Town Council - Regular Meeting

going to go ahead and call to order. It's uh Monday, May 11th, 2026, 7 p.m. and and welcome everyone for being here. Uh we have a we have a quorum tonight and so uh let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. Shall we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. for the uh additions, deletions, and adoptions of the agenda. Uh we have a few changes. Um first of all, I want to add a uh hold down back, please. I want to add a close session at the uh at the end to council or to speak with our council attorney. So, we'll add that at the ends of closed session. I'm just going to state the general statute 143-318 A3 to consult with the attorney.

Okay, cool. Thank you. Can you add that into the uh minutes? Okay. Also, we're going to go down to the consent agenda uh 9A. We're going to move that down to old business uh which will be which will become uh 10B. So 9 A becomes 10 B. Okay. All right. Uh we're going to pull out the uh go we're going to go down to 911. Um and that is going to become 11 11d 9. You mean 9 D

9. Uh uh no. Well, 9D is going to become 11. Yeah. 11d. Did I say that wrong? Yes. Okay. So, uh 9 9d is becoming 11d. Okay. All right. And is there any that I missed with with you guys? Any any other modifications? We're Are we good? I make a motion we adopt the agenda as amended. Okay. All in favor?

Okay. All right. The uh the agenda's uh approved as adopted. All in favor and everybody's in favor and and it's adopted. The uh uh conflict of interest statement in accordance with state law is the duty of every council member to avoid conflicts of interest. Does any council member have any known conflict of interest with respect to any matter or matters on the agenda? If so, please identify the conflict and refrain from any participation in the matter involved. Any conflicts? No. Okay. No conflicts. Mayor and council member reports. Who wants to go first? Um, anyone? Tom. Okay. Um,

Wuma update. Well, I'll give a wuma update in that we were not neither one of us were able to attend the meetings with with previous conflicts. The next meeting will be, if I look up this correctly, in June 25th at the town of Marvin's village of Marvin's town hall. That's where the next meeting will be. And uh I'll address anything about Wuma later. The I do have a bit of an update on street repaving contracts. I was told that the contracts period closed and all had to be in last week on the 6th and that after a couple weeks they would be able to process them through and have them ready for work to be looked at for after July 1. So, we should before the next meeting get an update of what streets are going to be subject for resurfacing. That is what they tell me. I'll just leave it at that. So, that is all I have to report. Mayor any uh

anything. Since you mentioned streets, I'm going to go ahead. I was going to do it at the end but at under transportation but I'm just going to mention I I talked with DOT um actually today and uh the life at uh Antioch church in Forest Lawn um we've been it's been pushed down for so many months. It was supposed to be like you know last fall then by Christmas then March. Now they they're saying that that light should be put in sometime in August September. So it's August, September for that light at Antioc Church and Forest Law. So keep fingers crossed. So nothing else. One comment in regards to CRTPO.

Okay. Um I have noticed every time I'm driving from Valentine to uh Weddington on the highway, it shows the symbol with the green signs, it says 16 and then Weddington Road. And that is incorrect. It should be 16 Providence Road. Um, I don't know if they, you know, somehow if they said Weddington the town, that would be a little different, but every time I see it, it it's an indication that it's incorrect. So, I don't know if you could bring it to their attention, but that would probably behoove us and alleviate some confusion for people that may not know better. And I'll mention that at the next CRPTO meeting. Thank you.

At the end of the month. So, thank you for bringing that up. Um, all right. We're going to move on to uh We don't have anything. Not today. Thank you. No, I'd already ask her. Okay. Um public comments. Anyone for public comments? And Debbie? Sorry. I should have done that. I'm on the outside. Thank you. Okay, Sarah Juel, come on up. Welcome. Um where should I speak? This one. Yes.

Um, well, I'm here just to talk to you guys about what's come out of Wuma with the fluoride resolution. I know a lot of the other cities have actually made a resolution without input from the citizens. So, I do appreciate you guys asking for input. Um, I've been here before the county commissioners when they decided um based on the postcoavid backlash of medical freedom to remove it from um like Monroe I guess east it's you know it's different the water's controlled different areas and I strongly oppose that medical freedom for me anyone who's running on medical freedom they could literally have every issue I agree with that is one issue for me as a health care professional I'm a physical therapist even though I'm retired my son's in med school I mean like I have lots of friends that are dentists and I just it's just it's old science it's new science it's well substantiated that fluoride is one of the best public health things that they've done since the 70s. There's areas where they've removed fluoride and it is um now they've seen like a rapid increase in cavities. So I really think it's important and it's not for people who are privileged to go to the dentist twice a year who do fluoride treatments. It's for the people who don't have those things and there are people in our county that don't have that. So, I really strongly hope you guys make a resolution um that you are for keeping Florida. And I know you don't control it as part of the Kataba Water Reserve, but I would appreciate that because that is one issue living here over 20 years. I've never heard anyone mention its growth, its schools, its roads, its infrastructure. Not one person, and I've been here a long time, and I have a big mouth has ever mentioned fluoride except for Richard D, who is from New Zealand, who, you know, rammed that through with county commissioners. and I'm strongly against it. Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah. I'm going to read something I I skipped over before I called u Sarah up. Uh the uh just the the rules for public comment and then we'll move forward. Um public comments are limited to those uh that are in Germaine and to within uh Germaine to and within the jurisdiction of the town. Topics that are removed or impertinent from the business of the town shall be prohibited. Additionally, public comments shall not be on topics that are not allocated or specific uh specified to public hearing uh time. Instead, public comments are limited to those that do not have allocated time under uh a public hearing. Um the comments are to be directed to the entire board and not individuals to the to the public uh attending the meeting. Uh a designated spokesperson for a group of three or more may be allocated six minutes to speak. At least three members of the group must be present and names and addresses of those members present uh must be submitted to the town clerk before the meeting begins. Other than that, pursuant to that uh you may not give your time or another speaker any time uh to increase the speaker's allotted time. You must be civil in your language and presentation and act within reasonable standards of courtesy. Use of slander, name calling, personal attacks or threatening speech or behavior is prohibited. The audience must maintain order or decorum in their conduct. Please refrain from disruptive applause, comments, or disorderly speaking during the meeting. Disturbances

disrupt the order and decorum of the meeting will be prohibited. The mayor or majority of the board may suspend these rules at their discretion. Failure to abide by these rules after receiving notice from the mayor may result in one termination of your comment period and or to your removal from the meeting. Okay. Um Clayton Jones, come up. You have uh six minutes. Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you.

Take it.

Thank you. Well, my name is Clayton Jones. Live on Panhandle Circle. Um, I don't think I'm going to do any of those things, mayor. I don't know the things you just read there. Um, I'd like you to meet my little friend here. This is Henrietta. She's my friend. She's Henrietta the chicken. Now, I know she doesn't look like a chicken. She uh actually she wasn't so timid with all these people here. You'd probably hear her quack like a duck. If I dare to put her down, you'd like to see her waddle like a duck. But she's a chicken because they call her a chicken. That's kind of like Weddington. We call Weddington a mayor council government. But we're not, are we? We're a duck. Because since September 2021, the job description for the town administrator and the town planner were changed. They were changed. So the town planner reported to the town administrator and that made Weddington a de facto town manager manager council government nearly five years ago. And apparently none of you noticed that change. Well, I noticed when I got the agenda last Thursday that there was a rewrite of the job description for the town administrator and the town planner and I was shocked to see that it was on the consent agenda because as you know on the consent agenda there's no discussion about it as to why need to rewrite that job description and there's no vote on it. you just vote on everything on the consent agenda and I'm happy to see that you finally moved it

to the regular new business agenda. So hopefully you can explain to the citizens here why it's necessary to rewrite those two job descriptions. But I'm going to help you out here. I'm going to tell them why you need to rewrite those job descriptions. This town needs to be thankful for Commissioner Ellen McLaclin because Ellen McLaclin put on her detective hat. Now, Ellen and I when we first joined the council, we knew something wasn't right here in town hall. We didn't know what it was, but we started asking questions. We started coming over here looking at things. And I don't know how or she found it, but looking through the documents of the town council meeting of September 2021 and all those documents, she found the new job description for the town administrator and the town planner. And guess what they said? They said that the town planner reports directly to the town administrator. Not to you guys, not to the mayor, not to the council. town planner reports to her and that is a de facto manager system. Now Weddington, we've got nearly 14,000 residents here, maybe 14 plus thereabouts. We only have two department heads. As big as we are, we have two department heads. And for the brief time that I was sitting up here at this table, guess what? None of you. I didn't see any of you manage or direct either the town planner or even the town administrator. Doors were closed and locked when they should be open and you didn't know why. You didn't know where people were. I'm going to ask you now and you don't have to raise your hand, but I'm going to be shocked if there's one of you up there right now who knows how many vacation

days our town administrator Karen Dwey has taken this year. How many vacation days? How many sick days has she taken since January? How much comp time has she acrewed? She does a lot of overtime. How many comp times does she have right now? And if any of you knows, I'm going to be shocked. I hope one of you do. Anyway, all right. That's because you don't there is not a person among you who manages or directs any of our town department heads. Now, I was here back in January 2023 when Mayor Horn and the town council voted to make Weddington a real manager uh council system. I was here and I remember the comments and they said, "Well, you know, it's not fair for the employees here in the town to have five bosses." I'm like, "Well, that makes sense. We can have five bosses, but they need to have at least one. It doesn't have to be all five of you being the boss of Karen Dwey and whoever you hire to be the new town planner. One of you ought to step up. That should be job one. Not building a park. Not starting a student government. Not trying to get a some kind of thing to get Lancaster County to take fluoride out of the water. Job one is somebody needs to be over here to know what's going on. It's not that Karen Dwey isn't trustworthy. She's a wonderful person. I think she does a great job. But somebody has to be in charge and none of you seem to be. So in January 23, Mayor Horn and the council there uh voted to make us a manager of the system. Mayor Horn had to vote because it was tied vote two to two. Mayor Horn voted to do it. You'll find the the document in your package that shows that. Well, the citizens of Weddington got all upset about that and

they started a signature writing campaign to get a referendum put on the November 23 ballot to try to change us back to a man uh to a mayor council system and sure that was a lot of work. I'm sorry is in my comments.

Thank you for coming. And uh just for the record, we will be discussing that later on. Um uh Karen Walter, who is our normal attorney here, uh is not able to be with us tonight. So her partner um Kevin uh Bringing from uh Bringing Walter and Snow Law Firm who is a municipal law firm uh very well respected throughout the state um is here and he will speak on on this later on and sort of explain. I think uh Clayton you're missing some points but uh we'll we'll talk about that later. So, uh,

so next, uh, I'm sorry. Go ahead and we're gonna move forward. Uh, Clayton, take your seat, please. Uh, Christopher Ne, come on up. Christopher Neve, 110 Chase Court. Uh many residents wanted to know what significant issues uh caused former council member Clayton Jones to unexpectedly resign last month. Our town planner resigned less than two weeks later. As a town, we were searching for answers. Clayton Jones just shared what he observed behind closed doors. And I would like to bring to your attention an issue that has been observed publicly, ethics violations by former mayor and current planning board member Bill Deer. Bill Deeder is a leader of the Weddington Wall group, of which each of you on council are a part. The Weddington Wall group works in tandem with Preserve Weddington and stewards of Weddington to craft messaging to support you, and over $71,000 was spent to secure your seats on council. Over $37,000 of that came from one single family. Shortly after you all became a controlling majority, Bill Deer was appointed to the Planning Board, Historic Preservation Commission, and is the chair of the board of adjustment. Last year, he was a strong proponent of a revision to our code of ethics agreement for all advisory board members. The revision read, quote, "Board members shall refrain from publicly commenting, discussing, or expressing opinions about pending or potential projects outside of dy noted noticed meetings. This includes refraining from making public comments through social media. While discussions about this were taking place, Bill Deer stated, quote, "I am not active on social media, but I used to be an administrator, then later a moderator on Preserve Weddington, but when I got on the planning board, I was saying, remove me as a moderator. Remove me as an administrator." Um, I'll read posts that are out there, but I don't respond, and I don't weigh in. This revision was approved by council and added to the current code of ethics agreement. I am proud of the professionalism and work

accomplished by our planning board. To my knowledge, every member takes pride in their role and abides by our code of ethics agreement except Bill Deer. Bill deer regularly violates this agreement. He expresses opinions regarding current projects on social media and in person. He violates other sections too. He is disrespectful toward residents with whom he disagrees and he has proved himself to be untrustworthy regarding the information he shares. After a public post was shared mentioning our mayor's financial ties to a developer with a current project proposal, Bill Deer quickly responded. After degrading the resident, he referred to our mayor's publicly reported financial transaction from the developer as a bribe and called the information that was shared an undocumented conspiracy. This unethical behavior has has not gone unnoticed by residents. In a comment that followed read, quote, "Bill, one would hope and think that someone in your position would choose their words wisely, but we see your hatred towards someone hinders that ability. Bill Deer is a leader of your Weddington Wall team and has personally donated to your campaign both time and money. He is a direct extension of this council and was appointed by you. Is this behavior consistent with who each of you are on this board? Are you proud of his actions? Because they are a reflection of you. With so much diminishing trust in our town right now, I believe steps need to be taken to correct this issue in an attempt to restore faith in our legislative processes and improve our town's integrity. Not only did Bill Deer support the code of ethics document he is violating, he signed his name directly under the last section which reads, quote, "A violation of this code of ethics by an appointed member of a town advisory board may subject a member to disciplinary discipline by the town council up to and including removal from the advisory board. When new appointments are made, you express how difficult the decision was to fill a seat because there are always so many good qualified applicants wanting to serve. If corrective action is not taken, it will diminish the reputation of our boards, each of you on council and our town. There is no doubt he is emboldened in his actions because of his relationship to each of you and the groups that support your team. I ask

that you set aside personal bias in your decision-making process and do the right thing in an attempt to restore the trust with the residents that has been lost. Thank you. Emory, come join up.

Not quite as tall as Christopher, so I'll um Thank you, Amarie Cruz. Um live at the Hunter Farm across the street. I wanted to make comments tonight because there are several issues in the town that are causing distress. I'm thankful to Clayton that he came tonight. This um un the lack of information has caused a lot of angst and anxiety for residents. I'm grateful that he at least came to share his perspective. Um I'm hopeful that um the stepping down of Greg as our planner will lead to additional conversations and my hope that this evening uh Mayor Bell and I talked about this earlier is that we will have a very clear plan and explanation for how the seat for um Clayton's uh uh sorry district 3 seat will be filled. I'm grateful that we have our attorney representative present to help us walk through all of the different steps and actions that have been um taken and that we have a clear path forward. Um I'm asking the town um council and our mayor to be thoughtful in the approach in which we fill this seat. I'm also asking for additional transparency around the park and the funding so that everyone can feel that they have a voice and understand the different processes that are taking place. I think that's very important. And then the other thing I would ask of this council is that publicly and privately when hearing of certain things that you know not to be true, my ask would be that you would dispel those rumors publicly and privately or when you know misinformation is being shared. I think that we are asking for our council and from our mayor is that we have an elevated sense of trust. There have been a lot of things that happened throughout

this election cycle and in the months that have followed that have led the town to feel what I was hoping to be a coming together has become an even more of a tearing apart. Um I have been publicly and privately supportive of the park in some form or fashion and the park and advisory committee because I want our town to have community. I want us a to have a place to come together and my hope is that through transparency and open and honest conversation that that that can be restored. Thank you for your time. Thank you D Marie. Uh David Venderloo coming up.

Mayor Council, uh thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.

You're welcome. Um, I live at 219 Kerry Lane and I came to talk about the Bonner Drive cutth through that's being discussed. Um, I just wanted to say I'll try to be brief. Um, our our roads there are very narrow. They're only 18 feet wide and I I walk on Amanda and Carrie and Bonner Drive just about every day. We already have lots of cut through traffic over there. Um, and the people that are cutting through it, it could be neighbors as well, but uh, the speed limit is 25. Most people are doing 45 coming through there. So, we don't we don't need any more of that. Uh, we've also got people walking every day, walking animals, uh, children plan. So, uh, it's just not a safe uh, safe for to have a cut through with more traffic. Um, so I just ask that you would override the planners approval of that. I know I've I've heard that Toll Brothers is not necessarily interested in putting that through there. It must may be the NC DOT uh trying to push that. I'm not sure why, but Toll Brothers has plenty of room on the road front to put that through. So,

okay. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Thank you, David. Um I think it's Margaret Welcome. Hi, thank you. Thanks for coming.

So, yeah, thanks. My name is uh Dr. Margaret Lachri. I'm a pediatric dentist um and have been practicing in the Union County and have a practice in Matthews, Waxaw, and Steel Creek. So, I've been here since 1991. So, have seen many many wedding taken care of many weddings and children. And um I'm here to speak in strong support of fluidation of the water supply. So all as a pediatric dentist, I get to see patients that are special needs adults as well as children with medical compromises. Um a lot of times these people have Medicaid. they have trouble affording uh good dental care and the fluidation of the water is the number one source of um anti-aries anti-avity um things that they get during during their lifetime. So um if we take fluoride out of the water, we're going to it's not going to be immediate. We won't see a rise in cavities immediately because the way fluoride works is it incorporates into the enamel of the teeth and strengthens them and and is anti-avity. Um, the science is out there. It is in every uh journal. The science that you might see is on the internet. That's not always good science. They just had a study that came out last month and um I was contacted by one of the news agencies to comment on it and it show it was a huge study um done in um in the Midwest and it was looking at fluoride and IQ and it showed there was no correlation between increasing you can't between the amount of fluoride that we use the IQ and fluoride studies have been in other countries where that the fluidation levels are like three and four and five times what we would use here. So, I would encourage you to think about your fellow community members. Um, we're not forcing people can uh the water that you all have right there probably doesn't have fluoride in it. So, you can find water without fluoride in it if you want to drink, but just think about the community members that don't have money

to see dental care is very very expensive. I mean, I know, look at my house in Weddingington. No, I'm kidding. Um, no, but it it's it's very expensive. It's hard for kids to access. I see a lot of kids that have heart transplants. They all have to go to the O to get their dental care done before they get their transplants because you can get infections from the teeth that go right to your heart. Um, our special needs adults, they have so much trouble accessing dental care. We have to sedate them. We have to, you know, so it's not just us. Like I I have nice teeth. I'm sure most of you do, too. But, you know, we're trying to look out for the least of our community. And even in Weddington, we have people that that need help with that situation. So, please support fluidation of water. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Thanks for coming. That's uh all of our public comments and we're going to move on to and thank you everybody for your your comments. We're going to move on to uh our uh public safety report. So, uh one of the deputies, I'm not sure which one's coming. Lieutenant May, thank you.

Thank you for being here tonight.

Well, good evening to the council, to the residents that are here, and I assume we're being live streamed. So the residents at home, I don't get to make it out to town of Weddington as much as I'd like for the council meetings because I know that David Plyer and formerly Grant Ren have done such a good job of holding things down. But when I get a chance to come out here, I come out here. So uh for those of you who don't know who I am, my name is James May. I'm the lieutenant for Sheriff Eddie Kathy who supervises five small town contracts, town of Weddington being one of those. So to, uh, in the essence of time, I'm going to get started. Uh, just want to highlight some of the work that the deputies have done this month and in one case in particular and I took the chance to do this because David's not going to brag on himself. So, I'm going to take the chance to do it for him. Um, we've had 663 preventive patrols this month. That's just our wedding deputies. That is when you see a marked car in your neighborhood with blue lights on. Maybe they're not on. Um, but they're just checking to make sure that everything is calm, everything is quiet. You're not supposed to say quiet in first responder world, but we're saying it. So, everything is quiet. We've had uh just over 30 31 business checks. Um that's pulling on doors, making sure the doors are locked, no signs of breaking and entering. So, these guys are out checking our businesses as well as our neighborhoods. Uh residential checks, which is something I'd like to hit on for just a second. We only had six this month. That's not because we're not out there trying. That's because people keep going on vacation without filling out that residential check form for us. If you're going to, and I say this on this side of the county because congratulations, most most folks out here are very successful. If you're going to go to your vacation home for the winter or your vacation home for the summer, or if you're just going to go on vacation, fill out that residential check on our website, we come by and check your house. It's free. You can tell us exactly what we're looking for or what should not be there. And if there's any issues at your home, we will uh be the first ones to call you and let you know and to investigate that for you. Uh ebikes, e- motorcycles, we're still seeing a lot of 911 calls for that. A little bit less than last month. Um, and that's partly because of deputies like Deputy Pler and the rest

of our Weddington deputies. Uh, we've started putting these e- motorcycles on the back of tow trucks. Um, we've started have unfortunately having to write citations to parents. Um, but just earlier today in Indian Trail and and while it's while all the information is not out there because it's still being developed, we had a 12-year-old get hit on a scooter. Um, they had to fly him out in a helicopter. He should be fine. Um, but I that scooter was going about 20 25 miles an hour when he when he got hit. So, we are trying our best to let kids be kids while at the same point in time keep them from getting hurt or killed. I don't know where the answer is. It's a fine line for us on the enforcement side. Uh, a little bit of the guidance we've been handing out to neighbors and residents in the area is please continue to call 911 if it feels like you should call 911. If it's a got pedals and it's on the, you know, sidewalk or in the grass, you probably shouldn't call 911 for that. But if it's on the road doing a wheelie and running you off the road, we need to know about that. So, we're trying to keep these kids safe while still keeping them off the video games. So, please continue to help us with that as we work through that. Um, and last but not least, I want to tell you about a case that Deputy Pler himself investigated this month, and it's uh I was I was looking at quotes before I got up here, and the the easiest one that I'll say is teamwork makes the dream work. Um, I could go a lot. Henry Ford had a great quote, but I I can't talk about Henry Ford because I'm a Chevy guy. So, um I'm just saying that David had a case this this month, this past month, that he could have just let go to our detective bureau, but he took immediate action. Our flock cameras that we installed within the last year or two between the support of the town, between the support of the board and between our constant coordination with Miss Karen and the town staff here, uh picked up a stolen motorcycle on Wedding Matthews Road. Uh, we immediately got the notification. David was close. I should probably stop hitting that. Sorry. WCNC. Okay, we're just gonna leave that. Um,

David picked up the tag and he knew based on it was a motorcycle. It was a really bad looking motorcycle, really rough. We knew one of the houses it'd probably be going to. Um, so he set up at that house. Um, the guy driving the motorcycle barely got there before he did. He picked up the stolen motorcycle. We recovered it, got it back to the victim in Charlotte. We recognized who the offender was based on interviews conducted at the house that day. So from the time we got the stolen vehicle hit to having the vehicle back in our custody in the victim's hands and having charge felony charges on the person responsible for stealing and riding that motorcycle through our county was about a two-hour time period, which if it's not first 48 or not CSI, but that's pretty quick for cop world in real life. So, um, as a result of that, Charlotte took out a bunch of charges for the person stealing that motorcycle along with several other criminal offenses in Charlotte. Um, we have kept that house hot trying to find the the offender. And, uh, needless to say, it has quieted that area down because we put Mark patrol cars in the driveway as much as we can. So, we're still looking for this person. Um, and we've got our shield unit, which is our warrant squad at sheriff's office looking for that. Um, we expect to have him in custody in any at any point in time very soon. Um, but once again, I just wanted to take a moment to brag on it because it's something that he could have just went out and took a report for and said, "Hey, I'll just let the detectives handle it." Nope. He stayed on it. IDed the bad guy. Got charges very quickly. But all in all, I say that none of that would have been possible that quickly without those flock cameras in place. Um, that's an investment in in security. That's an investment in success. And uh for those of you that don't know, I'm gonna take a moment to brag on Miss Karen and the Taff and the board. Uh you can't just slap a camera up anywhere. I'm from Unionville. I'm from the north side. So that's I'm going to use my language. Uh you can't just stick a camera up in somebody's yard. You've got to have permission. You've got to have the right place. You've got to have the right traffic. It took us months to get all this set up. And without

coordination from the staff, without coordination from the board, and ultimately the support of the residents, um, we would not have been able to make that happen. So, like I said, we plan for success, and it's usually always successful, right? Um, and in this case, it was. So, just wanted to say thank you. We're going to continue to push our guys and girls out on the street as hard as they can to work hard. Um, but we would not be successful without your continued support. And I say that to everyone in the room and everyone at home. So, um, once again, Lieutenant James May, I'll give you my cell phone number if you need it. If you want to reach me quickly, 911's the best way. Um, but if not, we're going to keep doing what we're doing out here. And please call us if you need us. So, anybody have any questions for us tonight?

Thank you. Appreciate it. David, did you pay her already? Okay. All right. You know, I want to say thank you uh, Lieutenant May, Deputy Pler. you guys do. You know this already. You guys do an awesome job and we really appreciate what you do. So, thank you so much. Happy to be here. Everything you do. Thank you. Okay. Going to move on to the uh consent agenda. Can I get a motion to accept the uh consent agenda as uh we modified it earlier. So, uh consent agenda as uh as adopted. Got a motion. Okay. Motion to accept the consent agenda

as adopted. Okay. All in favor? Okay, unanimous. Okay, we're going to move into uh old business uh discussion. There was a resolution in support of proposed legislation to prohibit the addition of fluoride in public uh water systems. And um Tom, since you, you know, sort of brought this to us last month, I'm going to let you kick it off. How about that? I will. Before you say that, I want to say thank you so much for all the emails that we got and and on both sides and we really appreciate the community um involvement u feedback. So, and we got quite a few. So, again, thank you and we we really need and want to hear from everybody on on whatever the subject matter is and so we really appreciate this. So, sorry, Tom, go ahead. Yeah, I am the town's representative to the Western Union Municipal Alliance, which we call Wuma. And several months ago, they brought this up as a topic to be discussed amongst the towns, and they asked that the towns consider a resolution basically to have fluoride removed from the water. Now, we take that very seriously, a request. So we we brought this based on resolution formed by I believe it was Marvin and as an example with no opinion on what we would do or not do. We asked the citizens to give us the input of what y'all thought was best for us to do. The town of Marvin, uh, Waxaw and Wesley Chapel have approved a resolution to remove fluoride. And a context is that Eastern Union County is served by Union County

Water out of the Yakin or PD River Basin. They do not flate. We in the western part of the county are served by the Lancaster water system that Union County acquires it from for our use over here. Lancaster water system does forwardate their water. That's just the way it is. Um so what we did is we brought it back. We asked y'all to email us, make public comment, call us or whatever. And based on that, we would look at what the will of the people was on whether we would make a resolution or not. And that's how we got to where we are. None of us are here saying we support or don't support or whatever. Personally, I'm on wellwater. It does not affect me. I think Darcy and Jim are on wellwater. It does not affect them. So, we wanted people who were affected to make comments on whether we should make a resolution or not. So that's how we got to where we are. It wasn't we something we thought up out of the blue. We were asked by the other towns to consider this. So that is what we have done and that's why we're here tonight.

Okay. And u uh and just to let you know as far as the the ones who reached out to me about uh I'm just going to throw it out. 60 68% of the residents said that they wanted to leave it alone as it is now with the fluoride. Uh 32 said, you know, take it out and but we had uh you know, twothirds, you know, say, hey, you know, we we like it like it is. Leave us alone.

Yeah. And so uh u that's that's sort of where you know what I saw from this. and and I had uh other uh dentists to reach out to me and uh in fact one dentist told me he said hey take it out it'd be great for my business and so uh but uh but no you know we again we needed to hear everybody's input and uh uh is there anything that anybody else would like to add to this? I literally kept a running list and to me that was important. What I wanted to do was hear my concerns personally have always been about PASPs and that's a different situation than fluoride. Yeah.

Fluoride. We wanted to hear what you had to say and I think we did and so at least in my opinion we I I would suggest that we not make a resolution. Um and so we can just if that's if if that's right how the rest of us feel. Well, you know, and I'll say this. If we don't have a motion, then then it will die here at the table. Yes. So, uh I'm just going to ask, you know, do I have a do I have a motion? And if if no motion, then it will just die here at the table. Is that okay? All right. So, uh so we're not going to have a a motion on this. So, this subject is is dead

and we'll we'll move forward from here. Is that correct, uh K? Okay. So, we're good. And again, thank you for your input and uh we really appreciate that and uh so it's this matters over. I'll say one last little thing is that I appreciate the commitment that the people have to this town to uh share their opinions with us. That's exactly what we want. We want people to be engaged and thank you.

Right. No, and just because the other towns they either do what they do at times, you know, doesn't doesn't have a bearing on us. you know, we're we're we're here to serve the residents here. So, uh Tom uh through Woman, like you said, just uh said, you know, hey, I'll I'll bring it, you know, up here and we'll discuss it. And so, we have and we did. We have. Yeah. So, so anyway, let's move forward then. Uh 10B

10B. Yes. The uh the approval of the uh 2013 uh not 2013, it's the April 13, 2026 town council regular minutes, meeting minutes. And I think uh you had uh something you want to fix on that. Yeah, I just had a a minor modification. Um the fifth park advisory event committee member was not unanimously approved. Um I had dissented. So that's the only change. Okay, got that. That all. Can I get a motion to approve? I make a motion to approve the amended minutes.

Okay. All in favor? Okay. It's unanimous. Okay. All right. We're going to move forward to the uh new business discussion of uh municipal forms of government. Okay. And uh again, I want to say I'm going to uh I'm going to say, you know, uh we're not incorrect in what we're doing here, but I'm going to have our attorney to speak into this. And um and again, our attorney is Kevin uh Ringowatt from uh Ringawatt Walter and Snow. Uh a municipal law firm. They're not just a law firm that just does, you know, jack of all trades. Highly respected law firm. We're not the only municipality in the area. They represent I don't know five or six other uh larger municipalities than us and even I think you guys are even into represent the school districts of uh is that correct in some way?

Yes sir. We do five municipalities and local government. We're a bigger law firm. I'd say I have a healthc care division, a education division and municipal division. Right. even I think uh Union County Schools, Meckler, Gastonia, Gaston County Schools, that kind of So, so these guys aren't a fly by night type firm. I respect their opinion. Uh and so uh I'm going to ask uh Kevin, if you don't doesn't mind, to just educate us a little bit here and uh and we can we can throw in some, you know, uh input as well, but if you want to lead us, I'd appreciate I'll be happy to and feel free to ask. And is your is your mic on because I want to make sure everybody hears this. All right. I think I'm on but you're okay. Very good. All right. Go ahead.

So, uh, you asked me just to talk a little bit about the two forms of of government that you could have, right? So, we've got the mayor council form of government here. That's in contrast to the council manager form of government. And so what you have with the mayor council form is that you all and I you all meaning a majority of you all whenever you all decide end up really being in charge of not only the legislative function of passing budgets and your ordinances but you have the executive functions as well really as a starting point. If you had no employees at all, you would be the the council and the manager if you like that analogy. And so then what you can do, you have the authority to delegate specific task and assignments to a staff and an administrator, which is is what you have done. There's a lot of flexibility. What's what's not legal is you can delegate it in a variety of ways. I don't have anything to tell you legally to to say it has to be done one particular way that your administrator's duties or your planners duties have to be you know one particular way. What the state statutes say is that you all are in charge of organizing the government function and then you can change it from time to time. Okay. A simple difference. If you all were mayor, if you were manager, right? There's state statutory obligations that go with the manager that you all are not allowed to change in your form. It's your discretion. And the primary difference really boils down to the ultimate decision making on

hiring and firing employees. So the decision ultimately rest with the majority of the council. So it's really that I mean to me it's that simple from a legal perspective. I certainly wouldn't raise my hand if I thought you all were doing something that was outside of the statute or or what you're authorized to do. I think you're certainly well within legal bounds. and what I think may be a fair policy discussion. I think we'll get to this when we get to the job descriptions is I'm sure there's plenty of room for people to have different business and policy decisions over how they would like things to be delegated to staff and what things that you all handle and what things staff handles and

and how you know what what positions you even have on a staff to begin with. So my view of it is that there can be I'd use the word delegation. I think there's plenty of room for you all to discuss how you want to delegate the authority. I do not see any legal concerns or somehow that you're outside of your statutory authority.

Thank you. Yes, sir. And uh in and of past councils, mayor and councils have at times given certain responsibilities to the u to the administrator which is not outside the bounds of what they can do. And u uh and it doesn't change our form of government to to give certain responsibilities to the administrator. Um just because you may say hey we want you to do this or that does not change the form of government. Is that correct uh Kevin? Yes sir. That's right.

Okay. And uh and so uh what the way the town is operating is is not incorrect. Uh I think uh sometimes people look at you know maybe how they would like to manage the the town and like you said you know there there can be differences in opinions on that. U so I think uh the way the town is operating now we're we're just like you said we're in our scope of authority and we're not doing anything outside of that's not right. I I will say this. Um you know, we we we we do have the uh the the planner and the uh administrator's job descriptions that we're going to talk about just in a little bit. when uh uh I know when the three of us came on board two years ago, a little over two years ago now, our goal was to tighten up the the UDO, tighten up u development and uh those type things because I felt like uh in my opinion uh the uh the developers were coming in and telling us, you know, what what to do and so I wanted to reverse that and say, "Hey, this is what we want out of you and this is what we the town wants. And so instead of them running the show, we've been swapping that around to tighten that up. So the town has control of what we get in this town and the kind of development. We are not a commercial destination. I've always said we are high-end residential community and that has been my push and um and and and and my desire to to keep that. It's a win-win for the town. It's a win for the residents. it brings up property values. Uh and so uh so you know when you sell your home, you're gonna you're gonna be, you know, feel good about it. So uh so and so our goal has been to uh tighten up UDO. Now we're working on code enforcement. We've given direct directive to the staff. Uh I think it

was the last planning board, not planning board meeting, but the last council meeting uh to work with code enforcement to uh start tightening that up. uh we had decided to uh to um back in January, February, even at our retreat to start looking at town policies. So, this has been in the works for a while. Uh and I appreciate uh Ellen for pointing out some, you know, things and she's she's been awesome with digging in to a few things. uh Clayton unfortunately uh well uh he didn't stick around long enough to you know do that uh but I appreciate the the effort with those two um and so now uh the town is not only you know have been tightening up these others now we're looking at policies for the town and and like I said this is nothing new of just like last month or whatever we started this back months ago and and as you know government works slow, you know, and uh and so it's it's not like, you know, hey, you make a decision today and tomorrow's changed. It it takes time. It takes ordinance changes and that kind of thing and policy changes. So, that's where we're at with this and it's a work in progress progress. So, we're not uh it's not something that uh we're going to talk about and finish it tonight. It's it's a work in progress. So, uh, and if and as we find things that we want, just like the UDO is still in the progress, um, we're going to change these things, we're going to tighten it up. Uh, again, things that, uh, has been done in the past, uh, they're not wrong. It's not, we're not the wrong form of government. Uh, back what, four or five years ago, the town voted in the referendum referendum that 80% of the folks did not want the change of government. and and

it's not changed. Um that little I think someone made reference or maybe one of the comments was in the planner's description uh he answers to the uh administrator. Well, that wasn't incorrect. uh he still answers the the planner and the administrator still answers to the council and that little description and we've changed it so so people used um so uh the daytoday operation uh the administrator keeps up with um uh with with with your sick time you know if you're coming in late she keeps up I say she you know Karen in her in her case keeps up with the dayto-day you is that the muck of running the town with the the operation, you know, sick time, vacation time, and that's part of the responsibilities uh of the administrator. And so so say to to say that he that statement was incorrect, not really was not incorrect. He does he does or you know answer to her as far as that kind of thing. If you look at the council uh I think it was statement was made the council never gives direction to uh to the to the staff to to administrator or the planner. It's totally incorrect. Uh there's plenty of times through you know almost every council meeting we'll look at the the administrator or the planner and say you know can we get a head nod you know can you go ahead and move forward on this or that. So the the council uh is constantly giving direction to the uh to the staff and uh so none of that's incorrect. So you can go back and look at any council meeting and determine that for yourself. So and so it's not just just this that you see here during a council meeting, but we're constantly engaged here at town hall. I

talked to I talked to Karen almost every day. uh send her an email so she's I'm sure tired of hearing from me and uh and call her on the phone and the council does as well. So the council is engaged. Um sorry that some people you know stick around long enough to realize that. Um but uh so I don't think uh we're nothing is incorrect here and I'm rambling on by saying you know the town is running smoothly in that in that regard. I have a comment. Um if I look at this document that you've provided though and it says um under the mayor council form of government that with the administrator the council retains the policy responsibility uh but delegates some are all administrative duties to the administrator. The second one which says administrator's duties are set by the ordinance. So, uh, but I have, uh, we received actually an email today in regards to, um, some, uh, discrepancies in that, um, in regards to the UDO, there were some, um, administrator, uh, duties that have been set forth in there that really should be planner duties. If I may really quick in the UDO when administrator is referenced it's referring to the zoning administrator who is the planner. Okay.

Um my duties as the administrator are outlined in the just plain old ordinances. Do we need to say that in our UDO to put in there that it's the zoning? I think it does, but when it's when you've got it written, 1700 times or however many, it it may bounce back to administrator, but that's that's something that's understood by staff.

Okay. And I didn't know potentially it going back in time and looking at what happened in 2021 that there was an administrator who was also a planner. I could easily see that there could be um in describing those job duties in describing the UDO that there could be confusion there and that was why my head was maybe that didn't get cleaned up back then. I don't I can give a little editorial comment on that since I was the primary drafter of of the UDO.

Uh that that UDO generally is tracking the state statute 160D and that administrative terminology is also there. Okay. So, and I'll I'll give this advice again when you get to the job descriptions. If depending on where you all want to land on these job descriptions, I do in fact think that a good legal exercise would be after you all settle on defended job descriptions. I think it would be wise to go back and look at your ordinances and see if there is any cleanup corrections that need to occur to be consistent with any revisions to the delegations that you want to do. The UDO would be one place to look. I I guess I would be surprised if there is anything in there that would materially change because all of the decisions that are you know the development decisions land with you all right I mean everything that the planner administrator does is to recommend and do things to be ready for you now whether there's terminology a topic that just came up that we could you know make easier to understand or or that may be fine.

Some of it came from the town website also under under administrator versus under planner. And so that's where I'm like uh you know so we we can take that offline but I think that that needs to get flushed out and I'll add one more for you outside of the UDO. You also have a list of other ordinances that list out right that list out what does the administrator do, what does the planner do. I just said you you've got you what are the tax collectors responsibility? There's there's several job functions that I don't know the full history. I think they've been in your ordinance right for a long time. So again to yeah to forecast my advice for the next agenda item

when you all settle on a definitive job description with if you want more detail and then a job description now then we ought to go ahead before I mean my mind when you officially adopt that we ought to have done the exercise at the risk of making a little bit of work for me and Karen once you all make that policy business decision, we ought to do the legal work to true up your ordinances with it. Okay. Okay. I have one comment, too. Wedding is a town of 14 15,000 people. By far the largest correct

town with the mayor council form of government. I think the next nearest town is near 2,000 people if I understand correctly. And you look up there, there is mayor council without an administrator and with an administrator. And there's a big difference between the two. And I believe some people have taken to the heart without an administrator is what we're supposed to be doing. And we have a town administrator. And there's a clear difference between the two. I want to make that point. Right. Thank you, mate.

No, in fact, you're right. when we went to the uh the elected officials class, we've done it, you know, we've done it a couple times. I've done it a couple times. You know, they in fact the the League of Municipalities use us as an example for all the other uh cities across the state that we are the largest town uh in the state that has this form of government. Um and and so the next one is like Tom said, is like what 2,000 people. And so, uh, but I do think, you know, uh, uh, with our staff, you know, I think I think we're fine where we're at. Uh, but, uh, but, uh, you know, I think we we do operate correctly that, uh, anyone else have anything to add to this conversation as far as until we move on. We have other discussion. We're going to talk about the uh item D uh the planner and the uh uh administrator's roles. But any anything else in this form of government discussion? Okay. So, we're going to we're going to move forward on this. Um item B is discussion of council district district three vacancy. Um uh you know and a lot of what Clayton's you know comments were you know the council and staff are are greatly appreciative of uh of Clayton's time and dedication of service to the community. Uh his contributions to the town were valued and uh he he would be missed. Uh it's unfortunately I feel like uh he he he I I felt like you know I wish he'd have stuck in there. Let's put put it that way. And uh I still consider him a friend and and value his input and and respect him uh in uh his you know

well I just grew to respect him and value his input and his friendship. But uh and I'll say this, if you uh live in district three and uh would like to, you know, apply, uh our appointments are coming up, uh it'll probably be I'm going to assume July maybe when we do the appointments. Uh but uh I want uh I'm going to ask uh Kevin also to speak into this. I think there's some misunderstanding about this uh how appointments or the fill of position is done in North Carolina. Uh if you look at how the county just did it, how uh Charlotte is about to do it, uh I think there are some misunderstandings about that as well. Can I get you to speak on that? Uh how it's how it's done.

Yes, sir. And and again, the starting point here is that all municipalities were creatures of the North Carolina General Assembly, right? Whatever Raleigh tells us is is kind of the rules. And so here I can be really brief that what's pulled up here is the North Carolina statute. A vacancy that occurs in elective office of a city shall be filled by appointment of the city council. That's it. That that that's all that we can do. No elections or anything. Just an appointment. It's an appointment. Y and then the rest of that legally says that appointment is up until the next election. Gotcha. Okay.

Okay. So you've got some flexibility. Again, the legal parameters are you have to appoint, you have some flexibility on exactly how you're going to collect names or nominees, which I believe will be correct. What's next step? So, right, it's it's that first sentence.

And and so everybody's clear, the uh the appointment will be until the next election. It's not to fill the term of four years. It's to the next election. Now, that person can run again and uh but that seat will be up for election. So, just want to make sure you everybody knows that it's not for for your appointment. It's for uh the remainder until the next election. And if you live in uh district three, please uh reach out. I don't normally take but I'll I'll Sarah, when would that next municipal election? It's not in November, correct? It's No, it's not this fall in November. Yeah, it's like two years. That's what I thought. I just wanted Yeah. year and a half. question.

Um, when if it's to the next election, how are you going to do the staggering again? We have to get back on track with our so the next election. Then that person who wins that election will be for two years. Then that gets us back in that in that on track. Does that if that makes sense? Okay. I just want to make sure everybody's clear on that. Okay. Um, I have some if now is a good time.

Is it is it about this here? Yeah. Okay. So, um I have some comments. This is in regards to it's kind of an overarching theme, but obviously Clayton um leaving and and um and all of the hullaloo that has come as a result of it. So, um April brought significant upheaval to our town government with the resignation of council member Jones and the departure of our town planner. Uh disagreements are a natural part of public service, but these events are also highlighted a broader concern about leadership style, discerning the appropriate balance of responsibilities between council and staff. Political opponents view this change of personnel as an opportunity to accuse and cast doubt on the entire Weddington government. Your job as citizens is to discern fact from fiction. Watch previous planning board meetings. Listen to the requests from council um members at previous council meetings. Watch who is actually working on behalf of citizens, not just complaining about elected official officials or um for their future uh campaigns. Like truly look at why are they complaining? Uh our requests have been for completed applications and nothing about conditions. My plea to you is to do something positive for the community to help us move forward from our current situation. But to do so, I need to first address the constant malicious allegations. I'd like to dispel the rumors and deal in facts. The areas I will highlight are leadership style, campaign donations, and seeking a replacement. I believe council members were elected to actively lead to ask questions, research issues, review information, and most importantly deliver results for residents. That responsibility requires meaningful access to information and to open

communication among elected officials and staff. Now, right now, between during one of the most important times of the year for all of us, it involves contracts, reviews, budget decisions, I still don't have access to some key shared drives and documents that are necessary to fully do that job. Access to town documents is essential to reviewing contracts, understanding deliverables, and making informed decisions on behalf of our community. This is how accountable government should operate. and I hope that we can work together to make this happen. There have been allegations that something nefarious has happened. It did not. It comes down to a difference in leadership styles. Some leaders work towards consensus, keeping all part informed and a cohesive team. That is how I manage. Other leaders work with a few key players and rely on them to accomplish their tasks. These styles influence how a town hall works on a day-to-day basis. As you can tell, there is debate about how much control to relinquish to staff and the delicate balance of responsibilities. Questions about micromanaging versus lazy fair, autonomy versus oversight, autopilot versus active engagement. I recognize that I may be challenging the status quo by asking more questions. I am the newbie. Requesting additional information and expecting consistent communication that may create more work at times, but I believe that the efforts are necessary to build a stronger, healthier, long-term working relationship within our government and the residents that we serve. Because of a number of public allegations and misunderstandings, they've centered around campaign finances. I believe that it's important to address those concerns factually and directly. During the campaign, Mayor Bell, Clayton Jane Jones, and myself campaigned

together as a slate and shared certain permitted advertising and campaign expenses. Our group shared those expenses during the campaign, and those costs were divided equally among the slate. Shared expenses were paid at different times by different members and then properly reimbursed and reconciled as an inind contribution, fully documented with receipts and handled exactly as recommended by one of North Carolina's most respected campaign finance accountants. To put it simply, if someone donated to Clayton, that donation belongs solely to Clayton's campaign. That same applies to Mayor Bell or any other candidate. Contributions do not cross lines. They do not become co-mingled or somehow turn into shared money simply because candidates campaign together. The accounting is straightforward for anyone willing to actually read the reports before making accusations. Some people seem far more interested in creating suspicion rather than understanding the facts.

Right. I have always been transparent about about my priorities and my vision for Weddington and I remain grateful to the residents who play placed their trust in me. But I will be very clear on this. But no contribution buys my opinion, my judgment or my vote

ever. My responsibility is and always will be to listen to the residents of Weddington to carefully evaluate the issues before the council to protect the character and integrity of our community and serve the best interests of the residents. Finally, I'd like to say I'm genuinely saddened by Clayton's departure. We worked closely together. We rolled up our sleeves and immersed ourselves in the details of municipal government. I will miss his friendship, his camaraderie, and perspective. Some have portrayed this departure as evidence of some hidden or dark secret. As an elected official serving on this council, I can attest to that this is not the case. In my view, it reflects a difference in approach on leadership and philosophy of how government should function. But while Clayton chose to step away and as a consequence created some instability in our town, I remain committed to doing the work from within to continuing to ask questions, advocate for transparency, and serve the residents of this town to the best of my ability. We currently have a vacancy in district 3, and I encourage qualified residents who are interested in serving to apply. Despite differing opinions, this council continues to move forward on the behalf of the residents of Weddington and I remain optimistic about the work that is ahead. At the end of the day, resignations reflect individual decisions and circumstances and public speculation often does not tell the full story. My focus remains on continuing the work ahead and serving the residents of Weddington. Thank you.

That's good. Thank you. appreciate it. No, and and I I will say this, you're you're spot on. Thank you for what you said. Uh you know, social media can be a good thing and it can be a horrible thing. And I think a lot of times folks use it to uh uh spread misinformation. Uh they'll take a little bit of truth and just twist it until something is not true for political gain. And I think it's unfortunate, you know, in a small town as we have continued to see it and continue it continues to get worse. uh uh it's like uh Amarie you know made a comment I mean the town it's it's dividing more a town that's uh when I first got elected the first term you know I referred to us as just a big family and uh uh it seems like the family is uh I don't know what's happening to the family Uh and I think a lot is for political gain and uh and just misinformation. There's a lot of misinformation out there for various reasons. Sometimes you know uh misinformation is just people who don't understand and I felt the need to put the you know the form of governments on the agenda tonight. I don't think that was you know um for political reasons. I think it was just a misunderstanding and it needed to be clarified and we are working forward to to to you know solve some of the I I say problems it's just uh uh different styles in in how the the town is run and uh our form of government is correct. Uh so you know so we're we're tweaking and we will still tweak uh just like we're tweaking the UDO and and code enforcement. So it's it's an ongoing process. You may see us you know adopt something tonight doesn't mean it's final. means we will tweak it

as we as we see necessary. So, I I I urged the town, you know, to to come back together, uh, cut some of the the craziness out of, uh, misinformation. And I'm just going to say, just be honest with you, it's out some of this is outright lies. and uh even with the campaign donations to to makes it sound it's one way then it it then it's tweaked and presented on social media is something totally different which is not uh uh is not it's not correct in so many different ways and so I'm disappointed in a lot of folks who do that kind of thing. If you have a question about anything that we do send us an email, call our staff. Our staff does an excellent job. Uh it's unfortunate that Clayton resigned. Uh we can't talk about uh employee um uh personnel matters. Uh that's that's against actually against state law. And so we even if we wanted to, we couldn't do that. And so the the situation with Greg, uh that's uh that's a matter that will stay here no matter what you guys want to spread and tweak and make out of whatever. Uh that's a that's an employee matter. So, uh, I'm rambling on, but, uh, does anybody else have anything just to add to this?

Okay.

I don't know. Maybe this is closing comment, maybe this is now, but we're like at office that we hold, we cannot reply publicly to lies that are put online. We cannot stop someone during their three minutes or six minutes or whatever they have at the podium and say, "No, that is not true information." So, all we can do is sit here. And it's getting really frustrating to be someone who wants to I'm I'm not upset for the reasons people think I would be because it's hard to be a person who wants to try to do good for this town in this town. It's miserable. And I suggest that the people that email me 52 times, 52 times, and have asked 16 times for records that keep Karen busy as all get out because she's constantly looking through records for 16 words that she has to find that anybody texted, emailed, faxed, anything. And that's where a lot of her time is spent. And I know because I have to go through my text and find 16 words that and sometimes they don't even apply to anyone in this town and I have to send them over and all these things. Like you want to talk about transparency. I think we're transparent. Someone was talking about chickens and ducks. I think a chicken is someone who finds issues and then doesn't come to the meeting that everyone promised to be at where the attorney was going to be there to lay out information and truths and then we can't talk about closed information things. We can't talk about employees. We can't reply to when Christopher Neve is not saying whole truths. We can't do any of that. And you guys want transparency, but it has to work both ways. I don't have the time or the desire to sit here and care about what's being posted online or on the neighbor. I'm getting screenshots. Sometimes I read them. A lot of times I don't because I just don't care to sit here and fight the fight. If you all want decent people that like I think

everybody up here wants good for the town, wanted good for the town. There becomes a point where people just don't care anymore. It's really hard to be in this position. Not for reasons that people would think. I mean, I don't mind people disliking me. That doesn't bother me in the least. I always vote for what I think is right. But it is exhausting to always be wrong. I used to keep a task list of of the things that we had done as a council. It doesn't ma like there's there's 39 things that we've done since elected that are really good huge benefits for everyone in the town including cleaning up UDOS's. No, we can't catch everything. And I wonder if Clayton himself would have caught this issue if Ellen wouldn't have been like, it's really easy to find a problem, not like it, and walk away. I would have done that a long time ago if I knew we could. But I stuck it out and here I am. And this is like, thank you for the people who have stuck it out for this town because I'm telling you, they do so much for this town. And the residents need to really check themselves about why they're doing what they're doing to make everything worse. Like support people, run for office. If you're gonna email me 52 times or you're gonna ask 16 times for public records, run. You're in the district and you know who you are. You're in district 4. Run for it, please.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm just over it. Like, come on. Like, it's just exhausting. Yeah. And I will say I will say too, you know, this council loves this town. We're not here for private gain or accusations. that's always being thrown out at us that we're conniving with developers and and we're in, you know, for whatever we can, you know, under the table money. I'm just tired of hearing it. You know, I got I've developed thick skin because all the lies and misinformation being put out there by the ones who are in this room. And uh and I'm just tired of it. And uh and it's, you know, I won't ramble on, but we all love this town. We all want the best for this town. and uh and so unless there's anything else then we'll move on to the next item. Okay,

let's go.

Um discussion of uh consideration proposal for intern planner uh to authorize the staff to enter into a contract for for this position. So go ahead and explain that to us if you mind. So I reached out to three uh companies, Benchmark, In Focus, and Central um to get some proposals to have an interim planner come in. In Focus and Central came back and I put those on the table there before you. I was only able I got one back this afternoon. So I haven't been able to compare them and I haven't heard back from Benchmark yet. I did run the two I got through our friend Claude and he did a little comparison there um to just high level figure out they're not they're not exactly the same. One is doing an hourly, one is doing um as needed type

um one includes the meetings, one doesn't and it's alakart type charging for those and it's the the differences in expertise. So we could have a a highle planner for part part of the time and a regular lower level planner for lack of a better term for part of the time. So anyway, that's those two and I'm waiting on the third. Um and I just thought you guys would want to see that. Um but I'm not prepared to move forward with that today. Okay. So we we'll take this and and and sort of to digest it and when you get that the

next one or any any others just add that to us and then then we'll make a decision of when we going to get together and to uh approve this. Is that that good? You guys can make one comment.

Sure. I just want to let staff know, the board know that me personally do not feel it's appropriate for any developer to come before this council until we have an appropriate interim person in place to guide us with expertise. And if that means developers get to s sit for a month or two, so be it. We I I will not take action on anything until we have somebody to to give us professional guidance. I think that's your discret. That's your discretion.

And I talked with legal counsel this past week about that. And I think uh our the the attorneys plural were in in agreement with that. We are. And again, we can just move at a normal pace to get the interim position filled. We're talking a month or two. I don't I think that's the right plan. Yeah. I mean, we're not looking to do some kind of a moratorum or just drag our feet. We need a planner. We need somebody that's excellent and uh and somebody to fill that position. And so, we're we're going to do our due diligence. We're not going to rush into anything, but we are going to, you know, you know, we're going to get somebody. But I I totally agree. You know, we don't I don't feel comfortable as well uh moving forward till somebody's here.

All good. Okay. All right. Um, so, uh,

11D or the job. Well, it's it's 11D, but it's uh, it's came from came from 9D, I believe. 9D. Yes, you're right. I had it written down wrong. U, the 9D is the uh, approved the planner and town administrator uh, clerk job descriptions. and uh authorize staff to advertise for a planner. Uh and we're going to talk about this for a little bit too. And with the we're going to look at doing a uh I think getting the planner sort of revived so we can get that out there to start looking for somebody. Um and we we may hold off and say I'm going to use the term punt

for the county administrator so we can get a little bit more detailed, you know, work on that. And we had actually even talked about uh forming like a subcommittee of of the board here for and and Ellen would read that. Yeah. Go into that and go into that.

I did I spent a lot of time and I was digging through the job description specifically uh for the planning open planning position. Um I thought that there were um and Darcy I put a document over there. I don't know if you've had a chance to take a look at it, but um I made some modifications. Uh the modifications are uh basically I think um we need to as a council kind of set some expectations as to what we are looking for uh in the position. And specifically, I thought it would be helpful to add this little tidbit. Uh the planner serves as a custodian of the town's long-term vision, community character, and development quality. uh by proactively guiding land use and development proposals towards outcomes that enhance neighborhoods, infrastructure, aesthetics, and property values. So that way we are kind of setting the tone that we're looking for the planner to kind of work on behalf of the council to look for these the longer term town vision. And so then I also added a couple of extra additional bullets because there seemed to be some discrepancies as to what we felt were or were a little more of a blank canvas and I think we needed to provide some details. So, uh I I am suggesting these modifications. Um like for instance, an example would be conducting an early review and a coordination meeting with applicants to identify potential concerns related to neighborhood compatibility, traffic, infrastructure, environmental impacts, architectural quality, and long-term community benefits. It's something that gives uh the planner then a sense that we're really looking for them to work with the developers um to understand what we what we expect as a town. So I added these couple of things. I don't

know if you guys are in agreement with them, but uh I'd like to possibly modify the job description um to include these things. And then I think we still need to probably flush up out a couple of additional things and I may need some help from someone from the planning board to give me a sense of uh you know like I'm not exactly sure on overseeing label inspections. Was that a part of the original uh duties or not? So we it may kind of help to work with someone from the planning board to figure out if those should get incorporated over the I'm not sure that is actually a planning board function.

No, I'm saying but maybe they someone from the planning board would be able to assist by telling us. Would that be something that the planner would have done typically in in helping the working with the planning board? The planner working with the planning board. Yes, that's one thing. Yes. But with with the inspection oversight, that is not a planning board function. I'm not saying that it is. What I'm saying is that you

No, what I'm trying to ascertain is was that a responsibility that Greg had had, right? Did he need to oversee Labella or not? And I can't see the contracts to know if he was supposed to oversee Labella or if Labella worked completely independently of him, right? And so maybe someone from the planning board could tell us if that was the case or not. And I'm using that as a I don't think the planning board does that function. No, I understand. But I'm looking for somebody to tell me what the planner did and was that part of their response. Well, the contract with Labella or any outside person

we should look at to see what it says. How how that's done. how it's oversaw, how we oversee that contract is a discussion. It's it's not necessarily overseeing the contract. I'd like to know what his specific duties and responsibilities were with with Labella. So, in writing Greg's job description did, and then maybe a question for you, Karen, was was that part of his responsibility to oversee label to work with LeBella? They are it's more since they are contracted engineer it's more of a um

work yeah they we we all of us I guess well Greg and I both direct direct the contract with labella so directed so when something like the silk fencing or something was down well that's that's part of labella independently right of Greg but right because that's part of our contract with them is the erosion control but if Greg receives the complaint about it, he would he would direct LeBella to go out and do the additional inspection and and the violations. Okay. But then that's where I was saying maybe it would be helpful to have someone with planning board experience to help us through some of these job descriptions.

I would just say again if it related to the interaction with planner and the planning board, I think that's correct. If it's looking at a contract, I'm not talking about and the contract and the utilization of the people under the contract with Greg that is a staff town council function, not a planning board function. Right. I'm just trying to work on the job descriptions. Understand? But I think that still needs to stay here, not there. Is that something you can work on to and come back with a a committee and come back and

well then we just have to tweak the language to basically say he needs to this whoever would take the place right the job description would be right the job description would need to say that they work with in conjunction with um is versus the word oversee coordinate with cooperate with exact Yeah, we have to go back and look at the detail we have currently to see what the correct wording is. But yes, they need to

basically as we say coordinate and make sure that any actions appropriate is taken, any violations are noted in anything that goes with that handled appropriately in the town. I said I don't think that's where I think it you're talking about planning board gets into a different game. That's not where we we go with that. The planning board doesn't generally have anything to do with contracts. That's not what I was suggesting.

It's okay. I was I think what I was suggesting is I'd like to look at the job descriptions and I need someone from the planning board to possibly give us some direction as to when we are writing for the planner and what their duties are that they need to give us some input with that and I think if we're going to do that from a subcommittee standpoint I would love and I think that that would be important to have that perspective. Is this something we can work on and come back to? Yes. Okay. Let's let's let's move forward with your other things and come back to that and work with the subcommittee of the Is that work for you?

I'm not I'm not part Do you want to incorporate tonight into the job description? So I would like to incorporate the first the language that you but that was given night and we're supposed to vote on it. Well, these are some that I have. These would be great to have prior probably stressful to have to sit here during a meeting and try to read through a sheet and then say

so we could have a voting on it to add it or not to read through these documents and we are at a critical position to be able um to uh a vote on the administrator and the um planner job descriptions. So, one of potentially is that we could uh have a workshop or um have a subcommittee work on this

um in the next week or so so we can kind of work through it quickly and tighten up the language and modify some things. Would would D would would you or Tom? Okay. So, if Darcy does want to, I I will volunteer. Okay. Everybody steps. Could Could So, could you guys work on the language of what you think works for this? Yes. For both positions. Yeah. Yes. And bring it back for a vote meeting. Correct. Special meeting if we need to work on it quickly.

Okay. Is let me ask. Is there anything that we can do here to to to go ahead and throw this out so staff can start sort of advertising for a planner now or do we need to wait? You got to have the full job description. What's that? Not without a job description. I didn't know if there's anything we could do now to to start moving the full job description and we have to approve it to live with. So we need to move forward pretty quickly on this. Yeah. Okay. All right. Uh so we'll we'll sort of um

so at this point I think we will I can make a motion that we have a subcommittee to review the job descriptions and reconcile um the information with our ordinances. Okay. Uh I'm good. All in favor of of doing that. Can I have who's on the subcommittee please say that loud? Yeah. I will say that once we get the job description, we do a cursory look at the UDO to see if we see there's discrepancies and then pass it to council for review. And if if

any changes need to be made to the UDO to incorporate these changes, we all do it at the same time. Sounds and Karen and I can be quick about it. If you all put your heads together and touch base with planning staff and give us a draft, we'll we'll true up with the UDO and we may not need to do anything. I mean, your ordinance is pretty general with the UDO and and I think your main thing, but like you said, we we'll be quick about it. Do we even need a vote on this? Do we need a motion or just give the head not to to have the staff to move forward as we do? Uh do we need a motion on this? Okay. Well, let's just go ahead and do Let's go ahead and do it.

So, okay, we have a motion on the table. All in favor of the motion? I Okay, it's unanimous. So, we'll move forward with that motion. Staff uh uh direction for the staff to move forward on this. Uh they're not doing it. What am I doing? Well, no, not staff. Well, the attorney is you guys, but you're going to work with the attorney and we will have questions for staff. Yes, you will. I will be there to answer. All right. So, are we we're good on that? We're going to move forward. Okay. All right. Uh uh code enforcement report in your packet.

Um in between we're right now timing is such we're in between some of the notices being sent inspections for the violations. We are I did receive a rough uh bullet list of some of the updates to the nuisance ordinance ordinance ordinances and I'll get those to the town attorney for review. And basically it's expanding a lot of the definitions to strengthen the ability our ability to to mitigate some of those nuisances that we our hands are kind of tight on the changing the length of the grass um the RV nut ordinance nuisance ordinance um and things like that. When will Matt be ready uh to bring something to the council?

Well, he sent me what his his suggestions are and I'm gonna have Karen review it first. Oh, okay. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Um, can you uh shoot that out to us as soon as it's uh Oh, absolutely. I just I just got it. So, okay. Soon as legal gets through with it. Okay. All right. Cool. Um All right. Anything else? You good with that? I'm good with that. Okay. Update from fire uh finance officer, tax collector. Come on out, Liz.

Okay. You have in your packets your regular monthly financial statements. They're pretty straightforward. Um, next month I probably will be bringing you a budget amendment just to true up any accounts that may need trueing up. They're looking pretty good, so I don't think there'll be anything significant there. Um, the other thing you have in your packets are your quarterly updates on your ARP and your skiff and your park money. So, it shows you what we have spent year to date or fiscal year to date and how much money is left in each of those. You have the proposed budget for fiscal year 27 that is going an increase of revenues and expenses for the current year is 2.987. Next year's proposed is 3,160 which is just a little over 5% increase. that stems primarily from the adalorum tax base increase and then the additional sales tax and utility franchise we're hoping to have come in next year. So there is it's pretty much um a straightforward budget. There wasn't a whole lot of differences between last year and this year. The one large ticket item on there is mass arms. They were actually in this year's budget. didn't get done. So, they're postponed to next year, which explains why for this year we still have a little cushion. So, because we didn't spend that money. So, and then do you guys have any questions about the budget? I know I've met with some of you. So um we will take this budget that's presented unless we make changes to it here and now and that will be what we have a public hearing on next month. So if you want to make a change now is the time

and the rate is the current rate the rate is remains for next year remains the same at 3.5 cents. Okay. Yes. No tax rate increase. So I have a question. Mhm. When when was the last time that um town council had uh had any changes in terms of their um the stipen that was out? Yeah, it's probably been 10 years ago. I think it was when um Bill Deer and Lisa were here. We did a s I thought it was 15. Was it 13? Okay.

Yeah. Well, well, anyhow, a while. But, um, they did a survey of all the neighboring municipalities and the League of Municipalities for towns with our size and our services and but it has not been reviewed since then. So, Okay. Okay. Uh, I have a question about the audit. Is that uh now you know we're approving you know new auditor um That was my next thing. Sorry,

I was going to do that separate. Um the we will be going out for a request for proposal for a new audit service for next year. So the budget has what is I believe that it's let me just double check. Yeah, it the budget is more than what our current contract is. I know that from the bids that we got for this past year. All the bids were higher than our current contract, but this budget has that higher amount in it.

So, so hopefully we'll be in that range. But speaking to that, as you were aware, our audited financial statements, we turned them into the local government commission. They're due December 31st.

Our we went out, our previous auditor has stepped away from doing government audits, so we went out for bid to get a new auditor. We got four proposals. We went with the auditor, an auditor who has been auditing Mineral Springs in Wesley Chapel for quite a few years. Something has happened this year and she failed to perform the contract. We did not get the financial statements by December 31st. We amended the contract and gave to March 31st because that's the the drop dead date. Did not get the fi financial statements by March 31st. We received a notice of non-compliance from the treasurer's office. If we can get our financial statements audited and submitted by June 30th, everything's kosher. We're all good.

Good. So, what we are in the process of doing is I have reached out to the current auditor to try to terminate the contract mutually. Have not heard back. The last communication I had with her was April 12th. I cannot get a hold of her. Um Karen is drafting a a letter to send to work on that and it will go also go to the LGC. You approved in your consent agenda. I reached out to our prior auditor and she has agreed to take us on for one more year. Okay.

She thinks she can get it completed by June 30th. if we're able to get the contract approved and and by the LGC and the audit commenced. Okay. Um if not, we will file an appeal. Thank you. With the LGC by the June 30th deadline explaining that it was beyond our control. Yeah. So, and correct me if I'm wrong, I mean, we're obviously we're not council is not happy about Oh, nobody's happy about this. The ghost the ghosting of us and that I've I've been in uh I have either audited or been audited for over 30 years and have never seen this happen. It's crazy. And yes,

and and this person had everything. It wasn't like we didn't give this person we provided everything that she asked for. Yes. She just disappeared. The town of Wesley Chapels in the same bar. Correct. I believe. Yes. Yeah. Uh Mineral Springs was not happy. They got theirs submitted on the last day and they had to do quite a bit of cleanup to the drafts that they got before they were submitted, but they were able to get them in. So, what percentage, if anything, do we pay ahead of time? We have not paid anything. Okay. Yeah. Good.

Yes. Yes. And when an invoice gets submitted, the LGC has to approve it before we pay it. And so under those circumstances, it's highly unlikely that I mean we if anything we might be responsible for some hours of field work that she came out to do, but nothing near what the contract calls for. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And we will proactively put in the um appeal if we get close to the deadline. Yes. And are uncertain. Yes. We will we will draft the response and have it ready to go if we need to. And that will prevent any cut off of the sales tax revenue.

Yeah. The the state legis passed a legislation that if audits are not received by June 30th, it is their prerogative to w temporarily withhold sales tax distributions from the the municipality. Um it's not a given there. It's not like they'll do it just because. So if we respond, it's highly I think it would be highly unlikely that they would under these circumstances. So I we would file the appeal and then hopefully they would say you're you're good. Hopefully we won't even have to get to that point. Hopefully we'll have have since we I feel very comfortable using our prior auditor because she's familiar with us. She's got the drafts from last year. So it's much quicker than hiring somebody new to come in. Yeah.

So, the way I read that, it appeared to me that if we had not been in prior, right, careers and we did the appeal, it would kind of short circuit that sales tax, right? Since we have never not filed before, we have a little more grace. Right. Right. That we have a grace period to wrap things up. Right. With some cause. So, yeah. Correct. But I will um resend out an RFP for next year. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see what comes back. So, no. And I appreciate tremendously you working hard on this because I I bugged you on it and and I know Tom has and

Well, I mean, honestly, I I send some emails, I make some phone calls, and I send some texts. But when I'm not getting answers, I'm not doing a whole lot to you. You're ghosted for once, right? So, time to, you know, make a change, right? So, but forward the budget. Are y'all happy? So, so then we will put out the the public hearing notice for that. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Um I think I shared my traffic report earlier about the traffic light. So, we're good there. Um we are going to go into a close session, but I don't know if the Can I give an update? Pardon me. Can I give an update?

Please do. I overlooked you. Sorry about that.

I just want to say that Jasine's appointment as the assistant zoning administrator done in the um consent agenda grants her the ability to sign the zoning permit. So, the process is moving along. That's all she's doing. And if she's not comfortable, we've had a discussion about it. She's not comfortable assigning a permit, then we work on it together and work through it. Um but she is on the ball. I don't, you know, it's never fast enough for the the builders, but she's it's it's moving along smoothly. Um, the park and events board will hold their first meeting on June 1st here at town hall at 6 p.m. The final food truck Friday is on the 15th. The food trucks are listed on the Facebook page and there'll be an email going out in the morning with links to the food trucks so you can check the menus. I know there's a really yummy vegetarian one this time that that there was a request for. Um, Labella, the our park people have sent a proposal for a survey and public engagement session to add on to the park planning contract. Um, I haven't had an opportunity to look at it yet except the bottom line and but we'll talk it's a lot of money and I'm not sure we want to do that. Um, anyway, but we do need to talk about you you all need to talk about how what you want to do to get the public engagement going on the park. and the Office of State Budget and Management has granted a year extension for the $250,000 park grant. So, we've got a good deal. Yeah, I definitely want uh to get public engagement, get everybody's inputs and ideas on that. So, we will definitely be sending something out, you know, for for that. Um um I lost my train of thought, but uh u before we go into a close session, uh do we want to have a c any kind of c council comments before everybody leaves? Uh anything left to be said?

I think Karen and at all de Deborah and Leslie and everyone's just done a fantastic job. I think even though we appreciate you publicly, monthly, that you're still underappreciated and I just wish that everyone that has comments to make um really knew how much they did and how they really hold this town together. So, thank you.

Yes. Um, I want to also say I know it's been a very stressful time. I um appreciate that so many people have staff has worked with in in great with grace um and and I appreciate all of your efforts. Thank you.

Thank everybody who came out. Thank our fill-in attorney for his opining on the council of government. I hope people took it to heart. that we are operating as we should with a council mayor with administrator form of government and um and I and I hope everybody just takes a deep breath and goes on. I know I do not like having somebody put innuendos to me to selling my reputation, which I take very highly and the rest of the people on this council. Please think about what you're saying. And if you don't have something clear and factual to back up your allegations, I would just recommend don't say anything. Thank you.

Correct. Um, and I I want I want to say uh thank you to to Debbie and Eileen Felmouth because you guys been coming out every week and setting up those chairs and the tables for the food truck. So, thank you. And it's you guys are just like, you know, working it, setting them up, tearing them down and Karen and both you guys, you know, for setting all this up. So, so thank you for what you're doing and what you've done. And if you haven't been out to food truck Friday, we had a great turnout this past week and so come out and be a part of it. And uh uh a lot of people were out here and mixing and mingling and uh and so this next Friday is the last one. So come out and be a part of it. And uh I I've said my piece about the cleaning trying to clean up the town and I hope people will take responsibility. It's hard. Somebody's got to make the decisions our decisions. It's it's easy to armchair quarterback. It's easy to uh sit out there and throw rocks. It's hard to make decisions when you're getting stabbed on, you know, arrows on both coming and going. So, uh, we want the best for the town. We, you know, we we we we signed up for this to bring to to bring value and to, you know, and just do, you know, great work for the town. And I think we've been doing that. Uh, we're going to continue to do that. Uh, and and let's all think about what we're doing if uh we have a conscience and let's let's think about it. Um, so with nothing else being said, we're going to go into a close motion that we adjourn to a close session.

Okay. All in favor? Okay. All right. We're in close session and we'll take about 10 minute break before we do this. as he gets.