City Council - workshop

If y'all want to pray with me. God, thank you so much for bringing us together here today.

Thank you for giving us this opportunity to serve our community in this unique way. And please help us remember that we are part of a team and part of a bigger city and that we work for the good of everybody together. Please keep us safe and please guide our choices in our decisions.

Amen.

Amen.

I call to order our City Council briefing meeting for September 14th. Welcome to all of you that are here this afternoon with us. Item number two on our agenda is addition or deletions to the agenda. Mr. City Manager, are there any additions or deletions?

Mayor Pro Tem and Council, I have no additions or deletions. I will have an update at the end.

OK. And we are going to item number five with the presentations, we're going to reorder those to have the presentation about CPL become C and the two proclamations be A and B, if that makes sense. All right. After hearing this, what is the pleasure of the council regarding our agenda?

I'll make a motion that we approve the agenda as presented.

Is there a second? Second. Are we electronic or are we going to just do voice?

Perfect.

All right. All right. It's fine.

I was like, I missed one. That was, you're fine.

The agenda has been approved.

We know what you mean.

The agenda has been approved. We'll move on to item number three, which is our regular agenda for tonight. Item number A is presentation by Withers Ravenel and results of sewer AIA grant project. I'll recognize our city manager.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

It's 4 o'clock. It's too early. Today we're going to have a presentation on the asset inventory that was performed by Weathers Ravenel. This is for our utilities, water, and sewer system. That was a grant program, and from that grant program, they identified projects that need to be implemented for our utilities.

And we'll go into the details of those items.

I will turn it over to Morgan to make introductions, and then we'll get started with presentations.

The presenter today is Deepti Kalyana with Withers-Ravenel. She's going to go over this.

The grant that we got was a sewer AI. I'm not touching the water system. It's just the sewer system. Just to clarify.

This would be the first throw, if you will, of doing this.

They gathered information.

We had quite a lot of information and great information. with some additional projects. I think it's five additional projects that we did not have listed for our source system rehabilitation.

And integrated those into our existing CIP.

And I guess DeepD's going to go over the results of the analysis of the data that was gathered. And they also not only did an update on the capital improvement plan, But they also did an asset management plan, which kind of shows the kind of models going forward, how much investment is needed to maintain the sewer system going forward. And I'll turn it over to Deepthi.

Thank you. Are you all able to see my screen? Are you all able to hear me?

Okay. All right. Great. Well, good evening, everyone. My name is Siti Kanyanam. I am at the Asset Management Group and with this webinar, I'm also the project manager on the Super AIA project that we did for you all. Thank you for this opportunity to present the project to the board. um we are going to be presenting the um the project just a quick overview of this word ai project what we did for the city and some key findings and then the recommended capital improvements plan um i hope you are able to see the screen so i'm going to go ahead and um start changing the the slides if you're not able to see the screen please let me know all right great all right All right. So the presentation topics today, I'm going to be going over like what does an AIE and A&P, just because I'll be using those terms a lot throughout the presentation. I'll go over the project scope of what we did for the city, and then we'll go over the system inventory summary, the risk analysis, capital improvements plan, and the psychological recommendations, and also some recommendations as to how the city would be able to keep updating the AMP and make it a more, a living document. So what is an AI in AMP? An AMP is the asset management plan at a high level. It basically helps you answer questions such as like, what are the assets that the city owns? What condition those assets are in? And what are the most important or critical assets of the system? what my year-term or long-term capital improvement needs are, operation maintenance needs are, and then ultimately like where is the funding coming to fund those projects. The AIA is the Asset Invention Assessment Grant Program that the city has received the $400,000 grant from the state to basically the state came up with this program so that utilities like yourself could proactively manage the assets, make sure that the assets are planned well ahead, then moving away from the reactive maintenance and moving into a more proactive maintenance and managing and financing the water and wastewater systems. So in terms of project overview, like I mentioned, the city has received the $400,000 AIA grant money. And part of that project, what we did is that we updated the GIS mapping. We digitized the record drawings, the information that was available through record drawings. We used all of that. We scanned it. We updated all that information into your GIS mapping. And also collected, did some field data collection to update your GIS mapping. Again, that includes, like, information such as the survey data, the input elevations, manhole room elevations, pipe sizes, materials, and all those were collected and used to enhance your existing GIS mapping. Once we had all the data, we then used a risk analysis approach, which I'm going to go over in the next slides, to prioritize your capital needs. And this included likelihood of failure, consequences of failure. So basically asking the same questions, like what is the condition of the assets, and what happens if an asset fails? Using that methodology, we came up with the capital improvement needs, and then we also have the operation and maintenance plan recommendations included in the AMP. And then finally, I'll be going over the lifecycle modeling, and also we'll go over what that consists of. So once the data, like I said, the GIS mapping was all updated, the city's sewer system inventory was summarized. And this is a summary, which includes gravity mains, force mains, manholes, pump stations. For gravity mains, you all have about approximately 1,077,000 linear foot of gravity mains, that is about 200, 208 miles. From a horseman's perspective, you have about 125,000 being your foot, manholes, approximately about 1,900, and pump stations are 27. And the map here basically gives you the visual representation of your collection system. So once we know what assets the city owns, the next step was to find out what condition are those assets in. For gravity mains, typically CCTV data gives the direct condition information of the pipes. So we used a lot of the CCTV data, what the city had, and we reviewed that information and identified which lines are in poor condition or are structurally failing or had O&M needs. And we prioritized those lines for rehabilitation or replacement. And for the lines that we did not have CCTV data, we used the age information to come up with your capital needs. So that's the estimated useful life. So any lines that had install dates, we have, you know, we compare that with the pipe materials. And, for example, productive iron pipe has a life cycle of 80 years. And if a line in your system that is more than 80 years, that means that that line has surpassed its useful life. So it was recommended for future CCTV investigations. All the red lines that you see in the map, in the slide, are the central location of the city, which I think are most of the older pipes in the system. So that is why those are highlighted as red, which means that those lines have surpassed their use for life. Force mains, again, we use the age information for manholes. We did perform some visual inspections, and we have provided some condition ratings of those manholes. And for the manholes that did not have that information, again, we used the age to identify the condition. For pump stations, we used the city staff input on the condition of the pump stations or if there's any replacement or rehabilitation needs that need to go into the capital improvement plan. Based on this analysis, for gravity mains, overall is about 40% of your system is in that red category, which means they have the high or very high likelihood of failure. It doesn't mean that all those lines are failing and you have to replace them right away. It just gives you that perspective that these lines are the ones in your system and need to be recommended for future inspections or replacement if you already know the condition based on CCTV data. For force means, again, a lot of your system is in that moderate to low category, and then manholes are in alignment with the gravity means, which are about 40% of the manholes are in that high, really high likelihood of failure. For consequences of failure, we used the, so basically the consequences is like what happens if an asset fails. This is to identify which assets are more critical for your system. There could be a bunch of lines that need to be replaced, but then which lines are more important. For example, if a line that is close to a water body or if a line is located in a state highway or a line that serves, for example, a hospital or a school, those lines were considered to be more important over the others. So if those lines are in a bad shape or in a poor condition, those were prioritized over the others. For the city of Thomasville, we have about 7% of priority mains that fall within that category of, you know, high consequences of failure. And then for force mains, we use pretty much all force mains were given a 5 rating because we never want a force main to be failed. And for manholes, again, they are about 5% in that high consequences of failure category. Once we had all this likelihood of failure and consequences of failure results, what we did is that we went with a tiered approach. So any lines that have a high consequence of failure and a high likelihood of failure were prioritized over the others. So, for example, Tier 5 is a high LOF and high CUF. And then we further, those were about 16,000, 17,000 linear foot of lines. But again, we saw which lines were based on CCTV data, which lines were based on the age. The lines that we already knew that came from the CCTV data, we knew the condition that these lines are structurally failing, they are in a poor condition. We have recommended those for rehabilitation or replacement. And then the lines that are based on the age information that fall within the Tier 4 and Tier 5 category were further recommended for CCTV inspections. The Tier 1, 2, 3 are more in the low likelihood of failure to moderate likelihood of failure. And those lines were just as an information that for you all, it's all saved in your GIS so you all could plan for your next set of CCTV in the future, post a 10 year timeframe. Once all this data was collected, like I said, there were about 29, 30,000 linear foot of pipes that were based on the CCTV data that fell under the poor condition category. And those are representing the first five projects listed in your 10-year capital improvements plan. And then the remaining lines that fell within that poor condition category based on the age information were recommended for CCTV. Those are the remaining three projects in the top six rows there, six or 10 rows there. So the CCTV recommendation was a phased approach. Any lines that have the high likelihood of failure, consequences of failure were prioritized for CCTV. And then the remaining 400,000 linear foot were all high likelihood of failure, but then had a low consequences of failure. So that's the second phase. And then the last phase was the moderate likelihood of failure and high consequences of failure were recommended for CCTV as the third priority. Rehabilitation and replacement of 50 poor condition manholes. Again, these were based on the visual observations that the Stratum and staff has conducted, and we have noticed that these manholes were in poor condition, so we have recommended those for rehabilitation. The next set of the treatment plan and pump station study upgrade projects that you see in the next category down there, Those are all from your existing CIP and also from city staff input based on their day-to-day operations of farm stations and any other projects that need to go in there for your 10-year capital improvement needs. This is just a visual representation of the capital improvement plan. The first map on your left would say CIP projects 1 through 5 are all the rehabilitation and replacement recommendations based on that CCTV data. And then the map that's in the middle is the lines that were recommended for CCTV, which, like I said, a lot of your lines in the central city area are all the poor condition lines based on the age factor. And then the map that is on the right is the rehabilitation or replacement of the poor condition manholes. So the life cycle was another aspect or element that we did as a part of the project. What the life cycle model gives the city is provides you all with that long-term understanding of the city's needs. So the capital improvement plan looks at the current state and looks at like, okay, what are the city's needs over the next 10 years? The life cycle model looks at the overall, the holistic view of the city's condition, the assets condition. So even if a line is in a good condition right now, 50 years from now, it could fail. So does the city have enough funds to replace a line at that time is what the life cycle model provides you. information on. So based on that, the life cycle model analysis, the recommendation for the sewer system came out to be about $500,000 of annual funding to maintain your gravity mains in a fair condition for the next 50 years. For manholes, the recommendation is about $250,000 to maintain, again, a fair condition for the first 30 years. This is just to prepare the city to be more financially stable so that there are funds available when these assets are going to be failing or will fail in the future. And if they do fail, then you have the money to replace those lines. With that, some of the recommendations few recommendations from future and next steps is that to maintain and update the GIS mapping on an annual basis, whenever there is change in your infrastructure, whenever there are newly completed projects, or if any lines have been replaced, rehabbed, make sure that the GIS mapping is updated so that you all have the most greatest and latest data in your GIS mapping. Also, the cost estimates that are included in the capital improvement plan, we recommend that you all update those cost estimates, again, on an annual basis because of market volatility and the construction costs that keep on changing all the time. You want to make sure that you have the most up-to-date cost estimates included. Also, we did include a recommended O&M, excuse me, Operational maintenance recommendations in the asset management plan, we do recommend that the city build a preventative maintenance schedule and continue inspecting all the high-priority lines from a CCTV standpoint. Also, one other recommendation is that you all coordinate with your street maintenance or NCDOT like paving plans or anything that are coming in the future. So if there's any NCDOT paving projects, you may want to, if there's a project going on or going to be coming in the future, you may want to look at the condition of those property lanes under that street to see, you know, what condition are those lines are in, and if they need to be replaced in a couple of years from now, you may want to replace them when the streets get paved, if you think that way you could save construction costs and avoid re-hanging the streets again. Again, I highly recommend that the AMP is a living document and update it every year based on changing infrastructure and needs and update the CIP based on the updated likelihood of failure and consequences of failure information. And finally, to come up with a funding strategy, so there are a lot of grant programs, loan programs, available, so we highly recommend that you're always talking to funding experts and see what's out there in terms of state-funded grant programs or loan programs to see what projects may be eligible for a program, and that way you could easily complete those projects, see which projects may have higher chances of funding, and so that those projects can be awarded and we can complete those projects. So with that, I'd be happy to take any questions. Okay, thank you.

This budget amendment appropriates approximately $132,000 from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation payable to all local law enforcement officers in the state who were employed as of June 30th, 2026. Those payments are $1,750 appreciation bonuses, which are to be paid around mid-October to all of our sworn local law enforcement personnel that were on the books at that time. The amendment also appropriates $5,000 of grant funding from the North Carolina League of Municipalities for its Risk Management Services Insurance Pool Safety Grant Program. This provides 50% reimbursement for the purchase of 22 water-filled barricades for construction, pedestrian, and traffic safety. These will be purchased by our fire, police, and public works departments. Additionally, $4,900 is transferred from general fund contingency to cover the cost of a gift card incentive, which was part of the city's climate workplace survey services agreement with the UNC School of Government. General fund contingency balance is now $495,100. A $10,000 contribution from the High Point JCs is appropriated in the Recreation Department to support beautification efforts at Finch Field, home of the High Toms. Special thanks to the High Point JCs for this contribution. Also special thanks to Tourism and Cameron Marsden for coordinating with the JCs to secure the funding. Thanks also to Corey Tobin and the Recreation Department for overseeing the project. Finally, the amendment appropriates all funds currently held in the recreation reserve, which totals approximately $146,000 and approximately $362,000 from unassigned fund balance in the general fund, which will serve as the city's contribution to the CDBG-NR grant for construction improvements at Strickland Center and Carver Park. This will allow us to get an initial budget in place move forward on the project immediately and we may have to revise that That ordinance which is you'll be approving subsequently later on when bids come in but initially we need to get a budget in place and that's what we're using to secure our contribution also there's a there's a we're appropriating two thousand one hundred fifty dollars in the beautification fund these are donations for the light up the holidays event and I'm requesting that you go ahead and approve this budget amendment here at briefing so we can move forward on the CDBG in our grant project immediately

and we approve the budget amendment P3-01-2026. Is there a second?

Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Oh, sorry.

Wait, just real quick. We keep spending from our unrestricted fund balance, and I do think it's hilarious that I'm the one who's like, we need to keep an eye on our spending from our unrestricted fund balance because it's a real turning of tables on me specifically. But I just want to point that out.

Great point.

Any other discussion? All right. You may cast your vote. And that item has been approved. Thank you. All right. Item D is consideration of grant project ordinance for CDBG-NR grant project.

So the budget amendment transferring money into the grant project and the budget that we're establishing. This is the ordinance which establishes the project budget for the CDBGNR grant project. So the total estimated budget is approximately $3.7 million. This includes approximately slightly under $3.2 million of grant funding for construction and administration costs of the project. We're also appropriating $200,000 as an estimate for additional engineering and design costs which we may incur, and a little over $307,000 for contingency if needed. We typically appropriate five to 10% extra for contingency on the project in case of cost overruns. So this will allow us to get an initial project budget in place. This uses all the funding from the Recreation Reserve. And again, approximately $307,000 from unassigned fund balance in the general fund. And I'm also requesting that you approve this ordinance today at briefing because this is part of the project. We need to get a budget in place to move forward. Thank you very much.

I make a motion that we approve the grant project ordinance for the CDBG-NR grant project. Is there a second?

Second. Any discussion? You may cast your vote. All right, that item has been approved, 7-0. Item E is consideration of CDBG-NR grant number 20-D-4024 for $2,246,138.70. I'm going to defer the A on this one. All right.

Thank you, so what you're approving this evening is the acceptance of the grant from North Carolina Commerce, the Community Development Block Grant, Neighborhood Revitalization Grant. We were fortunate enough to already have $950,000 that was appropriated for this project for the Strickland Center. This is an additional $2,246,138.70 that I'm asking you to accept tonight on behalf of the city so that we can move forward with the project. is this project 20-D-24 has to be fully expended by next August. If we don't spend it, we lose it. It has to be reported out by November. And so we're on the gun. That's why we're bringing it to you this evening to accept the grant funds so that tomorrow we can move forward with environmental review and get that process going. These funds are coming from the state, so the total for the project is 3.19 million.

Thank you. Any questions? All right, I'll defer to Council for action.

For $2,246,138.70. We have a motion to second.

Is there any discussion?

Great job.

You may catch your vote. And that has been approved. I have added this consideration of a Carver Park Grant Administration with PTRC. Deputy City Manager.

Thank you again. So the grant administration for Carver Park Strickland Center is being obligated to Piedmont Tribe Regional Council of Government. We had an original agreement for the $950,000, of which we were gonna total about $95,000 that we were paying to them to manage that grant. of which we've paid a little over $25,000 already for the management of it, which leaves us with a balance now on this particular first tranche of funds of $950,000 with a balance of $56,138.70. There is a second agreement here. Let me get to it. that we're asking for consideration of approval is for the management of the $2.2 million as well. So they'll be managing both of the projects. What I can say is we're very thankful for the partnership with Piedmont Regional Council of Government because they could have charged just another $200,000 to $300,000 to manage this grant. They were kind enough to manage the second tranche of funds for $60,000. So in essence, we're owing them around $116,000, of which the proceeds pay for the environment review for the project that has to start. And again, we'll work on that starting tomorrow. And so it takes care of all of those fees associated with it. So we're very excited to work alongside of them. And they're equally as excited to work with us to get the project going. So I'd ask that you consider approving that so we can have the mayor sign it and move forward tomorrow. Thank you. Are there any questions?

Defer to counsel for action.

I make a motion that we approve the Carver Park Grant Administration with PTRC.

Thank you. There's a motion. Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion? All right. You may cast your vote. That has been approved 7-0 as well. Thank you. Thank you. Which brings us down to item number four, which next week we'll have our public forum where anyone can speak for a topic of their choice for two minutes. And then we will have item number five, recognitions and presentations. Hispanic Heritage Month will be the first proclamation. I will read that one. Then we have breast cancer awareness, if one of you would like to do that.

Okay, Erica.

Erica.

Thank you.

And then we'll have the presentation by CPL regarding the update on the Carver Park Strickland Center redevelopment. Item number six is our consent agenda for next week. We have two items there. Item A is consideration of the minutes from the briefing committee meeting on August 10th, 2026. And then we have item B, which is consideration of the minutes of the city council meeting from August 17th, 2026. Item number seven next week will be our regular agenda, and I'm going to turn it over to our city manager to walk us through the rest of the agenda. All right.

Thank you, Councilman Thrift. So on next week, we have the consideration of amendment to the lease agreement with the High Toms Baseball Club. I mentioned I have an update. This is actually something that I'm working on right now. It was noticed in the agreement that we currently have for the contract that the CPL League was also in the area of alcohol sales within that contract and by no longer playing in the cpl league that would remove alcohol sales from finchfield so our attorney is reviewing that and coming up with language that would be an appropriate replacement And assuming that you do want the ability to sell alcohol outside of that league play since he'll be independent next year. And then she's reviewing it for other. So we will have a new contract for you for next week, but it'll be in your package later on this week. So that's A or B. Do you want that regular? Regular. Okay. Okay, the next item is consideration of an amendment to the city ordinance regarding coin policy for payments. Yeah, I'm fine with consent. Okay. And this just brings our policy into line with state law. New state law. Who knew we had new? Item C is consideration of Doak Park resurfacing, which is a source well contract with Bars Recreation. Regular or consent?

I'm fine with consent.

Consent. Item D is consideration of revised special event permit application and process. We are also working on some of the changes that were discussed last week. We'll have a new version of it in your package for the end of this week. Would you like this to be regular or consent? Regular? All right, item E is consideration of the first amendment to the water tower lease agreement with Verizon Wireless. Regular, okay. As a reminder, all it takes is one person and it goes on regular. All right, item F is consideration of temporary road closure ordinances for Light Up the Holidays and Thomasville Christmas Parade. This is one item. If you really feel that it needs to be two different items, you could divide it this evening. Regular or consent? I think it's fine being one.

Consent's fine. Consent, okay. I assume the next, will he be there for the next item, the badge?

He is not going to be present for that. uh... which consideration of approval of resolution awarding badge in service of sidearm to retiring law law enforcement officer captain brad sing sing as a as i stated people who will not be here in person uh... i'm fine with kids consensus he will not be here Okay, I'll turn it back over. But let me just real quick run down the regular items. So it'll be seven. A D. He will all be on regular everything else will be on consent. That's what I have.

Good deal. Item eight is council reports and appointments next week. Everyone be prepared to give those. Are there any additions or updates? I have no further additions or updates. Okay, anything from Council? All right, then I will ask for a motion to adjourn. Thank you. Any discussion? You may cast your vote. And we are adjourned.