Town Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to welcome everybody out to the physical year 26-27 budget public hearing. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Again, thank you all for coming out today. Does any member of council have a conflict of interest or appearance of a conflict of interest in regards to any item on the agenda? So, please state at this time, Mr. Arnold. I do not. Ms. Batchelor? No. Ms. Bourneau? No.

No.

All right. Moving on next, approval of the draft agenda. Has everybody looked over it? Everything looks good. Can I have a motion to approve the draft agenda? I'll make a motion to approve the draft agenda. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Public comments on agenda item five, which is in regards to our year-end budget adjustments. If you have anything in this, you're more than welcome to come up now for a public comment. The other part of it will be in the next part in the publics, but does anybody have anything in regards to the 25-26 year-end budget adjustments? All right, if not, we'll move on to that. Go ahead, Chief or Alicia, you have the floor.

The town always raises spending in May and most of our expenses right now are monthly recurring invoices which are addressed through the budget amendments. The two exceptions are for the debt service interest payment and the carpet change order for town hall. We will not close the year until August so all June invoices will be an expense and payable in the current fiscal year and I recommend council approve the attached budget amendment.

Anybody from council got any questions? I think everybody has looked over this. You've seen where everything's come from. It's just a balance out. There's no additional funds or anything there. Does anybody see anything that needs to be addressed? I do not.

No. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we approve the physical year 25-26 year-end budget adjustment amendment as presented by our finance director.

Do I have a second? I'll second. All right. Any more discussion? All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Moving on next, we'll be moving on to our public hearing on the budget ordinance for 26-27. Before we open up the public hearing, Chief, do you or Alicia have anything you'd like to add or are we pretty much good with what you've got in here?

So the only thing that's changed from when we went away from the last budget meeting was when there was a consensus to come to the public hearing was just the changes to the educational pay that was approved in the last meeting where those adjustments have been done. There were a couple other minor adjustments where there were step adjustments that should have been change in classification so from say police or firefighter one to police or firefighter two those were listed as step when those should have actually been changes to the base so those changes were made but in no way did that change the bottom line of this budget all right any member caps you got any questions before we go open up to go into a public hearing not do i have a motion to go into a public hearing motion to go into a public hearing

Do I have a second? I'll second. All right. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Public hearing is now open on anything you'd like to speak to on budget. Please come up, state your name, address, courtesy three minutes. You know, I always let you try to finish out. This must be everybody's courtesy so everybody gets a chance to speak. Anybody like to open up, you're more than welcome to come up right now. Public hearing is open.

All right.

I am Mickey Smith. My wife and I live at 123 Forest Walk and Sea Trail. I've had a house here since the 1990s. I want to say thank you to the council for looking into a lot of things that we need to do in Sea Trail, especially on the roads, and that's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about two key roads that we need paved in Sea Trail. The two roads are Old Point Road and Clubhouse Road. These are two key roads that accommodate residents, visitors, guests, and emergency vehicles, etc. As I have said in the past in these meetings, Matt over there and Vicki, they do an excellent job of fixing our potholes. We have potholes, we let them know, and they make it happen. But you know what? We're not a pothole community. We're a very proud community, and we don't need to be fixing potholes. Let's recall some things that happened a couple years ago. In 2024, in December, we were talking about putting pavers at the park. There was three things that were going on at that time. And what it was said was, maybe we only need to do two of those and not the third one. And one of you said that we could possibly save $300,000. And why don't we take that $300,000 and put it in the paving of Clubhouse Road? Mr. Mayor, you said you agreed, you thought that was a great idea, but nothing has happened. Also, when the Calabash River Bridge was built, A lot of traffic came through C-Trail, especially on Clubhouse and Old Point Road. It was said at that time in a meeting that as soon as that bridge was done, we would look at paving Clubhouse Road. But again, nothing has happened. In conclusion, it is time to pave Old Point and Clubhouse Road and C-Trail. Thank you for listening. I have heard a lot of excuses why we should not pay the roads, which I disagree with. And I just want to leave it like this. Let's say that you're a young person. You're 27 years old. You don't have enough money to go to college. So what you do is you look into going to school at night. It may take you 10 years to graduate. But you know what? If you don't go to those 10 years and graduate, you're not going to have a college education. If we don't go ahead and pave these roads we have now, we're just going to have more mess. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Smith.

Anyone else? Yes, sir.

Good afternoon. My name is Michael Smorowski. I live at 115 Clubhouse Road in C-Trail. I've been a resident for four years now and owned for close to seven years. SeaTrail is a great community. This is the first time I ever got up and spoke in front of council. And I also am involved in the community within SeaTrail. I've been on the landscape committee, and now I'm the chair, and I took that over about a year and a half ago. So the people that live in SeaTrail, I hope you all have seen a big change from the landscaping in SeaTrail. It's starting to look world-class. We get many compliments. You don't have to look at the flowers and everything, every entrance. People do call, and people, you know, really like. So with that, the roads, you know, I'm up and down Clubhouse Road every day. I spend a lot of time with Phoenix. So with my ask... is first Clubhouse Road is one of the primary transportation corridors within C-Trail and serves residents, visitors, golfers, service providers, and emergency vehicles. The road surface has deteriorated significantly and continues to decline affecting safety, ride quality, and the overall appearance of our community. During the multi-year Calabash Bridge replacement project, Clubhouse Road became a heavily used alternate route for local and regional traffic, increasing wear on the roadway. As one of the main entrances also, I would like to say just preventing resurfacing is generally more cost-effective than delaying maintenance until more extensive repairs are required. I respectfully ask the council to review the current conditions of Clubhouse Road, share its status within the town's parking paving priorities, consider funding resurfacing in the upcoming budget or capital improvement plan. Thank you for your time and consideration and service to our community. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, Michael. And the landscaping looks amazing. Very nice.

Next. Don't be shy.

Hi, everyone. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak. And I'd like to first thank the town's elected officials and the staff for all of the ongoing efforts that supporting this town of Sunset Beach, the growth and its success. My name is Dawn Simorowski. I live at 115 Clubhouse Road with my husband, Michael Simorowski, who just spoke with you. I'd like to first echo what Mickey Smith and Michael both said, but in addition, I'd like to add a couple of other comments. In the past, I've spoken at these town meetings and I have expressed my concerns about growth and infrastructure in our beach community. As many of you know, I am all about smart growth. Sea trail roads are in poor condition, and the Clubhouse Road remains the main thoroughfare for other areas in our ETJ, like Ocean Isle, Calabash, and other surrounding areas in Brunswick County. I live specifically on Clubhouse Road, and I have seen what a busy thoroughfare it's become, a lot like Georgetown Road. Reliable infrastructure is essential in supporting future growth and protecting property values, both residentially and also commercially. Also, let's think about, at this point in time, how we can make our sidewalks and paths even better and more connected to our future plans for roads and buildings. I'd like to say thank you so much, and I hope that you take everything that I have shared and with the others into consideration while looking at your budget. Much appreciated. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Next.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Mike Hargraves, 612 Deacon Court, Sunset Beach. I just want to take a couple of minutes today just to talk to you a little bit about the budget. I'm not going to talk about Clubhouse Road or anything like that. Just talk about the budget a little bit and some lessons that I have learned that I want to pass on to you a little bit regarding preparing employee compensation. I think that's a weakness in our budget this time. The longstanding practice of our town has always been to monitor the actions of neighboring towns. regarding compensation for their employees, especially as we strive to maintain a competitive rate of pay. And we've got to maintain a competitive rate of pay in order to get good quality employees. If one town around us gets far out in front of the other towns regarding compensation and benefits, that town normally has the pick of new recruits as well as the ability to retain current employees. Possible new recruit does not choose his employer, his town, to work in like ours or a town like ours based on liking the town. It's about compensation. First thing the potential employee looks at is the compensation that he or she will receive. If we're offering $2,000 less for a first year employee in a neighboring town, where do you think that person will go to work? We may miss out on superior employees. There's an additional repercussion here that the chief and I have talked about many times, that the town incurs a notable expense in outfitting and training new employees whenever they come on board, especially the police and the fire departments. This becomes a waste of money when that employee is outfitted, gains experience, and quickly moves on to a town that pays better amount of money. In the 2026-27 budget, I think it takes a little bit of a step backwards in compensating employees, which will negatively impact recruiting of new employees and retention of current employees. It cuts dependent healthcare in half to 25% for those hired after June 30th. Does away with COLA. This is a big one. A key part of employee compensation in the communities around us is COLA. Without COLA, every employee's official pay rate remains the same as last year. We may begin to fall behind. Adding the merit system that has never worked because it's based on subjectivity and not objectivity. In reality, supervisors tend to give the maximum amount to all employees. And it aims to cut the step program, I think, by the end of next year. This is a program that has challenged and energized employees to improve themselves. Instead, the 2026-27 budget considerably increases funds for stormwater, for example, into a big chunk. It's a shame that a portion of these budgeted amounts cannot be used to keep our employees at least at the status quo. The changes you're suggesting in employee compensation, and I'm asking you to do this, I can't change the current budget, but I'm asking you to do a careful study with the pros and cons and costs of each program clearly presented, debated, and understood as far as compensation is concerned. You can do better, I think, than this budget has in it regarding employee compensation. It should do better for the future of our town, our employees, and the quality of life for our citizens. Certainly, you can love your employees, and that's been set up here a number of times. But the first step to get their love in return is to pay a competitive wage. When you lose that competitive wage, you lose employees. Don't let that happen. And that's just some background from me. But I wish you would take some time, study the compensation, and get into it deeply so you really understand it. I think it might have been put together pretty quick. But That's for the future, and hopefully you'll do that for the future. So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike.

All right. Next. Anybody else? Last call.

I thought everybody was going to be speaking. Nobody else. Everybody's good? All right. Do I have a motion to close the public hearing?

Make a motion to close the public hearing. Do I have a second?

A second. Any discussion from council? All in favor? Aye. Thank you all for coming out and speaking. Next up will be your physical year 26-27 budget ordinance adoption. All right, council, each one of you has had plenty of time to look over things and think about things. Is there any kind of discussion you all would like to go through? not I'll entertain a motion to accept the 2627 budget ordinance do I have a second second any discussion all in favor says public comments again but Public comments time since it's on there. I don't know why it was on here the second time. But if anybody has public comments, you're more than welcome to come up right now. If not, do I have a motion to adjourn?

I make a motion to adjourn.

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

Thank you.