Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

All righty. We are good on the inside. So it looks like we're live streaming and everything is well there. So good evening. We'll go ahead and kick off this evening's work session for the town of Waxhaw's Board of Commissioners this lovely June 23rd, 2026. So we'll go ahead and call this meeting to order. Are there any adjustments or additions or amendments to the agenda tonight? Hearing none then, can I get a motion to adopt tonight's agenda?

Motion to adopt tonight's agenda as presented.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. And for those who didn't realize, we did get a message. We will be missing our Mayor Pro Tem this evening. She was taken ill, unfortunately. Nothing serious, just the kind of thing that keeps you from wanting to go outside. So she will be resting well this evening. Anyway, we'll go ahead and kick off our first topic. We have a discussion about the Economic Development Authority related to the town-owned property. Alara, do you have some details you'd like to share with us regarding this? And I know you'll have some details too, Mr. Dellinger.

All right, good evening everyone. Yeah, tonight we just have a quick discussion update on the two town-owned properties at 321 North Broom Street and 316 North Church Street. So since the board's previous discussions regarding the future disposition of these properties, staff has been working with the town attorney to confirm the appropriate legal a pathway to achieve the economic development outcomes that were identified by the board. During that review, it was determined that historical records do not clearly establish whether these properties were originally acquired under state statute 158-7.1, which is what allows local governments to convey property for economic development purposes under negotiated terms when doing so. will promote economic development and public benefit. So the town's attorney's recommendation is that before moving forward with disposition under that authority, that the town formally establish that these properties are now being held for economic development purposes. to do that. Staff is recommending a public notice, a public hearing, and then adoption of a resolution declaring the town's intent to hold the properties for economic development purposes under NCGS 158-7.1. So this is not necessarily revisiting the previous board's direction regarding the properties. It's just a procedural step necessary in the legal foundation in order to move that process forward. Once those steps are completed, staff can finalize and release the RFP and begin marketing the properties consistent with the economic development objectives previously discussed by the board.

Any questions from the board?

Just to reiterate, so this sounds more like just clean up action items to reaffirm.

Yes. It's essentially the implementation of the direction that we were previously given. Yes.

Sounds good. And there's no real board action at this point regarding the change to clarifying how it was acquired and how it's being sold and so forth?

No, just with the public hearing. Yes.

Just to open the public hearing, exactly.

Yes.

OK. Any other questions or comments? Hearing none, then, can I get a motion, then, to direct the town clerk to prepare the legal advertisement and to schedule a public hearing for July 14, 2026?

So moved.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Hearing none, that motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, Laura. Glad we got our I's dotted and T's crossed on that.

Thank you, Laura.

Next up, we have a discussion about a prayer or an invocation at the beginning of our meetings. Matt and Barbie, do you want to discuss what we're talking about or how we want to do it or what do we want to kick off here?

sure mayor um so i'll try to be just kind of high level i think we took the direction that you guys were interested in considering having a prayer ramification to start your public meetings certainly there are parameters by which we have to do that if we're going to set forth a policy things that we need to be consistent with so that we are staying in line with the constitutional mandates, not running without the establishment clause that government should not establish a religion, as well as case law that has been interpreting that. And that's an evolving field, as one might imagine. certain municipalities and other jurisdictions have certainly taken one approach and at different times been told that's not quite right. So even if there are jurisdictions, sister towns, counties that we're aware of may be doing it one way or the other, what we're proposing here in light of the feedback and the requests that we've received is aligned with what those constitutional mandates and the case law interpreting it There are ways that we can adjust this if you guys want, and I'm certainly happy to answer questions. I'm sure that there will be aspects to this that you guys might want to inquire about or consider adjusting, or maybe not even adopt a policy. That's kind of where we are at this point.

Comments or questions from the board?

I guess my first thought was, could it be a little simpler? I mean, I know you're doing your best to shield us legally as much as possible. Just seems like it could be a little bit of an involved process. Is there any way it could be simplified at all?

In what way?

Well, so there's a proposal for, I guess, the uh barbie to accept requests is that is that correct or yeah so if so if the idea is to allow

anyone to sign up to be able to participate in this so that you are remaining content neutral and you are not establishing any sort of favoritism or avoidance of any sort of faith or religious background, which is, again, part of that compliance with the establishment clause, is that we are not taking a position or promoting any one particular faith practice then you can go about it that way, right? And that's a clean, detached, there's a process, it's published. Anyone who wants to participate can contact us, get on a schedule to be able to show up and participate in that manner, and that's that process for that to follow. If you want it to go a different route, we can discuss that. I think some of the ways that alternatives there are ways that you can adjust that and then there are ways probably we shouldn't adjust it right we shouldn't be having the board decide who gets to because that runs afoul of the board starting to pick and choose who gets to provide a prayer or invocation right and that starts to lean into that implicit favoritism implicit establishment issue Similarly, so for instance, Rowan County, one of the more recent cases that went through the process with the courts, what they were doing is having the board members, the elected officials, give prayers. Well, every single one of them was of the same faith background. They were not allowing anyone else to participate. That was decided to be not constitutional. So we don't want to go that route either, right? You can identify other means of selecting individuals if you don't want to just leave it up to them to be the ones to show up. You can also have a default where, and this was something I spoke with Mayor Pro Tem Budger earlier about, is we could have it as this model and add a provision that if there are not interested individuals who sign up, the default could be, as it's written right now, the default would be the mayor could call for a moment of reflection, a moment of silence, essentially, right? You could keep that. You could also add that in the event no one has signed up, you could step in. The key that we want to make sure is that you identify as an elected official, if you're going to give that prayer or invocation, you're doing so as a private citizen, not as the elected official giving it.

And how does that fit into the cadence of the meeting, like the beginning of the meeting anyway? Is it because I know at the county they do invocation first and then Pledge of Allegiance.

Is that how we would? Is that what you're saying? Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know if it's outside of the agenda or if they actually have an invocation written on their agenda.

It's outside of the agenda.

Yeah.

Yeah, typically you would be at the outset of a meeting. So before you're going into the content of your agenda, you would be taking this on at the outset before any call to order.

So that's something that could be done unofficially without impacting the rules and procedures at all.

Sure. I mean, you're going to have a policy that's going to state how you decide in the absence of someone having signed up or shown up to do it, what, if anything, you would do in that absence, whether you have a moment of reflection or whether one of you elects to give it in the absence of someone else participating. The key is you are not eliminating the option for others to participate in this. This isn't a gatekeeper issue. This is in the absence of you are stepping in, if you want. You don't have to. You can also elect to do a moment of reflection.

So it sounds like, and I'm just kind of catching up to speed, When was the Rowan County, correct me if I'm wrong?

Yeah, 2019 I think was the last decision in it.

2019. So that really has the largest cornerstone effect of essentially how we can go about establishing or evaluating this possible policy.

It's one of the latest cases to come through North Carolina, but there are certainly Supreme Court precedents that set forth.

But here impacting us directly, that one's our most recent sistering example. Sure, it's instructive.

Which is interesting because I think since 2019, there's other entities, whether it be counties or towns, that go about it differently.

Sure. I mean, people speak. Yeah. Right? Enforcement, a law existing and then enforcement of a law aren't always at the same time. They're not always synchronized.

Matt, is it possible to have a standardized prayer? So if somebody wants to come up and sign up where they can get a You know, use a standardized prayer that's approved by... That would be content restrictive.

Okay. Yeah, I think we're... You just... If somebody says something outlandish that really nobody's getting with, they still have the right to say it in those two minutes.

Yeah, to be clear, this would be any religious faith, any non-religious faith, and it would...

be uniformly permitted right missouri state capitol comes top of mind unfortunately it's one of those things where you can't gate who can and cannot come i recall an event i think it's 2020 or 2021 where a anti-religious group came to missouri to in an exact counter moment to the mainstream religious organization that had an event, but you can't bar them once that door or gate has been opened and allowed, essentially content restrictive. We're very handcuffed into a handful of avenues that we can operate in currently.

There is no requirement. Let me also make sure I make this clear. There's no requirement that you have an invocation or prayer. That doesn't have to occur. I would say that it's increasingly my practice going to various jurisdictions. It doesn't occur. So there's also that option, right? If the concern is the unintended consequence, well, then there's an option to avoid those.

I think we appreciate that. And as counsel, that's wise counsel. I know for me, though, and I'd rather stand on the figuring out how to and the right mechanisms to go about to be able to express that in a thoughtful manner, because I don't think it just reflects a board. I do think that is reflects essentially a larger cohort of the people within the voter and representative of the Waxhaw entirety. So I don't think we're just trying to sit here as group of members of the board and we're sitting here also as residents within Waxhaw as a whole wondering is this and how do we balance this and I just hearing that it is a balancing act and it's definitely one that we should be wise and reflective on if we do move forward on but at the same time I think it's worthy to continue to look and talk about it

Yeah, my understanding based on reading what you wrote in the agenda packet and what you just said is that we would just modify our rules and procedures and that would be sort of a legal avenue for somebody to participate if they wanted to. But essentially if nobody did, we could sort of proceed in the same way that the county already does.

So the policy that you would be considering adopting to allow for opening your meetings with a prior ramification, within that policy, this document that's drafted right now, not your rules of procedure, but this policy, you would be including in that a provision that for those guidelines, how someone's selected, how they can go about signing up, how they can participate. There is a two-minute limit that's suggested in this draft. And in the absence of someone signing up, because there's not a reality out there that people don't sign up. There's that chance. There may be a tendency for several meetings to go. You have 24 meetings in a year if you meet twice a month. If you have a large volume of people signing up, then they may get scheduled for later beyond. Then they may lose interest or might be sick or might be out of town on the date they get scheduled. If those things happen, your rule, if you draft it this way, could be In the absence of someone showing up to participate, you can either have a moment of silence or a board member can opt to provide the opening prayer or invocation.

That means that you are not

preventing others from participating. You were not establishing yourself as the only source, which is where Rowan County got into an issue. They were preventing others from being able to participate. They were also requiring active participation. Please rise, bow your heads, things like that. We can't go into those sort of measures. But this allows as a backstop so that in the absence of something else, you can, if you want, provide.

Is it legally defensible to have a first-come, first-served policy where the first person who signs up is the one who participates and then Basically, once the meeting's finished, the list is white. If there's a list, I mean, there probably isn't even going to be a list, but you would do a reset after the meeting, and then the next person who wants to can be first come, first serve.

I think the best model is to allow for sign-ups and then to be slotted in for meeting after meeting after meeting, not in between every two weeks. First one to book a tee time gets to play golf, right? We don't want that. We don't want someone having to compete with someone else to be the first to sign up every two weeks. because that's gonna have a limiting effect. The constructive element of that is it will prevent certain participants from having the same access.

Isn't it kind of the same, though, as the public comment? Because we don't keep a running list of people who, let's say we had a list of 50 people or something. We don't have a list of that many who would want to give public comment. We don't allow a certain number in one meeting and then save the rest for another.

Well, public comment's required. You're required to provide that once a month. This is not required.

So because of it not being required is why we would have a running list that would stay until exhausted?

You would have a running list based on the policy that you're doing so that you're not running afoul of the establishment clause, so that you are allowing that full opportunity for any and all who are interested in participating in this to have an equal chance to get scheduled for it.

Hey, Matt, can I kind of rework this just a little bit with Richard, with your permission? We have two meetings a month. Yeah, we have a list. We put out a essentially or they are able to sign up each month. There's two meetings month of May. There's two slots. Sign up month of June. New list. month it's not revolving it's just that month there's two slots sign up June May June July two slots two meetings and it's not a revolving list like Richard was saying it's just there's two slots there's two two oh two optionalities two openings each month and it's just that that's it Not a revolving list? Is that something that can be feasible? It's open to all? We have two meetings each month, and then each month there's two slots.

So it opens up at the beginning of the month? Yes.

Is that something that could mechanically work?

Possibly we can review that and discuss that more after. Sure. The concerns that come to mind are the challenges that would be raised in the why. Someone wanting to challenge that, wanting to look for the why. Why are we going about it this way? kind of peeling that back to try to figure out why are they making it this way? That's the concern that I have in terms of, is it a limiting exercise?

Could I then reasonably point to the required labor needed and the staff delegation needed to invest in a revolving list?

If setting one list Person A signs up, you put them here. Person B signs up, you put them here. Person C signs up, you put them here. If that's more onerous than redoing it every month, I think we can talk about that as well.

Well, there would have to be some kind of limit, right? Because you can't have 50 people all showing up or wanting to do it on one. Sure, one person a meeting.

Yeah. That's just a natural limiting factor. We can't have 15 people sitting there saying 15 invocationals for the first hour.

Right. well and again just to be clear this is not supposed to be proselytizing at all we're not supposed to be promoting or denigrating or anything even not not much to us but the participants yes right that's part of the policy that's part of the guidelines that's part of what we will have in place to make sure that folks who are coming to provide that implication understand that the intention here is to kind of still the minds um

and for the benefit of the board to do the town's business that's what is supposed to be intended here that's what is allowed what would be considered proselytizing promoting a religion right so but you know how is that uh sliced and diced you know like is it promoting a religion just to you know say in the name of jesus or something like that or is it

So again, I would say that things happen that in a perfect world to comply with this wouldn't be promoting any given religion, but they happen. So yeah, is it going to be imperfect? Sure. But we want to make sure that we try to set up the guidelines and have it function as much in compliance as possible so that we are not creating a an issue.

I think that was my comment. Standardized is probably a bad example, but non-denominational is what we would do if we were to present. So I think it's a good opportunity to have somebody be able to come up here from the public if they want to present a prayer. I don't think it's too difficult to have a draft list. You might have one person sign up for four weeks. You might get the same person every week. You might have three or four folks. If they rotate that out the course, I mean, you're talking, I don't think it's too laborsome. We run drafts in the private sector all the time. to select people to walk up and present. And then if we have the opportunity to either adopt a prayer, if we have nobody show up that wants to do it, or we can just go ahead and observe silence like we typically do.

Yeah. One watch out that we would want to keep in mind is if the same person continues to sign up, if there's a complaint that says, I keep trying to sign up, but somehow I'm not the first person. Right. And I still don't have an opportunity to get there. that's going to raise red flags that we don't want that attention.

Would it be an issue also for the policy not to allow the same person every single time?

If they are the only person signing up, that's fine. But again, it's got to be an open process.

So what kind of mechanism are we thinking of actually using to keep track and run the sign-up sheet, basically?

You're looking at Barbie. And I don't think this is necessarily fully baked out. This was a draft for a discussion. And some of those sort of things can be.

Could just be emailed as simple as email Bobby, right?

So in your packet, I have created a calendar, a year calendar. Just keep in mind, this would be at your regular meetings since you don't have an invocation at your work sessions. What I see that is, is if someone were to contact me and say, I'd like to give that invocation, then I would, whatever month we're in, then I would let that person know, well, it's going to be on July the 14th, and you would be at the first of the meetings, so be here right before 630, so that you can go on and give your invocation after the mayor opens the meeting. So they give the invocation. So if I have that same person contact me, but I have several others on the list that are going, that next person that's on that list is what I envision to put on for the next meeting, which would be in August. So instead of it being a first come, first serve, whoever signs up, that person that goes in July will go on to a rotation. So the next person in line would do that, and then so forth and so on. And if we get to the point where that next person that... did the invocation in July, happens to come up at the end of the year, then they could do the December invocation. It's just however they fall in that rotation. So I see it as a rotational thing. And we would keep a calendar as to who spoke and would keep a record of those. We'd even ask them to sign up by email. they can contact our office, either myself or Karen, to sign up for that invocation. And I would think that that would give them a limited time of at least 48 hours before the meeting or at least a week before the meeting so that we have someone there if they choose to. If for some reason that they're not able to attend, I would hope that they would contact us and let us know. But if they don't show up, then our default is to do what we always do, is do the moment of silence.

Or as you suggested, the board can then say either do the way you've done it, or you can open it up to other members if there's no one there.

yeah and it's something that we can adjust if we create it and see how things go see what the response is see what participation rate looks like you know that sort of thing it's your policy you can undo your policy if you decide this is something that is not working like we want it thinking of policy would you want

A draft copy the night before a meeting? No. No. Okay. Matt's shaking his head no.

You're talking about the invocation? We're not going to screen invocations.

Okay. I just didn't know if that was something.

Not to say that too forcefully, but that we're not going to review content of a prayer. Okay. Yeah.

but the prayer would not include see you on Sunday at 9 a.m. at such and such a church.

That's the promoting part. That's why I was like, hey, do we make sure that something's not like that in it, that it's policy aligned? We're not censoring. We're just making sure that it's policy correct.

Yeah, I mean, there are some similarities to the public comment, right? You have some guidelines. You want them to not stand up and be profane. You don't want them to stand up and attack, right? Well, we're also giving guidelines here. We're also suggesting here's what we expect. This is the town's position in our policy for how a prayer reunification should occur. Can we control everyone who stands up with a microphone?

No.

But we do our part with our policy, with our guidelines, and then we adjust if we need to down the road, if this is something you guys wish to move forward with.

Yeah, if somebody's so immature to turn it into a circus, they'll have to live with those consequences.

Yeah. And there is the process if you want to continue on with that.

Offering that and we do have to be respectful of all the people that live in Waxhaw I think that that they are adults even even the teenagers and the children if they if they so were moved to give an invocation that they would be adult like in their comments I Have faith in that If somebody does say something outlandish and goes off the rails, they're going to have to live with the consequences of what happens in their private life after that. I mean, they just have to ask everybody to be adults about it.

How would we feel about making it one minute instead of two?

fine that should be plenty of time yeah i think that's a good thing it doesn't need to be anything ostentatious you know it doesn't have to be overly long and verbose yeah a little bit of grace 90 seconds something like that you know a minute to a minute and a half is reasonable yeah target a minute i wouldn't turn i wouldn't turn the clock on in other words yes but something with a loud buzzer at the end exactly I know for me the way I'm thinking about it even though we're sitting here discussing the what-ifs because we've seen what what ifs turn rotten unfortunately and sour the moment because it's meant to be a good moment it's meant to pay respects to it and that invocation is meant to express bring a sense of calm and preparation before we go about working on behalf of the town but at the same time when i think about this policy as a whole i have faith in my neighbors i have faith in my neighbors that that they see this policy as a good thing overall and that they would come and join us here and be participants and this is another avenue of participating and i think that this is a good thing overall and i think that we should continue and pursue this in my mind Because I have faith in my neighbors to come here respectfully and honor essentially the location we're at. Because it is Waxhaw Town Hall. It's not Raleigh or it's not our state capital, but it's our capital. It's our town. And we're here conducting our town's business to the best of our ability as well. And it's good to have a little neighborly faith on our side as we go about doing that.

In the policy, is there a resident... resident only oh oh yeah residential requirement i think there should be and that's reasonable matt if we can look into that i would i would not it would not be pleasant if we were to get some national somebody wanted to make a name for themselves from Washington DC to come in here and do something that was not of Waxhaw resident values. Waxhaw character? Yep, outside of our character in Waxhaw.

I'll review that. I think kind of the extension of it is if there is an unrepresented faith in Waxhaw, you know, that lacks a residency, whether that, that's something I just need to look at, if that runs across that line.

Thank you for investigating.

The other thing about the guidelines, the only thing I think I would want to tweak a little bit is on point eight where it sort of says that the mayor may call for a moment of silent reflection before proceeding with the agenda. Could we just have it say or offer an invocation opportunity to members of the board? Yeah.

Would you like to include staff as well?

Sure. Why not?

Yeah. If there's a member of the staff that are so inclined, why not? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that's going to be a voluntary exercise, right? Exactly. In the absence of someone.

Right.

That is, and typically I would think you would probably have... already had a conversation towards that end knowing that someone is not signed up.

Most likely.

Right. Come in prepared. Yeah, I can add that. I've got the one minute. Is that where? I think let's start there. Default in the absence to either moment of silence or elected or town staff. And we'll check about the residence requirement. Anything else?

Chippity buzzer at the end.

Chippity buzzer at the end.

All righty.

What are you going to do with that one? I'm not sure that's made it into the courts yet.

It's always a first. All righty. Anything else on this topic? All righty. Hearing nothing, let's go ahead and move on to the next one. Thank you very much, Matt. It sounds like you have a little bit of homework to do, but we appreciate the work you've done thus far.

Thank you, Matt.

The goal is to keep us out of trouble. Next up, we have Ms. Emily Lerner, Personnel Policies.

All right. So, I'll just kind of give a quick overview, and I don't have the clicker up here with me, I don't think. Oh, perfect. I can let them know to advance it. Last time, at the last regular meeting, we went through kind of a high-level overview of the personnel policy updates. It was still in the middle of attorney review at that time, so I Did put the kind of caution out there. We're still looking at it and editing a little bit. But I did go through the project timeline. And just to remind you, we kind of kicked it off in October of 2025. We selected Centralina Regional Council as the lead consultant firm.

Thank you.

for the policy modernizations. And then we kind of kicked it off with staff in December of 2025 to go through and get their feedback on it. What are some pain points? What questions do they have? What's not clear? What would they like to see in there? We took all that feedback and provided it to Centralina. And then we began drafting the personnel policy update. And that's the part of the process that took the longest is just to go through everything, you know, change things up, edit, reword, add things in that needed to be in there. that's best practice that brings us into full compliance so that happened the draft stage happened from January to kind of the end of March and then in April May we put did some more staff review of the drafted policy updates and then our town attorney took a look as well in May and then that brought us to our June 9th meeting where we did a high-level overview of of each section and kind of what changes were made in each section. And now here we are to I just want to open it up for discussion tonight to see if you have any questions, things you would like me to take a look at more in depth that I can kind of work with the town attorney on if there's any pieces that we want to take a deeper look at and reconsider. And then target adoption date, obviously we want to make sure it's fully baked and ready, but for that July 14th meeting.

That sounds good.

So again, just a quick, it really was not a major overhaul of the personnel policy. It was mostly minor language updates, kind of a reorganization. And then we put a lot of it together into one document. We had a personnel policy, but then we had a lot of other policies kind of out there. So we're just bringing it all together. And that'll be really helpful for staff so that it's easy to find everything. There's a table of contents. They can click on it. It takes them straight to that section. And so, again, there were some updates, but a lot of it was rewordings and then just adding some things in that are really legally required, best practice type thing. And that brings me to now. So last time we went through the section, so I want to open up the floor for any questions from the board, anything you'd like to take a deeper look at. And it was a large document, 200 pages. Exactly.

Any questions from the board on this one? On page 153. Okay.

We have them numbered, so it's easy to find. Exactly.

It was a lot.

For that reason. Yes.

But it was very well done. It was a good read. There's a lot of thoughtfulness that went into it, so we appreciate all the hard work you guys put into it.

Absolutely.

I didn't have anything substantial. Yeah.

It was substantially... where it's in volume, but the edits and the flow of what you guys did made sense, plain and simple. You packaged something very well together. You put a lot of time into it. We greatly appreciate you staying on top of this.

not necessarily my field so it all seems pretty good to me as long as the attorneys are good with it i guess that's the main thing we'll run it back through uh town attorney one more time with the edits that you've suggested just to take kind of a final peek at it but you know it's been fully vetted staff feedback central ina gave their their you know great recommendations we've looked at policies from other areas too to kind of see what they're doing and just to make sure we're fully compliant with everything. And then what we'll do once we get it adopted, we'll do some training on it as well so everyone fully understands what changes were made and what that means and see if anyone has any questions.

Is there anything that stood out in your mind that you were surprised at the changes?

Yeah, that we're a drug and alcohol-free workplace. That was some...

That was a surprise? It was a surprise. John, that wasn't a surprise, but yeah, to see it formally apply, that's nice.

To answer your question, no. There were some things in there like the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and the ADA that we did not have, and I knew we did not. So that's something that was added in for compliance purposes. Really, there was nothing... That was of major surprise, which is a good thing. I'm glad there was nothing in there. It was just egregiously not right. So that was comforting to know that piece of it. So it was a long process. We want to take a good, careful look at it. And so I think we accomplished that in it.

How's the feedback been from staff any time you introduce something new? How is there?

Good, good.

Let's ask our new employee.

Day two. Good question.

Yeah, day two. Got to have a big question, right? Big read. No, anytime, you know, we try to open it up for, we want the feedback. So we got our leadership and then said, share it, share it with your staff, get their feedback too on what they have questions on or what's not clear so that we can make some of those edits in there. to, um, lay out something more, um, and more in depth. Um, so I think they appreciate the, the being able to provide the feedback as well. And we incorporated a lot of their feedback as best we could. Um, you know, some of the feedback we can't because, you know, it may be a compliance thing or best practice thing that it may not be, but where we could, could make those changes. We, we did. Um, but they weren't, they weren't big ask. I mean, it was just more so clarifications. Um, so, and again, I think, We'll take it back to them. We've done it round two with them where we're like, oh, here's the changes that we made per your feedback, per Centralina's drafts and their recommendations. And then they were able to look at it again and ask questions. So it was another kind of... feedback session on that. So it's been a good process. Lengthy, but good process.

From Central INR, do they give you any indication that we're behind the curve with these types of policies? Or we're setting an example for other communities?

Yeah, they indicated that, you know, because it wasn't a major overhaul, I mean, that was a good indication that we weren't so far behind in what we already had. So that, again, was comforting for us, you know, that we did already have given, again, the biggest part was just getting it reorganized and all in one document. Because we had, with the personnel policy, we had so many other policies kind of off to the side. that didn't make sense to have them kind of spread out like that. It's just from an ease of access type thing, it's best to have it all in one document so people can reach what they need to find quickly. And that was the biggest part. But, you know, from what they indicated, they said, really, you're doing really well with what you have. It's just getting it reorganized and then adding in, you know, just a couple pieces that we didn't have that we should.

Because when you initially mentioned how long it had been since we've done an update, I was honestly expecting more. Exactly.

And I was too, honestly. I was like, I bet we have a big, big piece of work to do. But, I mean, we really didn't overall.

That's a good sign. It's all pretty straightforward stuff. But that one thing I didn't know about or don't have insight into is added in. fingerprinting statute. What does that mean?

Yes. So there's a new state statute that came down in October. And for any positions that work frequently with children, For us, that would be our Parks and Rec team that work on a regular basis with children. They are required to go through an extra step for the screening pre-employment process where they have to get fingerprints sent off to the SBI for fingerprint background check as well. And that part takes... a good while for it to process through SBI. So that's just, it's required per statute that we have to do that. It does lengthen out the hiring process. We do have to wait for those results to come before we bring that person on. But it is required for the statute.

Out of curiosity, how many days does it add with that statute, do you think?

Typically, it can vary, but for us, the ones that we have had to fingerprint has taken about a month.

Additional?

Additional time, correct. Usually with a pre-employment drug screen and the regular just criminal background check that they go through, that's back within a couple days. The fingerprinting part is what has, for us, taken about a month to receive those results back.

And that's through our state agency? Yes.

Yes, the State Bureau of Investigation.

Anything else? Thank you very much, Emily. Thank you. Voting on this soon.

Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you. Appreciate it.

All righty. So with that, we will go ahead and ask for a motion to, let's see here. I'm going to get a motion to recess into closed session pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 143-318.11 . So moved. All in favor? Aye. We are now in closed session. Before we adjourn, one discussion point is what's coming next. Where's my thing in here? Well, we don't have to vote on a motion immediately. One discussion point before adjournment is what's coming next. Obviously, we have a 4th of July parade, so anybody listening that hasn't watched this after July 4th, we have a July 4th parade coming. 10 a.m. is that start time? All right, 10 a.m., downtown Waxhaw. Be there, be square.

And then...

Need volunteers, yes, please. Volunteers get recognized by me personally in a loud and boisterous way whenever possible. So please volunteer. And then we have our next board meeting on July 14th. So I hope to see everybody there. The motion has been presented. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? We are now adjourned. Thank you.