Council - Regular Meeting

2020.

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Good afternoon and welcome to the town of Surf City Town Council meeting. I want to call this meeting to order and ask Mr. Nathan Schwarz if he would come up. He is the pastor at Chapel by the Bay. And then when he is done, Mr. Abel Mart will come up and lead us with a pledge. And he is from the um scout troop 234. Everyone please stand. Let's pray together. Jesus, we're thankful that we have survived snowageddon and we are grateful for the strength to shovel our driveways with man-made tools. And we pray Lord a prayer of thanks for all those that are out there working the roads and helping us keep safe. We pray for this meeting Lord that your will will be done. Pray that we might be able to represent for you uh that which is the very best of humanity. And thank you Lord for the opportunity to live in such a great place, be part of such a great town. We love you Lord. Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you Abel. Next on our before we start our agenda, the beautifification enhancement committee gives out awards every month to a business and home of the month and John Kowski is going to present those folks. No one from the committee is here tonight. So, do we have anybody from Margaritas here? Okay. But hey, you it is a great place. I was here yesterday and [laughter] usually a couple days out of the week. So

uh so this is uh in recognition Margaritas beautifification business of the month that to them and then do we have anybody from 57 537 Montgomery Loop here tonight? Okay. So this is for them and this is the home of the month beautifification. Is that over in Salt Water? Yeah, just saltwater familiar with it. Saltwater landing. Yeah, saltwater landing. How's that?

Depending depending on the weather tomorrow, we will be at those locations taking photos. Um, and if it happens to get cancelled, we will reschedule and take another photo. Um, so at this time we have the agenda. Um, do I have a motion to amend the agenda to remove item number one under new business? Um, which is the Pender County tax reevaluation presentation. They had to cancel tonight and they will Pinter County will be calling us to reschedu. I'll make that motion. Mayor, I'll second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor say I.

I. All oppose, same sign. Motion carries. So now do I have a motion to adopt the agenda as amended? I make a motion to adopt the agenda as amended. Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. All oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Next item is the approval of the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Yes. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. I'll second. Thank you, Trudy. Motion and a second. All in favor say I. I

all oppose same sign. Motion carries. At this time is public comments. Citizens have the opportunity to address the council and Carla will call out the names on the list. We have Jill Miranda.

Hi guys. Long time no see, huh? Um, as I said on my email that I sent to you, I've been a little disappointed that there's not been any discussion about the budget because, you know, it's coming up to be that time. And with all the drama last year, I think it would be a really good idea if you guys held town halls. And I know there's been discussion about whether that's feasible or not. But I think with everything coming down the pike with the rivals and the tax hike and trying to get that taken away and uh getting things back into more normal money situation. That would be a good idea to be able to talk to you, not just sit here and talk for three minutes and then go sit down and hopefully make an impression. It would be nice to get some answers and it would be nice to hear where you stand and why. And that's it. Um, and I think in the meantime, I would like to challenge all of you members to look at the budget and pick an item that you would like to trim or cut out. Not anything essential, but things like the gentleman came last month and talked about the trash can pulling in and out or for health care possibly moving over to the state's program for the state employees. Uh what about changing insurance to the parametric system which the um NCJUA kind of likes actually. Um also um what was the other one I thought of? Oh, the parking. We could maybe get a different parking company. Maybe they're when their contracts up, get a parking company that would actually not take half the money and that would actually enforce the fines. Those are just some things you could brainstorm, talk about at the work sessions. You don't have to have consistent consensus on any of it. But what I'm thinking is if you start brainstorming these things and you get yourselves ready to start cutting, then people will take very seriously that you're doing the best for this town that you can do. And that's all I have to

say. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Jill Miranda. Um Kyle, don't you have some dates on the budget that we have? How many meetings scheduled for the budget? We have several coming up. Our big one uh is coming up March 13th. So uh department heads have until the end of February to have their budget items um put in. 19th, excuse me. Sorry, I think it's the 19th.

March 19th. Yeah. So that department heads will have the till the end of February to um compile their budgets and then that's when council will start reviewing the actual numbers. And again, we don't have the um reassessment values from either Pender nor Enso at this point. Um value of personal property, etc. Those are all the inputs in regards to the revenues um tied to the budget. So absolutely, once we get that, then we will start getting do our homework on it. Get

to work. Carla Jeremy Sugars. Uh my name is Jeremy Sugarerts. I live at 150 Cornell Lane in well Hstead. It's a surf city address. Um um I um was on council for eight years mayor prompt. So I know where all the bodies are buried. So any anything but the true answers I for sure will not know they were. So a couple things. First of all, I implore you uh to not make any cuts on the budget. I implore you to continue to do what you're doing because you guys are doing the best you can do and I I know that. So, Madame Mayor, Mayor Prom, Council, you guys are doing a great job with that and you guys do the best. You pick through it. So, I want to tell you that uh uh somebody that's entrenched in the community and around a lot of people, we want you to continue doing what you're doing. I have three quick things. Number one is um I'd like to um first of all say everybody here is doing a great job. I do want to ask uh a very quick question if you don't mind uh from uh I probably have triple digits of people in the community that have asked me about uh something that was uh Mr. Plow ran on a tax repeal and um it was on his signs on his Facebook. It was on his website and in fact the repeal says to repeal means to repeal law means officially cancel, revoke or abolish it. And that was on the tax. That's what you ran on as a as a that was your platform. I'd like to know where my check is and so would the couple hundred other people that have talked to me. So we'd like to have an answer on that. Uh people that are listening on uh YouTube here would like to know that. So, it's important to me to find out where that is because you can't say something that's not true without being held accountable for it. That's first thing. Uh, second thing is I would like this council to consider uh during public comment time for you to recognize the difference between uh people that live in Surf City and do not live in Surf City. So, let me explain that real quick. If I go down to the Wilmington City Council uh meeting and I say, "I'm Jeremy Sugarle 150 Cornell in

Hamstead and I don't like something you're doing in the town of Wilmington." They probably will do not care. will listen not listen to me. Um so I think it's important that you have this public comment time do as you're doing but people that do live in the Hamstead Holly Ridge ETJ they live that are not taxpayers they are identified as not residents because you guys want to hear the taxpayers. That's what you that's what you base your decisions on what your taxpayers tell you. That's why it's it's concerning for you to make sure you make those right decisions. Uh and the last thing is too I want to thank uh Kyle and the mayor, the council. Uh we've uh had we had Surf City Live here for 5 years. It was fantastic. And um I know you guys tried to get us to have it back again. Uh you kept that date for us, but we've decided we've moved it to Holly Ridge uh for bigger numbers. So we're uh that's going to be in November 7th. We're have 5,000 at that event, and it's going to be an all day event. So, but we want to thank you for allowing us to be here the last 5 years. Uh the participation, we had almost 3,000 people to see the Beach Boys, almost 3,000 people to see Craig Morgan and Josh Turner. It was fantastic. That's great community support. Uh the community loved it. Uh we sold out of sponsors every year. People were are in line for that and uh we hate to leave to go there, but we've got a you know it it enables us to be able to grow a little bit outside the box. So we just want to say thank you for that opportunity. But thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. That's all. Okay. Um no more public comments at this time. Um there is no public hearings and under old business is segment segment number seven of the multi-use path budget ordinance amendment fund 55 and Cal Brewer will present.

Good evening madame mayor and fellow council and members of the public in the audience and watching. Uh this is a followup to our work session item and was inadvertently um left off uh was the last portion of the money transfer process when when we budget for a specific project. So specifically this is to cover uh the multi-use path segment that is uh going to be completed in concert with the utility uh larger utility project uh for the sub aacquous uh water line underneath the inner coastal and u what we'll do is then replace the water line along Northshore Drive. utility contractors will complete that work and leave the site um graded out for the multi-use path. Uh separate from the utility funding um is uh how we will fund this um working through some creative strategies. We did identify that um our accommodations tax fund can fund this project. Um so that's monies that are generated through short-term rentals. Um so at a price of um $664,216, which is about half of what the original estimate was, uh we're asking to move those funds from fund 21 accommodations tax over to our uh multi-use path perpetual fund 55. So that is the u final action that would need to be uh taken with this project. I can answer any questions if there are any. Does any council members have any questions?

No, I do not.

Just want to applaud the council for making that decision. Uh, in effect, we've saved the town 1.2 2 million out of our taxes by one piggybacking uh the multi-use pass segment seven with the um the sewer pro or the the waterline project, the water resilience project and then using accommodations taxes to uh support the additional re uh funding that we need to finish out that. So, and it's an important segment. It runs along the beach. So, I'm really proud the council was able to get creative. Kyle, thanks for your help on that. And again, I think that's a step in the right direction. It shows that fiscal responsibility is at the forefront of what this council is uh is doing and intends to do going forward.

Thank you for your comments. If there are any no other comments, um it is requested that the town council consider approval of the budget ordinance amendment as presented. If so, do I have a motion to do so? I'm going to make that motion. Mayor, and I'll second it. A motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. All oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. This time we will move into the manager's report.

All right. Thank you again, Madame Mayor. Got several um updates for you. Um we'll start off with the obvious uh winter storm recap. Um, so as you know, the area saw a rare winter storm um bringing approximately 10 inches of snowfall that probably could be contested by by folks out there, but that was generally on average of what we saw. Uh, coupled with extreme low temperatures uh created some issues for the town, mainly traffic disruptions and utility services. The team remained engaged throughout the event through daily coordination and forward public messaging. I'd like to thank all those that contributed to keeping safe surf city safe and to our residents for heeding the me heeding the messaging to stay home and stay safe. We will move into an afteraction process uh to learn based on the event like we do every uh emergency event. Solid waste services a byproduct uh disruption from the storm. Um GFL will resume operations tomorrow uh Wednesday, February 4th. Uh please be advised that crews will be operating at a reduced speed based on impacts to secondary roads. GFL will provide trash collection only uh for the remainder of this week. They will begin with Monday's schedule routes and continue catching up throughout the week. Um they've got uh several municipal cl uh clients in which they are trying to um address uh with the delay here. So trash only uh right now. So, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday customers, um, so that's our entire island and mainland. Um, please place your trash cart out, uh, and leave it until it has been serviced. Don't bring it in if they have not gotten to you. They are working, uh, that those routes. Recycling services will not be provided this week and will will resume on your next regularly scheduled date. Any overflow recycling may be placed in a

cardboard box or paper bag next to your cart for collection at that time. This is outside of our normal uh ordinance uh allowances, but we do understand that you've got two weeks of recycling as opposed to one. Um so I I did talk to our code enforcement and uh you know, we took that note, but if you do have extra recycling, you can place it appropriately next to your recycling bin and they will pick that up. Um and then lastly, just thanking um our residents for their patience and understandings uh as we work to resume our full service schedule. The Roland Avenue stormwater project um is underway with significant progress since our last meeting. Uh the contractor has excavated the area and has formed and poured the concrete apron that will frame the pvious pavers and infrastructure. While work is underway uh and the Roland Avenue parking lot is closed, crews are working on some maintenance and upgrade projects at uh access number 18, giving that a facelift. Moving into our waterline resilience project that we had touched on with the multi-use path project. Uh town staff will be hosting a series of meetings next week beginning with our Roland Avenue businesses on February 10th looking over here. Uh and Northshore residents on February 11th to provide as much information as possible as we prepare for this major infrastructure project. The selected contractor will be on hand to answer questions about means and methods and staff will attempt to mitigate effects as much as possible by pro providing up-to-date information on the progress of the project. As a reminder, this is adding a water line underneath the inter coastal waterway uh over to the island uh which will um greatly increase our resilience. Um that original water line was placed in 1968. So, um, it's an important project that that we get completed. We understand that there's going to be impacts and we just want to

make sure that we open those lines of communication and and do everything that we can to mitigate those impacts. Um, let's see. Old Sellers Beach, uh, storm water community meeting on March 7th. Um, staff, it is a Saturday. staff will host residents of Old Settellers Beach or the canals uh to present recommendations from the town's engineer on potential mitigation uh projects for storm water management. The meeting will be held here at the municipal complex. Staff are seeking input and buyin from the residents before programming any potential improvements. Um it's important for us to provide uh a visual of what that potentially would look like uh for storm water mitigation in that area. the annual planning meeting. Uh so town council held their annual planning meeting last week on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I'd like to thank the board for their participation and engagement. I'd also like to thank town staff and committees for their presentations and input. The information gathering and priority setting will help guide town staff in preparations for the upcoming budget cycle, as well as thoughtful adjustments to the town strategic plan. Um Friday we got a a little update on our uh federal project uh beach project. So um the assistant secretary of the army's office has completed their review of the chief's report which was officially logged in their office in mid December. Uh there was some back and forth between headquarters and the district on the report. This triggers the delivery of the package to the Office of Management and Budget or OM uh who has a 120day review period which would extend until midappril. Uh once OM has approved, a clearance letter will be generated that confirms the project's consistencies with the policies of the current administration. Um, as a reminder, the funding for this project uh was uh derived out of the uh disaster

recovery assistance um in 2019 in which our current administration was in office. Um so we would uh assume that um current administration will have concurrence with uh the project. So um that is a little bit of good news. As everybody knows, we've been kind of stuck in a lull with the assistant secretary's office and and OM, but um Congressman Rouseer's office has been working really hard on this. Um former Congressman McIntyre and his team have been working hard on this, pushing every button we can push in in Washington DC. um even though it seems like a a bureaucratic black hole sometimes, but um a little bit of positive news and moving forward um that we can actually hold on to. So with that, Madame Mayor, that is my report.

Thank you. All right, we'll move on to our town attorney, Brett Dims. I have nothing to report, but happy to answer any questions you may have.

All right, who wants to go first? And as always, I want to thank everybody for coming out. This is a little bit different weeks. Real cold, still some snow and ice. I hope everybody fared well. Uh it's not often we get this kind of a [snorts] event. Uh our I do agree with um our town manager. Our annual planning meeting I thought went very well this week and I was excited to uh reflect on what we've talked about this week. And I just want to thank everybody for coming out. Thank you again. Yeah, sure. Everybody looked at me. Okay. [laughter]

Um I I've had a lot of of we've had several days to think about the planning uh retreat that or we called it a retreat. It wasn't we were in here and there were three rows of chairs over here for anyone to come and sit and watch and participate. We did greatly appreciate the people who participated. I was grateful um the agenda supplied um public comment time at the end of the day and and um and even the lunch hour on Friday and um um I I think anybody who did show up um learned a whole lot. I think that's really what it comes down to. Um I think any of us would say the same thing about the job before we came into it. Um there's just so much to learn. So, I'm thankful that we're providing more and more opportunities for that to happen, for anybody to show up just as just as tonight. So, thank you for being here and listening. Please always consult the minutes and the website. Carla does a great job of documenting all that. Um, and it's all there for you to um to read at your leisure. And uh I I think the meeting went really well. I this was our first opportunity for the five of us who just recently elected Andy and all that to be in the same room and really have a lot of hard discussions and get everybody's thoughts and feelings on different projects and things and what we are all passionate about. We're all passionate about the city, but we can't do everything with the with the budget dollars we have. So, we have to make some tough decisions. But, I thought the conversations went really well.

Move to this side. I'm good. Um, thank you all for coming tonight. Um, we had our, as we've been saying, we've had our little retreat meeting for three days. I was a little disappointed that the fact that three people showed up for the total of three days. And I'd say the a

four, excuse me, four people showed up for the three days. And uh, I'd say that average was about an hour for each person, maybe an hour and a half. But I was expecting more people to show up because we had it here, which was one of the things that uh, the citizens wanted. so uh they could come close to coming to the meeting instead of having to drive all the way to Wilmington. We had good representation from our town uh directors and uh everything went very well. I think we uh scored pretty high on the things that we were trying to do and uh thank you all for coming this evening and I wish it was more than eight of you. But anyway, Andy.

Oh well, nice to see folks coming. Um, I want to reflect too on on uh our 3-day uh I guess I call it the budget kickoff meeting in that it's the it's the cornerstone of where we are going and what the vision is and and updating the u the strategic plan. It isn't a talk about line items in the budget just yet. That comes in March. Um so I hope that everyone's here. One of the things we did talk about, and I think we're going to need a lot of community uh involvement and support, is what we want to do with the downtown area in terms of the uh the new business district, the ITC. Um without input from the town, uh it becomes very difficult for for us here to to try to figure out what's what's what is it that people want. So, I'm looking forward to the participation. The other thing is uh we do have the uh system development fee discussion coming up in March. Uh that is the uh cost associated with developing new infrastructure for sewer and water. Uh and the question is how much burden uh should the town have with regard to the costs for new development. So that that's an important discussion. We need the folks uh to provide their input on that. Um, overall I I think uh it would have been nice to have had more people at that meeting and I know it was during the day and people work and things like that. Unfortunately, it wasn't uh video videoed. Uh we will have minutes coming out probably within the next week or two. I think

maybe it approved at the March meeting.

Okay. So, you'll get a good rundown on on what we did, what we discussed. Um and uh the one thing that did come out of that meeting that I thought was very important is the recognition that engagement and uh and providing information to the community and getting information from the community are key to our success. Um we are here to listen. Uh and if if people can't you know come and and and let us know they can contact any one of us through the the the town website. Um I know most of us have our phone numbers personal phone numbers posted uh emails. If you have an idea, uh you have a concern, you have a question, reach out there. It's it's tough. The crystal ball is no longer operable. So, uh we need we need people to to let us know. And uh with that, I'll turn it over, I guess, Alicia. Um, we had I feel like we had a great meeting for some of us being new like Andy and and some of us who I still feel like I'm new because I haven't been here. This is my third planning meeting in that regard. But, um, we cover a lot of information and it really is our one opportunity out of the year to hear from all of our staff and all of our committees and get like a good overall just update on what's going on in the health of the community. And then it gives us the opportunity to figure out what we see for the future of Surf City. And a lot of that is us reflecting back on what we get get from the community, the information that you give us. So, you know, keep in mind that the conversations that you have with us when you see us, whether it's at church or at a restaurant or whatever, we do take those thoughts and ideas back and that's the time that we actually discuss those

things and um give staff overall an idea of what we think is important. And hopefully if we can afford to do something then that's something that we try to make happen and sometimes we can't. So um otherwise thank you to emergency services here Pender County, the power companies, [laughter] the DOT, everybody that um came out and helped us get through the snowstorm because it takes a lot and there's a lot of people that were here working instead of being home with their family making sure that they were okay. So, just thank you guys for for keeping us safe. That's it. Okay. Thank you.

So, to those who um came out tonight, um thank you for coming. Thank you for sharing your comments. All your comments are are very much appreciated. Um this I want to call up James. James doesn't he doesn't like for me to [laughter] do this. I gave him a warning and he he was he's shaking his head at me, but you know, James James doesn't get much rec recognition. This is James Horn. Give him a hand. Give James hand. This is James [applause] Horn. From advisory to warning. Put more pressure on him. Put more pressure on him. And he is our emergency operations command center director. Like it. Um, so when when something goes sideways, James gets um

all all all the blame and all the calls and um but he he he organizes um what what is getting ready to happen. He he keeps us all prepared. He wants you to stay prepared. I mean, we're not used to um snow canes. Um and I was just asking him what the name of the storm was, and I don't want to pronounce it wrong. unofficially it's Giana but that's only from uh the weather channel. There's no official name from the you know weather service but I mean surf city surf city can call it. We can call it Giana if you would like. Um but do you want to tell you want to just say what what you've done over the last couple days? [laughter] How have you spent your time? What have you done over the last

Yeah. How have you spent your time?

I have worried worried sick myself [laughter] over the past four days for our police officers, our firefighters and our utility staff. Um, although I'm not directly responsible for them, uh, I treat them kind of like my children. So, I have been pinging all the supervisors, making sure everyone's made at home or, you know, whatever the case may be, trying to help as much as possible. So, aside from that, I've been bothering these folks with insistent emails, constantly coming in with all the updates. I'm sure they they love that. Um, and just keeping keeping tabs with our staff and making sure we've been, you know, meeting any unmet needs and addressing what we needed to address. lots of public messaging. Um, our PIO was was busy all weekend pushing out messaging, trying to get the the information out to the people that we felt was relevant and timely. So,

you got it. Did you? All of it. All of [laughter] it. So, yep. That's what I've been doing, Madam Mayor. Thank you so much, James. But no, all of the credit lies with our with our frontline staff for sure. 100%. Uh, you know, police, fire, and utilities. They worked throughout throughout the event. No questions asked. So, appreciate you. The applause goes to them for sure. Thank you. You're welcome. So when we Yes, sir. I didn't sign up to talk. I just want to say come on up. [laughter] Can't let Jeremy [laughter]

No, I just wanted to say I know last time we had the snow some people complained and uh but I tell you what, I know that Surf City does not own any snow plows. if we owned them, they would rust out between the time we met, we used them. But anyway, I think y'all did a great job getting the state, DOT, or ever who got in here. The roads got cleaned in great time and so I think y'all did a good job on that. I just wanted to let you know how I felt about that. Thank you very much. We don't get a lot of thank you. I know. Really appreciate that. Appreciate it.

Yeah. So going into um our annual meeting last week um one of the our main top topics was communication. So we were all about education and communication. That was the two words that kept coming up in every every segment that we hit was those two words. And so I hope that you felt that you were well communicated with throughout the storm. Um and that is going to be our goal to continue to to listen and to educate and communicate. Um also during the the time of our three days um here we as a group I think um learned the value of our employees after each director got up and spoke. I was like can you tell me your years of experience? And I think uh there was some that were um I mean what was amazing to learn that I mean you got 15 years 20 years 25 years over and over from so many department heads and it's amazing to know that Surf City is allowed to have such qualified employees. And when I say it aloud, it's just amazing that they when they they come here, they want to stay here and we want to keep them here. Um to to to make sure that we run efficiently, we have to have valued employees that um that want to stay here and work here. So, thank you all for everything that you do. Thank you for for Carla and Kyle for and Amy um and Lydian that came from the school of government that put together such a wellplanned retreat. I appreciate it very much. Um and with that being said, I think that's all all that we have to do. I did get a call from George Howard yesterday, but he hung up before I

answered it. He always calls me um because his sister's name is Teresa, [laughter] but he immediately realizes that he Oh my god, I've called Teresa, the mayor Teresa. I'm going to hang up before she answers because he always does cuz I'll call him back. And now I've learned not to call him back. If if it's a second call, I know to answer. But um again, we appreciate you all being here tonight. And do I have a motion to adjurnn? I'll make that motion to adjurnn. Mayor, I'll second. All in favor say I. I. All oppose. Same sign.

We are adjourned. [music] [music]