do think maybe your suggestion of the mention of the streetscape as well as North Shore, because some days streetscape can be full.

Anything else on this?

All right, sir. Next up, new business. Request to advise and schedule a public hearing, UDO, overlay district. Ron, you want to shoot the information out here so we can get you out of here tonight? Go ahead, sir.

I'll be very brief.

You've heard this at your March meeting. I sent it back to the planning board. The planning board has made some revisions, and the request is just to move forward with the public hearing in July. I'll go into a lot more detail then.

All right.

You got something?

Yeah, I was just going to say, I'll make a motion that we schedule this public hearing for the UDO amendment for the overlay district. All right.

Do I have a second?

Second. Any more discussion? All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you, Councilor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up will be the contract award consideration, trash pickup.

Mr. Mayor, we put together an RFP for trash pickups that would be for the island and for public areas, the island being the beach strand in particular. We received one submission, which you have in your packet from High Tide Pressure Washing and Contracting located out of Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. High Tide's proposal was $186,500 annually, which would include labor, vehicles, equipment, fuel, pretty much everything that would be needed to collect trash pickup. I asked our public works to provide me with an estimate of what our cost is to manage this in-house, and that number is roughly $36,998.48. my recommendation is to reject the proposal for contracted trash services and to continue performing the services in-house. It's a pleasure to counsel.

I'll make the motion to go with your recommendation to reject this proposal for contracted services and our in-house public works staff perform the function.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Any more discussion? All in favor? Aye. Next up will be our contract award ground maintenance service. Yes, sir.

Mr. Mayor, this is similar. We put out an RFP asking for proposals for ground maintenance service. This included also an additional addendum, if you will, for some services on the island. We received two Proposals, one from Caesars Lawn Care based out of Ocean Isle Beach. I see the typo in my recommendation there. It says I missed an A. But Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. And then NatureWorks Incorporated based out of Chalotte, North Carolina. After reviewing these submittals, it's the recommendation that we enter into a contract for ground payment services with NatureWorks. and that we do not include the supplemental proposal for island ground maintenance, which is mowing and weed eating on the island. So just the ground maintenance services minus the supplemental.

I have a question. I believe last, this current year that we're in, it's $6,500 per month. And it looks like it's gone, well, it doesn't look like it. It has gone up $7,400. So that's about a $10,000 increase overall. Is that what we told $6,500 was what we were paying per month?

$9,000 is what we're paying per year.

$90,000. Okay. So it's not changed. All right. So it's, well, if it's $90,000, then it's $2,000 less. Yeah. Okay.

So it's $7,500 a month.

And it was not $6,500 a month. Mayor, I thought you said you had signed a couple checks for them that was $6,500.

It's according to what it was. I guess that would have been like if they'd done the, when they did the plants and stuff, there may be a different amount.

You pay just for the plants at wholesale. Okay. My understanding is they bid it exactly the same that right chief claims my understanding.

So my recollection actually. Yeah. Good.

Good. Good. Okay.

And.

Well, I withdraw what I was saying, because I think I pulled the past contract to see and yeah.

What's the specifics on the cost for nature work?

90,000 a year. It's in the contract that's in there. It's payment is 7500 per month. And basically the flowers and stuff like that that are purchased their purchase at their wholesale rate and then we just pay for the actual flowers and then they plant them as part of the contract. That's already paid in that 9,000 so. And in the past, from what I researched, they have in there an additional $45 per man hour if extra things happen or need such as irrigation. But in the past, I was told that they really don't ever charge us for that extra. They just handle it. I'd like to make a recommendation that we enter into a contract for ground maintenance services with Nature Works not to include the supplemental proposal for island ground maintenance services mowing, weed eating on the island. That's your motion.

I have a second. Second. Discussion? All in favor?

Aye. Thank you. All right, moving on next.

Contract award consideration on coal engineering.

Mr. Mayor, at the last meeting, council agreed to accept the RFP from Thomas and Hutton, but sent me away with some instruction to do my best to get the best rate that we could with Thomas and Hutton. And you'll see included in the packet that they did make some revisions. You'll see where they dropped several things in their pricing. and i still feel that thomas and hutton is going to be the best choice for the town moving forward based on current projects or projects that we forecast in the future my recommendation is that we enter into a contract with thomas and hutton for on-call engineering services thank you for all that work um

Was anything discussed on that kind of onboarding of getting them on board with our stuff and having them upload all of our maps and all of our information that will be transitioning over from our other engineering firm?

No, ma'am.

Okay.

Questions?

I'll make a motion to enter into a contract with Thomas & Hutton for on-call engineering services.

Second. I'll second it. All in favor? Aye. Randall, drug testing, policy adoption.

Mr. Mayor and members of council, you were sent this policy for review. It's in your packet. There was one change where the word town manager was in there that will be changed in the final version to town administrator. This policy defines a person who occupies a governmental interest position as those who perform duties directly affecting public safety, emergency response, operation of vehicle equipment, protection of public infrastructure, and other essential government functions. Essentially, we are able to, by following a governmental interest position, almost randomly test every one of our employees, which is the intent here, to make sure that that we have people that are not under the influence of any sort of impairing substance. So I'm asking that you adopt this policy tonight.

I supported, I got a question. Yes, ma'am. I think it's called an MO. It's the... The physician, let me see. It's a MRO, a medical review officer. Do we have somebody in place for that?

No, so the MRO is somebody who has employed the organization we currently use for when we do pre-employment drug screens that are mandated by the state through training and standards. There's an MRO that reviews the results, and that is an employee of the facility. It's not an employee of the town, so it won't be one of our people.

Okay. I thought that's what it meant. I just wanted you to hear. I wanted you to say it.

And I had asked Chief Claymore regarding the cost of this, and he said that money is budgeted within physicals, and this can cover the testing for all departments.

That's correct.

And the average is supposed to be 10% of employees in a given year to be tested. That said, if you've got seven or eight employees that are done annually, the drug screens are between $50 and $70 range. So at the high end of both, it would be $560. Okay.

I'll make a motion to consider adopting the proposed drug testing policy for all 10 employees occupying government interest positions. I'll second.

Any more discussion? All in favor? Aye. Next up is our board committee application update.

This is to obtain direction regarding notification, advertisement, and appointment for three ERC members whose terms expire in July.

It's not in my new packet.

Well there was one before that a 13.7.

That's what it's like my packet screwed up like that too.

They were on 15.6.

Yeah okay well this is the packet so did that come off let me look so they're all changed.

So Mr. Klamer, you're wanting direction. And I was the one that asked for this to be placed on here. So I guess let me start, kick it off. Just like we would, anybody that we have as talent for our organization, they fill out an application. But for a board or committee, it's not as extensive. It's why do you want to serve on this? We don't have a place on there for any education that they've had or earned. We don't have any place in there for any references. And my reasoning for asking that is, again, this is our town talent. And I would like for it to be a mirror of what our application is, where we can have the same type questions that you would for anybody that's working for the town. So to me, it's just simple as a mirror of our job application.

And I think for clarity, this is 15.6 on this agenda. Not the ERC one.

The one I'm talking about is for the board and committee applications. Correct. 15.6.

Yes. I'm out of order then. Okay. Yeah. My apologies. No worries.

So do you all like that? Would you like to know some? Absolutely. Okay. Yeah, I think that would be good.

Just to add it to what we've already got out there since we have application already out there for people to apply for committees. This will just be added out there.

And this is just something that Mr. Klamer would do as a town administrator in his administrative duties. Great. I mean, everybody's nodding. Yeah, we're forward.

Everybody's good.

Correct us, yes.

What you said?

That the application has to be separate. If it's a mirror of what we're doing, we just create another one and just change the title at the top. It'll just be a separate application from an employment application. I don't think we need a motion.

Do we? He doesn't.

No, it sounds like we have consensus direction. All right, moving on next, the upcoming board committee appointments. We've got one more. And this is the ERC. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I don't have 15, 16.

I didn't have 15, 6, but 15, 7 is the ERC.

Okay, yes, yes.

Right, so this is for the three ERC members who are scheduled to expire in July. Okay. So I need direction from the town or from the council rather to replace these positions, to notify the three ERC members with expiring terms, confirm their interest in reappointment, to advertise the upcoming vacancies and accept application from interested residents, and then coordinate the interview and selection process so that the appointments may be made at the July council meeting.

Yes. We went through an extensive interview process with like 13, 15 people. And for all the boards, just a couple months ago, we said we were going to look down that list if we had openings to fill certain positions. and that we weren't going to necessarily re-interview people who already have been on that board, unless there was an obvious reason not to. So my question is, is Jennifer, Kathy, or John interested in staying on that board? And if one of them's off, who on our list, who's the next one we had as we've already interviewed? I try to go through that process of finding out whether they're interested.

Is this their first term? I know it is. I know the answer to that. This is their first term. Historically, we have interviews where there's an actual opening. You hate to have somebody come up to think that they're going to get an opportunity. Would you all be okay, since this is their first term, just reappointing them tonight? Would you all be okay with that?

I would be, and I feel like we interviewed everybody that was interested, and we did appoint someone new to their committee recently.

There was one just put on. They basically had one meeting.

Exactly, yeah, and I feel like they've all done a very good job. And John is new, he was just appointed, so he's just getting started to really.

So since everybody's okay, I'll make a motion that we reappoint Jennifer Dole, Kathy Trent, and John Payne. And I believe it's a two-year term, so that would be the term expiring in 2028.

I'll second that. Any more discussion? All in favor? Aye.

Aye.

Next up on this paper, y'all give me two different ones here tonight, so I'll switch them out on resolution, municipal election dates.

I guess the first question is, will we be able to vote on this, or are we going to have a quorum? We have three people that recuse themselves.

So in a quorum situation, when somebody recluses themselves, they do not count as a quorum. So a quorum for voting purposes would be three.

Okay. The purpose of this is to have amending the town charter to provide for municipal elections in even-numbered years. As the background talks about, administration costs, hopes of improved voter turnout. and access through expanded early voting opportunities. This is something that these resolution, there was a sample resolution that was sent to me through the Brunswick County Board of Elections. I also had the opportunity to talk with Frank Eiler when I was in Raleigh recently He's very familiar with this, and his response was, if an ordinance is passed, send it to him, and he will push it through. So before you is the resolution to consider for you to adopt to amend the charter so that we can send this off to Raleigh. And as it mentions, this would change the term of Mayor Shannon Phillips, Council Member Christy Batchelor, and Council Member Mike Posner.

Well, I cannot vote. Can I make a comment?

You're really not supposed to, because that would be deliberating. Okay. But I can say what you're going to say, that if you would allow me. Yes, feel free. Mr. Postle feels that the people voted for him for a four-year term, and that's what he said he would do as a four-year term. And that adding an extra year would not be what the voters voted for. You can just wink at me if that was right. Okay. But this was started with Brunswick County asking us to do this to kind of shore up so we wouldn't have an extra election. That extra election ends up costing our taxpayers anywhere between $10,000 and $12,000. So this would be a cost savings. I'd like to go ahead and make a motion unless somebody wants to. Mr. Arnold, did you want to say anything?

Yeah, it sounds nice, but I'm going to tell you, I think the voters need to play a larger role in this. And let's hear from them is what I want to do. Maybe we can, you know. if we wait until the next election and put it on a ballot or something like that. I mean, that would be the fair thing to do. But let's let the citizens play a role in this because what Mr. Posdo had also mentioned to me exactly that, you know, he was voted to serve four years, you know, the same for Ms. Batchelor and the same for Mayor. I mean, they were voted to serve for two years at a time, you know. It's not broken. Yes, it costs a little bit of money, but in the end, I think the citizens really need to play a role in how they want this to play out, where I'm at on this.

I'd like to agree with Mr. Arnold. I think this is something we can look at next election, upcoming election, maybe put that out there for the voters to decide. I guess we can make a motion to just Keep the municipal election dates and terms of office as are.

Do I have a second? I'll second that. Any more discussion? All in favor?

Aye.

I'm saying that now that that's over. I didn't want to say this.

Okay.

As long as I'm running for mayor, two years is fine. But when I do, when I'm done and the next person comes along, I think it is important to change the mayor to a four-year because it does a disjustice to our citizens. It takes a year in which these councilmen, the new councilmen are finding out really quickly. It really takes about a year to even get into the thing. So if you've got a mayor that only has two years, and it switched every two years, you're never going to have any kind of mayorship that's going to be able to be accountable to the citizens. So that's something in the future. As long as I'm running, I don't want it to be like that. I was totally against this deal. And like I said, but in the future, a four-year would be good for our town to make sure that someone is there for multiple times so they can get all the connections and start knowing people and helping our town like it should be. Thank you. Next up. be the, if we write, 6th Street Traffic and Pedestrian Study.

Yep.

I have 15.9 as the portal.

Yeah, I have portal next as well.

Kimberly? 15.9, the portal? Or are we going to 6th Street? Yeah, it should be 15.9.

These are all screwed up.

Okay.

This is 13, so we're on 14, 15.

We're on 15.9, consideration of the continued use of the electronic portal. The portal, as you know, was established by this council as a way to allow people who cannot come and stand in front of this podium to get their comments to you. And while everything with good intentions sometimes has a dark side, this portal allows for people to post anonymously this comp this portal allows for people to uh use an alias it allows for people to use uh an alias address and we did put a disclaimer on the portal that if you post anonymously that your comment will not be included if you call out staff members by name that your comment will not be included if you're if you're nasty with your comments is a lack of a better way to put it, but they continue. Staff monitors these and does their best to weed them out. There's no way for us to verify if somebody says they're Ken Claymar on the portal. And there's no way to verify other than calling that resident or calling me and saying, hey, did you do this? There are some options that the council has. There was previously an email address that was publiccomment at sunsetbeachnc.gov. Someone would email a comment there. It would be filtered automatically to all of the council. The public is curious as to what those comments are via public records request as with any of our emails unless it's privileged information. Those are public records. the council has an option to just simply get rid of this portal. We can't censor people's First Amendment rights to speech and the staff time that it takes to go through and make sure that we're allowing things in there for a platform that we have another method that we can do this remotely. I think the cleanest way is to just discontinue the use of the portal. And that's what's before you today for consideration.

Did you say there's an email that the folks could click on to that would send it to all of us?

There was. I don't believe that's currently in use. So, Helen, just a thumbs up. That public comments at sunsetbeachnc.gov, is that still active? Okay. So there was one, and if it's not currently active, we can reactivate that. We can make sure that there's a tab, a button on the website's homepage that will automatically link to someone's email, and they can send each one. It'll be an automatic distribution to the full console.

That was similar to what we had during COVID, correct? Correct. That's when that was, yeah. Correct. We know that can be created, so keep that open line going for all those.

It wouldn't stop, per se, the negative comments, the nasty comments, and people could make a fake email. But it's not something that, unless there's a public records request, it's not something that we're pushing out into the public.

Would it be a possibility to keep the portal and just keep it private where only we see it?

I don't know that we can do that now that we've made it public.

No, I mean, we're just, we see that what comes in on the portal, like residents could, a lot of residents like the portal for good reasons to be able to send it. And to me, it's nice for us to have it in a spreadsheet format where you can search on everything and Look at it all, but where it's not where it does not become part of the public comments and the meeting, I guess. So it would be just like it coming via email to us, but instead we get it in the portal.

It would be similar to the email that if someone wanted to request it, that they could still request those portal comments.

Through the public records request.

The difference is that the ease of, I guess, making a fake account, not even an account, just putting in a fake name or where somebody has an email, it's going to take a little bit of work to create an alternative email to send it to the council.

what Ms. Batchelor was talking about. I'm looking at this and it has actual topics. And I think that's easy to sort than going through an email. How much trouble would it be for us to put a disclaimer on the page that says somebody from staff town hall is going to call you we're going to verify we're not going to go over and say did you say this this and this we're going to say we're going to verify did you in fact put this on the portal and if the person says yes great if they say no then we hit delete If you can't get in touch with the person then we just don't see it. But I hate to lose the caption of the title or the subject because we've got somebody that wants to be mean to somebody. They've made comments about all of us. We got to have some thick skin. I get that. But I don't want to lose this ability for us to be able to sort what the public comments are. Because like when we, the roll cart, that was a huge thing. We could sort it. We could see the garbage can roll. There's some other things here that are finance budget. You could narrow down the search. Before we just totally abolish it, I'd rather us think of a way that we could properly manage that somebody is truly a person and not using Bugs Bunny or whatever the names were. Are you all okay with that? Because if we know somebody's going to call from town hall, Bugs Bunny's not going to be doing this anymore.

If we have a hot topic. and we have 60 public comments through the portal. Staff then, a staff member has to call 60 people to verify that they in fact were the person that left that comment. So you call during the work day, that person works full time, you get a voicemail. They try to call you back at 6.30.

We don't get an answer.

So there's a lot of time that's going to be involved, a lot of staff time just calling somebody to verify that they did in fact leave that comment. The disclaimer, I don't know that it's going to do any good. There's disclaimers on there now.

how about on the subject line you make them put what the subject is so that we can sort it somehow because i mean this database is so helpful for looking at legitimate concerns and i think that's when um we set it up that's what we were wanting so that it was another way for folks to share with us what their topics were getting up here and speaking at this podium some people don't like doing that it takes a lot of courage to get up there and some people

don't want to do it they may not be able to be here i just want to make sure we have an opportunity to hear from our public i also feel like it's okay when residents fill out the portal and don't let's say they put concerned citizen and they share a valid concern they have about the town but they don't want to give their name for various reasons we've heard people say why they sometimes don't want to give their name and i personally feel like we gather good information from those sometimes that makes us think about things, or how can we improve on something, or how can we look at this department thing? I understand, as we all do, the attacks that I've been receiving coming across on them, which are some extremely inappropriate, some are borderline, but we've all witnessed that. We get that in email, unfortunately. We get all kind of stuff. Y'all would be amazed. um i don't know um mr xb is there a way to have them create an account where they have to create an account with an email and everything to go into it i know some portals do where you have to log in it's not just so to me we could have a login there possibly would that be an option to try to keep this um I do feel like we have gathered you can come on up I do feel like we've gathered great data from this and information from our residents and a lot find it very easy to use obviously logging in is going to be another little step but it would be a way for us to get that information and I do know of many that have came through that have resulted in positive things happening across the town

Yes, there is a way that Microsoft will capture those email addresses and you will have to register as a Microsoft account user in order to do that. Of course, that then limits them and, you know, does make it a little bit harder if they want to leave something nasty or just completely ridiculous. But yes, there is a setting that I can turn on that only Microsoft account users can. would be able to submit.

So let me check on that. If that's an option we should consider or not. I mean, I also think we're going to get crazy things that, you know, we get it now.

I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, the recommendation, or I shouldn't say recommendation, but the advisement from legal was that we can't selectively censor. So we can't just pick out comments that are hateful and not post those if we deem them to be hateful.

Why are we having to post them? This is information to us. Like if you send us an email, we don't post the email. If somebody wants to see it, then they have to do a public records request. But I really do think if we could verify who they are, it would stop some of this nonsense. Because you all, let's think about today. We read the roll card. We've got emails. But We didn't know that so many people were so dissatisfied. But today we made action. We took action, excuse me, on providing that as a service. If we had not had this, would we see the pervasiveness of the problem? I'm just using the roll card as an example. I just hate for us to lose the flavor of this. And you all, leadership is, I mean, it's not for the fainthearted. People are going to say negative things. Use some discernment. If it doesn't apply to you, move on. I mean, the very first comments were about paid parking, and they called this bachelor and I a very nasty name, very nasty name. And that name does not describe us, and nobody seemed to care. We saw it. We didn't laugh because it was nasty, but, you know, we had to move off of that. Somebody didn't like the way that I voted on something. Okay. That's democracy. That's the way things are. I don't know that this has to go out to the public. It has to go out if they do a public records request, but any of the documents that we have shared with each other, we don't just say, hey, here it is, let's post this. We don't put this in the minutes.

I think if all of them, I'm sorry.

Oh, come on.

What was my question?

So you said, why do we have to post that? Yes. So you set this up as another way for people to come up here and speak. The reason why we can't or why we should not or why we should hide that is because you're not going to keep somebody from coming in this room and speaking. All of you want to hear from the public. This is a limited public forum. So you cracked open the door and you're accepting comments. So if this system or this public portal is gonna be used in that same sense, you have to make it public. It's just, I couldn't selectively not take somebody's comment that they come in here on the podium and just not put it in the minutes. So I think if you're going to keep this system, then it needs to be used or renamed. I think we would need to get legal involved.

This was going to be my suggestion. If we abolish the public comment portal, but then make another motion or direction to rename this as the... Or just... We don't need to rename it. We make a similar portal that looks the same, feels the same, acts the same, but it's where... those are directed to council. They're not public comments through a portal anymore. That portal is being repurposed as a way to contact council as a group. So similar to public comment at sunsetbeachnc.gov, now we just have a place that they can go where they will send a message to the council that will be received in a similar format.

Y'all good with that? Yes.

Yeah.

I'm good with it, but also can we also make sure Ms. Rigsby can check the system that she mentioned about only Microsoft users can have create a login in regards to that. So yeah, we just wanna make sure it's still user-friendly.

That's what I'm saying.

Oh, yes. Really, and what I am saying is that in line with where you were going with that. We abolished the public comment portal, and then we purposed the portal as a contact method for the public to touch base on any topic for the town council.

change the name to dear console portal well all you need to do is strike out form where it says public form input just put public input just strike out form because that's what this is is a would be a form and that that would when the door is cracked open the analogy that you gave that takes that out of there do you need a motion to abolish it Is this something you can just handle administratively?

I think we need a motion.

Make a motion to abolish the public portal and reinstitute it as another vehicle.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor?

Wait, any discussion? I'm sorry. Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye. Next up, I guess, 6th Street Traffic and Pedestrian Safety Solutions. Is that your next?

This is right. This is the last one I have for you.

Okay.

So, I've had a lot of conversations and meetings with some residents on 6th Street about their concerns with pedestrian and vehicular traffic on that street. And this isn't new. This has been going on since I took over as the chief. And the problems remain. The problems sometimes have increased. And, of course, in the summer months, they really increase. So some of the options that I came up with with residents that could potentially make for safer pedestrian and vehicular traffic on 6th Street would be to adopt an ordinance to prohibit through trucks on 6th Street. Of course, this would not prevent your UPS, your FedEx drivers, or anybody that wanted to turn into a driveway or onto Canal Drive. It would be for through, so from Main to North Shore. Another option would be to change the Sixth Street traffic pattern to one way, either from North Shore to Main or from Main to North Shore. perhaps posting a three-way stop at North Shore and Sixth, perhaps posting a three-way stop at Canal and Sixth to at least get traffic to hopefully come to a complete stop before going through those intersections. My recommendation would be for the council to adopt an ordinance to prohibit through trucks on Sixth Street and to authorize the placement of two additional stop signs at Sixth and Canal, which would affect a three-way stop. i then want to review after the summer season the effectiveness of these changes and whether or not they should remain i like it so mr playmore let me ask real quick in your recommendation you're only asking for the three-way stop at six and canal That's correct. OK. Yeah, the options are what I discussed with some of the concerned residents. But my recommendation is just for those two features. OK. I think that's an excellent idea.

I do, too. And we've heard from them on the portal. And this was another way for us to know the pervasiveness of the problem. So I like it.

Yep. I think it's a good way to try to see how it works and help.

The mayor just called for a motion, and I'll make that. make a motion that we adopt the ordinance to prohibit trucks on 6th Street and authorize the placement of two additional stop signs on 6th Street and Canal affecting in a three-way stop.

If I may before there's a vote. I have a couple notes here that I forgot to read. So in looking at areas of the town that currently have signage that prohibits through traffic or through trucks that are not, doesn't appear that they've been adopted in ordinance. It just looks like signs were driven into the ground. So if we're gonna adopt ordinances for no through trucks on six, we currently have a no through truck sign at Clubhouse and Shoreline and at Clubhouse and Old Georgetown. There is one no through traffic sign on Park Road at Sunset Boulevard, but there is no through traffic sign on Park Road at Shoreline. Shoreline East at the roundabout, there is a sign that says no through traffic, but there is not another sign at Park and Shoreline. And again, there's no ordinances that we could find that were adopted by council anywhere for these streets.

Do you want to include all that in there?

My recommendation would be for through trucks, not through traffic, or those streets for 6th, Park, Shoreline East, and Clubhouse Road from Shoreline to Old Georgetown.

And they're already existing?

Well, kind of. Park Road in part, Shoreline East in part, Clubhouse Road in that full distance. The signs are already there.

I wonder if we should table that part, the new part you're discussing, to another meeting so in case residents want to give us any sort of feedback. And we can also make sure exactly where those are.

I think it's a great idea. We did have conversations. I do remember having conversations about this when the bridge was closed in Calabash. But if we're going to table the new stuff, let's just table it all. I agree with that.

We could do this one or pass the six, or vote on the six. Right.

You got your motion on the floor? You stand with that?

Well, it died because I didn't have a second.

We haven't got that.

I didn't give you the opportunity. I had the opportunity to do a second yet. He wanted to put that in there before we got to it. He wanted to make note of that.

Is there a second? A second. Any more discussion? All in favor? Aye. Disposition of directives. We know we got a rollback thing coming back July 13th, correct? That's our next meeting?

Yes, sir.

And then the public hearing for the UDO overlap. Is there anything else that needs to be put on there?

I would like to have a discussion with the council over forming a finance board or finance committee made up of citizens within the town. Three to five people that can... If you wish, just sort of, there's so much going on, we're running around up and back trying to get things done. If somebody would look at things on a monthly basis and say, you're following in the right direction. The reason I say that is, to bring it up, is that last fall we elected to, for an example, and this is just a small example, we elected to have longevity payments to staff and somehow between during that period. Longevity payments were given to all staff. not just those at the maximum for their salary. And I think that, and that's a case of people trying to get so much done. We need somebody to be able to take a look at things like that. I don't know if any other township does this or town, but I think maybe we can do some checking out and I'm willing to look and start calling around and see if anybody has that and what their program is, what the rules are, how they do it.

You want to put that on July? Well, put it on July. Just on the thing, like we've got some of these. Yeah. Just on our future. Okay. So right now we've just got the two for July. Is there anything else on July 13th that needs to be addressed then?

The no through traffic that was just tabled. The Park Road, Shirell and Easton Clubhouse.

You'll have a breakdown of all those streets so we can get a motion going there. Okay. Is there anything else? If not, we'll go to public comments on anything. Would anybody like to make a comment? Yes, sir.

Stuart Jones, 1410 Canal Drive. I wanted to let you know that I personally apologize to Ken Claymar after my comments made at the May 4th meeting. I did not intend to disrespect anyone and my intentions were poorly carried out. I was trying to comment on the fact that we've had an interim town administrator for quite a while. And if you don't intend to advertise for a new town administrator, then our interim probably needs some support and or training. I told Mr. Claymore that I felt like he had done a good job with all that he's had to deal with and that I have a lot of respect for him. I do apologize to Mr. Claymore and each of you for my comments. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Jones.

Anyone else?

All right.

If not, there's nothing further. Do I have a motion to adjourn?

Motion to adjourn.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye.