Town Council - public_hearing

I'd like to welcome everybody out to the public forum for the upcoming meeting on August 3rd. 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 for coming out today. This is a chance for people to come early before the meeting to find out any information or give the council your thoughts on the process coming up on things that are on the agenda. So at this time, Does any member of council have a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest with regards to any item on the agenda? If so, please state at this time. I do not. No. All right. Moving on. Public comment time is open. Please state your name, address, and I'll give you three minutes if you'd like to come up on agenda items. You're more than welcome to come up. Thank you for coming out.

So I am Beth Johnson. I am 1206 Riverside Drive. And the comment that I wanted to make is I want you guys to really consider hard the 6th Street, what you do there. I think it is super important for every one of you to not only drive it, but to walk it and see what is being suggested. Because some of the situations that are proposed concern me. and i'm not going to put a thought in your head what it should and shouldn't be but i i do feel like there are some major concerns on some of the ones that are um i will say um it does need stop signs um we have asked for stop signs there before and it wasn't done for whatever reason um i in my opinion that's the best situation to slow people down Um, it's, it's not only for 6th street having a concern with people going past. If you're trying to come out of Riverside, people are flying around that corner. Um, and if you're walking down 6th street, it's, it's not safe. Um, so it's a small street, so, um, you just need to. Please walk it and see for yourself today. We were on bikes. And there were cars parked on the street and there were cars coming both ways. There were people walking, you couldn't get around people. I mean, it is a concern. Um, so that's, that's what I just wanted to say. It's. I definitely think that there is something that needs to be addressed there, but slowing people down is one situation. When you cut traffic off, there's a concern there, in my opinion, or the one ways that are proposed. So just my opinion.

Thank you so much.

Thanks. Thank you. Chief Kramer, do we have parking on 6th Street, or is she talking about Canal?

She mentioned 6th Street. I'm assuming it may have been construction. I know that there's been a lot of construction with that house there on the corner. Is that what you were referring to?

It wasn't the one on the corner. It was the other one being built. There were hard parks on both sides, and there was traffic going both ways. It was real.

We show a lot of courtesy to our construction because there's really nowhere else for them to park. And there's going to be a house that's going to be demoed right there in the intersection. The same problem is going to happen. All the side streets, there's no side street parking anywhere on the island. But we do show a lot of courtesy to those folks because we can't expect them to pay to park on Main.

My whole point was not necessarily to close it. My point was... It's added congestion. Yes, ma'am. Understood. What street is that? Yeah, please come to the microphone.

Sorry.

Sorry, Alan. What street is that?

I have called, I've reported it, and a new stop sign was put there. I have a picture of a police car parked there right beside of a car parked on the street. They said nothing to them. So they were sitting there to get the people running the stop sign or not going through the stop sign. but yet there's a no parking sign on that street and they were sitting beside of that car did not say a word to him so if you're gonna enforce one rule i think you should enforce all the rules fair enough thank you thank you miss johnson go ahead ma'am

I'm Diana Watson, and I live at 1522 Riverside Drive, just down the street from Beth. And I am here to also speak about the traffic on 6th Street. I concur with what Beth said, so I'm not going to repeat everything she just said. But there is an issue now between cars coming both directions and pedestrians, especially with summer traffic and visitors, because we all use that street with our bicycles, our wagons, our feet, holding hands. And I applaud you for saying you want to do something about that. And I really appreciate that one three-way stop. I think it has helped. The concern I have is the suggestions for a barrier on either end, because with the barrier, cars that aren't aware of it will need to turn around and there's nowhere to turn around on either at the end or the beginning of Sixth Street or where North Shore meets Sixth Street and I think the barrier would just funnel any traffic down Fifth Street so and that's also a street where there are a lot of families that walk up and down it and I was hoping that something as simple as another three-way stop might help slow the people down and maybe try to encourage some people to stay on Main Street. Well, stay on Sunset to go to Main Street to park. But I think with the new parking, the way it is on the north side of the street, Anyone who wants to park a vehicle is going to go North Shore 6 and go around Canal. That way they don't have to do a U-turn. And so maybe by slowing them down with another stop sign or putting some stop signs on Canal as well might encourage people to stay on the main thoroughfare instead of cutting through. But we appreciate what you've been doing to help alleviate it. But no barriers, please.

thank you thank you miss watson thank you anyone else yes ma'am

Nora Lynn Finch, 641 Oyster Bay Drive. Oyster Bay Drive's in Sea Trail, but it's not the main part of Sea Trail. And I just want y'all to remember that previous councils have approved the resurfacing of Clubhouse Drive in the main part of Sea Trail. Now, I don't live there, but I drive through there, and most of our citizens do drive through there. It's a major thoroughfare for the town. It's been approved. I hope you will continue. And I know, Mr. Arnold, you supported it during your campaign. Thank you. I know that, Ms. Batchelor, you have understood the needs on the island, but have also respected what's needed here on the mainland. So I just ask you to remember that. And thank you. thank you thank you thank you anyone else

Tracy Jones, 418 29th Street.

I was sort of hoping that Matt was going to be here because I have a lot of questions on his paving presentation. And so I don't know if you want me to ask those questions or skip it because he won't be able to answer.

You can because he'll have access to it. That way, maybe he'll have answers. I'll be able to get back with you before then. So go ahead.

OK, so I just want to start off. I'm not an expert on paving. So I go to my friend Google, and I go to my brother, who is a traffic engineer. So discuss some things. And so I'm not an expert. So here are my questions. I know that alligator cracks are really bad. And oxidation on the road leads to these alligator cracks. So I was just trying to understand each street and, you know, every homeowner goes, where does my street land in this? So, of course, I went to mine. So I was just trying to understand how he applied a number to a street and then ranked it because my street, 29th. So alligator cracks, I have an eight and none, but I have a two and L. So that means there are some alligator cracks somewhere on the street. um the rest the traverse the running the raveling no oxidation severe uh bleeding no ride was an m for marginal and patching is an s for severe and it is severe for patch um so i got ranked 15 and the street is 73.17 which i don't know what that means so then i go and i look at north shore west north shore west has no alligator cracks Traverse, rutting, raveling, oxidation, bleeding are all N, none. Ride is an L and Patching is an L, but they're ranked three with a score of 67. So I don't understand that I have alligator cracks, severe oxidation, but 29th Street is ranked 15 compared to North Shore Drive West, which has almost nothing wrong with it. so i was hoping that he was going to explain how he assigned these numbers and ranked them so then i decided to look at his whole presentation and the report at the end and um i said well The report says that run through four is one is Old Point, two is Clubhouse, three is North Shore, and fourth is 27th. And which North Shore was ranked ninth, now it's ranked three. So the top four were changed though to Old Point, Clubhouse Road, 27th, and 40th, which 40th was 10th, now it's number four. So I was just, I wanted to know how did 40th street move from 10th to being fourth to get paved? And the other thing is in the year 27 slash 30, in the presentation itself, he talked about severe patching, depressions, and oxidation. And I was just going to suggest that he changes the word depression because that is not something that was looked at. It's the rutting that was looked at. So he might want to change the word depressions to rutting. So it matches his actual report. And I think he did a great job on his report, you know, because I looked a lot up. But so anyways, I was hoping to get those answers. But so that's all the comments I have on that. But I have other comments and I know I'm past three minutes, so I apologize. I was going to go to. 12.3, the month reports. I know I always talk about the month reports. I'm probably the only one that really cares besides you guys. In the fire department report, there is a section on how they did fire inspections for the year. And it's a page about Sunset Village. Well, the date is 12-23-24. So I don't know why those inspections were on the report, because you didn't do them in June. They were done two years ago. Then I had, I don't know, am I allowed to ask questions about the RFPs? Okay.

You can ask anything you want to.

Okay. So 5.2 is the accommodation tax collection RFP. And so in it, it says that they are responsible for administer filing and payment systems. So I didn't know if, are those already in existence or do they have to develop those systems in order to try to collect the taxes? I didn't know. I was also surprised to see that it's a three-year contract with option years because normally you do, know you award it it could be like a five-year contract with one year with four options i was surprised that it's three years with options but there's also it doesn't state how many option years we're putting on that contract so what is it going to be is it three years with two option years i don't know but it doesn't state in there The contract termination, it says failure to achieve reasonable contractual performance objectives. How are we defining reasonable? Because reasonable is subjective, it's not objective. So if I was going to go after the contract, I would question, how are you determining what is a reasonable contractual performance? Because reasonable is subjective. Let's see. I'm trying to do it in order. Oh, I passed 5.1. I'm sorry. That was the RFP for the resurfacing. On page one of it, I think it is. Down at the bottom, it talks about the last sentence on that page says something about phoning or sending an email. But it says, or you can send me an email. I think you need to take me out of there and just say send me an email or send an email to Matt, I believe it is. The contract will be awarded to the lowest bidder, it says on there. Is it a firm fixed price contract? Do we know? Is it going to be a cost plus? I thought it was firm fixed until I started reading more in the RFP, and it looks like that there might be a cost plus side to it. Okay. I'll drop that. Um, on page six, it says the contract work is between April 12th and June 11th and $350 for each consecutive calendar day, which lapses between the agreed completion and the actual completion. But on page seven further down, it says $600. So I didn't know if we're talking about something different or is it really $600 or is it $350 for every day that they're past the agreed completion? Um, on page nine, it has that it will be completed by June 10th. But like I said, on page six, we said June 11th. So is it the 11th or the 10th? Um, on page 12, um, it just says that it's rice mill to old Georgetown. It does not say clubhouse road. So that needs to be fixed to say that it's clubhouse road between those two roads. um let's see 15.6 which i think is my last one is about parking and um um just When I read this, I just took a step back and I was like, this was on section three, signage and enforcement. And it says that the police department shall be responsible for enforcement of this section. which it's not really true it's otto who enforces the parking on the island so i personally this is just me if i had gotten a ride up from otto i would say it's not from the police why do i have to pay this So that's just my thought. If this is going to be the section, then I think maybe we should say that it's and I don't know, talk to the lawyer, but maybe via a third party or something. I don't know. But that's I think that just needs to be changed. The wording changed maybe. And I think that's all I have. So thank you for letting me talk longer than I should.

Thank you for your detailed analyzation of all this. Appreciate it.

all right that's everybody here today um do we want to hold on just a minute before you go to anybody else she brought up some very good points valid points that i think that a lot of people have been asking about so thank you miss jones for doing that it was a lot and we may not have all the answers right now would it be too much to ask for at our council meeting for monday night when we go over this that you state these were questions concerns with the answers

so because i mean she's asked them and um other people including some of us up here i'm sure have the same questions as we looked at the agenda i think it's fair um some of the things i just don't have answers to um the fire questions the paving questions um so it's difficult for me to answer those now the rfps were reviewed by engineers reviewed by attorneys reviewed by multiple staff members if there's a type of graphical error Um, I know the 300 600, I caught that in 1 revision. I don't know how it looks in the current draft compared to what you took your notes from. It may have been changed, but I know that was caught. So, I think that would be fair to give me a couple of days to try to get all these answers and then we'll address them at the council meeting.

Thank you. Thank you. 1.

The thing I wanted to mention on Appendix A, it's the street-specific says Rice Mill to Georgetown Road, Old Georgetown Road, which is fine, except there's two rice mills. Which one are we talking about?

I feel like that was caught, too, that that was changed to Clubhouse, but it doesn't specify which under Rice Mill. But I think Clubhouse was added on there, but we'll double-check all of that. Thank you.

is that been do we think that's been changed online and in our packets that we got yesterday because um it it does that's a big difference it could be a big difference in it initially i thought all of clubhouse road was going to be on there so i feel like that's a huge concern and question and i know sea trail folks definitely as well as others because the whole community uses that road need to know what we're talking about there because um I thought all of Clubhouse Road was on the list. Did y'all think that?

Oh, yes, I did think that. Well, we talked about it. We talked about two different proposals that we had. One was a much, I think it was something that Mr. Arnold had brought up, which was a higher cost, which was maybe the slurry method. And then we just determined up here that we were going to use the other option where it was actually the whole paving of the road. And we talked about it. I was under the thought that we were talking about all of Clubhouse Road as well, and I was surprised when I saw Riceville to Georgetown.

Yeah, because I thought we were going to look at using the synergies of getting the pricing all together so that it would be cheaper, hopefully, when the RFP came back with pricing, not just for Clubhouse, but also for the other roads that we plan to do this year. So I was shocked to see that.

My concern on all of Clubhouse Road is just that the cost to do all of Clubhouse Road far exceeds all the money we have put aside for paving. And that would basically suck away all the paving on other roads like 27th Street and a few others. So you take the worst and try to repair that. And then in a couple of years, go after the other.

Well, I thought the projections that Matt came back to us with were better than we anticipated and that we were going to be able to do more. That was on the top of the, the, the engineer surveys that we got back that the town got from McGill last summer, actually. And I do know my understanding, Ms. Jones is 40th that was identified by a resident some concerns and public works looked at it and i guess question maybe the video that validness of the report on that street is my understanding of how that got moved up but i'm not the expert on that that's what i was told um but to help clarify that that's what i was told but there's been so many emails and going around about um The roads, um, I do think, you know, I wish we would have clarified this. During budget process personally, but that, um, but but, I mean, what do Billy do you do? What's your recollection? Were you thinking it was our clubhouse or just part of it?

Or I honestly thought it was all a clubhouse, but I could be mistaken. Okay.

I knew they were talking about the cost of it, that we weren't going to have the money to do the whole thing. So that's where I knew we were at. But the main ones was the parts that were bad. I'll be able to explain a lot more.

Yeah, I think it would be nice.

At least get some ideas of the pricing and all so we can see how far we can stretch our money.

My problem with pricing is the cost for the barrel of oil. Keeps going up the pricing is going up with it. And the pricing we got a year ago. Versus the pricing we getting now will be dramatically different.

Because it's gone up 25%, but they, but he gave us pricing in the spring that was up to date pricing and we asked actually for our January July meeting for the RFP to come in. So it can immediately go out. So we could be ready to. Roll with that.

The Strait of Hormuz was open in April and May. Now it isn't. So that's where the oil is going.

Yeah, but like I said, we... What you're saying is we asked for this to be before us so that we could have approved the RFPs back in July. And now it's going to be delayed. We need to get to where we asked staff to do something. They need to do it. I'm sorry I said it, and I meant it.

Do you have any take on what was your take?

I think we might want to check some of the emails we had because the bids that, one of the bids that Matt got only went to Rice Mill, the Rice Mill closest to the Maples. And then from there back to Old Georgetown.

I think we need to hear justification why that was done rather than the whole road. I think that we need to hear too about what Ms. Jones brought up about how do we determine the ranking? Because we certainly did not determine the ranking. And things were moved around for whatever reason. And, you know, as long as it's justified, I think the public will be okay. But we need strong justifications as to how things got the ranking and how they adjusted.

And on that topic, I know there's been some discussion about the dirt roads and we've got dirt roads on the island as well as the mainland. And currently our process is, is that the. The road, the people that live there have to get 51% to agree to want to do it in the past. My understanding has been that they get that filled out and then they go to the town and they're given some sort of quote of what it may cost per property owner. Um. And I don't know if that is something that we're as a council at all interested in modifying, changing or leaving the same because we've never discussed it in detail. But I do feel like that has been a struggle for residents that would like to get their road paid. I mean, I don't personally understand why the town ever accepted roads that weren't paved, but it's been done where we are and it's on the island in the mainland. But currently those dirt roads are not ranked at all in our ranking of order of streets. And those people are also those residents are taxpayers, just like anyone is that lives on a paved road. And we all know we have lots of road conditions that need improvement. And that's why we as a council are trying to put more funds in there to make that happen. But I think we need to look at that process. Are we for modifying that process at all? Don't know, but I would like us all to think about that. And obviously modifying it can also mean dollars, which where's the money gonna come from again? But if we're not for modifying it, or if we are, I feel like we need to look at getting some cost of what are the true estimates of getting these roads where they're paved. I know some roads cause things to flow into our stormwater systems that cause issues that we need to stop doing that. But how are we going to get there? I think I'm not aware that that's been looked at. And to me, even if we have the numbers, so we then can go to that street or we can publicize it and say for X street name, this is the estimate it'll cost to do your road. And this is how much it would approximately be per property owner. And then you can make the decision. Are you willing to sign to have that done or not? Because right now, I don't know about y'all, I don't think anybody likes an open number of not knowing what you're even agreeing to. Because some people are, you know, given estimates of $2,000, some at $6,000, you know, and you don't really know until it happens. But then you're going to get assessed it. and have no control. So I would like us to, I'll think about that too as part of this, because I know we talked about it during the budget, adding that in and then the reports, you know, the engineering, none of that ever got changed. We're basically looking at the same reports with a little bit of tweaking only that was done. So I don't know y'all's thoughts on that, if you're open to anybody have thoughts on it.

Well, I think before we, even get into flipping any of those streets from gravel or moral to asphalt, we need to ask our engineering firm what's the best method that we need to in order to do that. There might be some other options that are out there that we could do it, and it might be cheaper.

I don't know, but I know there's other options out there besides just putting asphalt down.

I do know that if you look at the information we got today from Ms. Todd, one of the things it talks about is the product they're looking at, it will tighten the road up. In other words, it'll make things tighten up. So it will, if they decide to go that route, it will reduce the dust and runoff, you know, hopefully a lot compared to just putting straight water down.

And I don't, yeah, I don't know if I've seen that yet, what you're referring to, but there was an email that came back from a property owner that was asking about the, and they were given an option of a road improvement that would be 57 Slate. And I didn't know that was even an option that residents could select, but I also not sure is that something, chief that that the residents pay for i'm not really sure i wasn't aware of that even being an option i think we need to ask them that vicki yeah because that was in an email today yeah i think they did end up those citizens did pay for that 57 slate i believe it was over on like seven 17th it was i think they ended up paying for that yes and i don't know i haven't been informed of anything that even happened there so i'm not really sure what happened what who paid for it or not

If I could make a suggestion, maybe we add this to the September agenda. Because I'm sure residents that live on unpaved roads are going to want to have input. So if we have this conversation, I know it's related to paving, so it's appropriate today, but I think if we have a further conversation, if council wants to make that decision to change what's currently in the ordinance, September might be appropriate.

I agree. I was going to ask for that to be added to the directive, so that sounds great. I just think we need to discuss it, because I'm getting a lot of emails about that. I don't know if y'all are. We are. I'm getting a lot of questions, especially with this new version of what's possibly going to be paved, which we still aren't sure what's going to be paved until we agree to it, but... I think it brings up the questions again.

And the email that Mr. Arnold's referring to with the different options. Could you share that with the council?

mean as far as like the paving and everything yeah yeah whatever you referred to yeah all i'm saying is yeah there's a besides just putting asphalt down for instance this company called slurry papers matt's having uh is interested in talking with them there's they don't just put asphalt down they there's a method they can come in and reclaim a road and then they apply an oil there's different sorts or different types of sealing Um, that you can do where, uh, you would like, for instance, like 17th street, if you go in and straighten that gravel up, grade it out evenly, there is the potential to then come in and apply a, uh, apply a, um, like a binding agent on

And then you roll it and compact it and you get more or less a paved street that way.

But if you're interested, if anybody's interested, look at a website called slurrypavers.com and you can see the different types of sealing and things like that that they do for roadways. And it's something that's used all over. They're doing a lot of work up in Wilmington this year and they are, North Carolina Department of Transportation is also looking very hard and trying to improve the longevity of their asphalt services by applying new asphalt put down, come back a few years later, and you can put a seal coat over top of it and get that much more life out of the asphalt. It's just some, you know, we haven't seen, in my opinion, they haven't done much of it on this side of what I would say east of 95, but when you get on the other side of 95 in North Carolina, they are doing a lot of it over there. They do a lot of it all through Virginia, Maryland, D.C., stuff like that. This company's been around for a long time. I'm just sharing experience from what I know from working with them in the past, but at least something worth taking a look at. They're interested in coming here if we're interested in trying to do something. It's a very interesting and detailed process as far as So the proper method of increasing the longevity of roads. The biggest thing is if you can correct seal your roads, just like if any of us going down 17 into South Carolina, all the way down into Myrtle Beach, all those little black lines you see on the road. That's all where they have cracked sealed road, and that's probably one of the smartest things you can do to increase the longevity. And who knows what they might do with that next year as far as some sort of a seal coat over top of it. That would be even greater if they did something like that.

If there's nothing else, do I have a motion to adjourn?

I'll make a motion we adjourn.

Do I have a second? All in favor? Aye. Thank you all for coming out today, ladies.