Town Council - Regular Meeting

Call to order. It's uh Monday, October 13th, 2025, 7 p.m. Welcome everybody. It's good to see everyone here. Looks like we have a uh quorum. Everyone's here this evening. So, thank you guys for being here and uh uh let's go ahead and stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay.

Okay. Do we have any additions? Uh, deletions, adoption of the agenda. I have one. If you guys don't No guys, uh what I'd like to do is uh uh pull out uh in the consent agenda on item 10. Uh I want to pull the uh the bond performance bond section out and discuss that. So it will go under new business is C. Uh Karen where the right place.

Yeah. New business C. Uh yeah. Okay. And so no one else has anything on this. Um get a motion to uh accept the uh the agenda as a I make a motion we accept the agenda as amended.

Okay. All in favor? Okay. It's unanimous. We'll move forward to the conflict of interest statement. In accordance to 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 on the agenda? If so, please identify the conflict and refrain from any participation in the matter involved. Conflicts? Nothing? No conflicts. Okay. Um, mayor council report. Anybody want to go first? Well, I'll start off with um the uh September Western Union Miss Alliance meeting was held down in Stallings. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, we did not have a quorum. So, uh all of Stallings was there. Uh Wesley Chapel, Amanda Fuller was there. I was there. We we did not have a formal meeting. We we just called it and sat around and discussed a few things. But, uh the next meeting is scheduled for the 23rd of October. at four o'clock in Waxaw. That's the Waxaw town hall if anybody'd like to come down.

Okay, cool. And that's again I think I asked you this on our website just let everybody you know stay informed. Okay. All right. Anyone else? I have none tonight, Brandon. Okay.

Okay. I got a little bit and um one the first part is I want to thank the council for taking up the resolution on world polio day. I am the Rotary District 7680 polio plus fund chair which covers 14 counties in this area and I've been doing it for a number of years. I really appreciate the the town making awareness about this issue. It um it is no longer endemic in the US. It's been fixed here since 1979. It's in two countries currently, Afghanistan and Pakistan. And year to date, they've had 35 cases, which is a great reduction because when we started this effort 40 years ago, they were averaging 350,000 cases of paralytic polio a year. So, we've come a long ways. It's it's a lot of hard work in a tough place, but uh I want to pre thank the council for for taking up this proclamation. And if anybody's interested in Rotary, they meet at the swim and racket club Thursday mornings at 7:30. Uh, former Mayor Horn over there is the current president. My wife over here is the past president. So, uh, please come. It's a good time. Thank you on that. on roads. I met with the county DOT maintenance people on Friday afternoon trying to figure out how the schedule works, what they can do, the amount of work they can do, and the difference between the preserv preservation treatments and a full asphalt resurfacing. The uh unfortunate thing is the county last fiscal year because this we're in a new fiscal year now and we don't know what the budget their budget is for this fiscal year because the state hadn't passed the budget yet. So

until they do that, we don't know what's going to happen this year. Last year they had four streets that were off 12 Mile Creek on the schedule and they did them all. Um, they were what they call preservation treatments. They are supposed to help preserve the pavement to make them last another seven, possibly 10 years before having to have anything else done again. They have gone to that for the simple reason that last year for the entire county for maintenance of these secondary streets, they had $600,000 total for the entire county. It cost $120,000 per mile to do the preservation treatment. To do a full asphalt resurface is $240,000 a mile. So they're trying to do the best they can to keep at least in tolerable condition these roads. So I pleaded our case. We had many roads that were 30, 40 odd years old in horrible shape and whatever we could do, but the math is just very difficult because of funding from the state. It is a state issue and all we can do, I hate to say it, we ask and understand where they're doing. They're trying to work through the worst is what they're doing. They look at the worst condition roads and try to get them scheduled to be repaved. Difficult situation. Hopefully the budget will get passed by the state legislature shortly. They'll have an idea once that's done because then DOT up in Raleigh can start farming out how much money goes to who, then we can get a schedule of what actually will get repaved in the coming year. So that's what I have. Thank you. And I want to say thank you for being the I'm going to call it the squeaky squeaky wheel to uh uh you know to put pressure on to to get our

res. [Laughter] Find me one more street a year.

Yes. Thank you Debbie. Okay. So if that's all we'll move on to public comment. Um I'm going to read a statement here before we can move into this. Public comments are limited to four minutes. Public hearing comments are limited to uh three minutes. Comments are to be directed at the entire board and not individuals nor the public attending the meeting. Uh a designated spokesperson for a group of three or more may be allotted six minutes to speak. At least three of the group members must be present and names and addresses of those members uh presented uh present, excuse me, must be uh submitted to the town clerk before the meeting begins. Um other than pursuant to this rule, you may not give uh your time to any other speaker to increase that 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. U the audience must maintain order and decorum in their conduct. Please refrain from disruptive applause, comments or disorderly speaking during meetings. Um the mayor or the majority of the board may suspend these rules at the discretion. Failure to abide these rules u after receiving notice by the mayor may result in your termination of your comment your comment period andor your removal from the meeting. I want to say this um I have been um I've wanted people to come up and share their thoughts and feelings and and whatnot. I feel over the last uh months uh it's gotten a little out of hand. Um when folks turn to um to the audience, uh we're not going to use this

uh pla uh this podium to be a platform to berate your neighbors. So all uh public comments will be directed at the council. Uh if someone looks to the to the audience and goes in that direction, I'll give you one warning. Uh, next time I'll ask I'll stop you. Anybody that talks during the meeting, we'll give you one warning for that. And after that, we'll ask we'll have you escort it out off the property. Okay. Hate to be that way, but uh I'm trying to get it back in line. I feel though people should be able and allowed to speak speak their their heart, but uh it has gotten out of hand. And when we get to the point of uh coming out and causing division and this doesn't matter which side of the the of the fence you're on or subject it doesn't matter whichever side it's this goes for everyone. Okay. So uh I call your name if you we're going to do that. If you don't want to speak you can say I'm I'm good but uh but we'll we'll move forward. Uh, Amarie.

Hi. Thank you members of the council, Mayor Bell for allowing me the time to share. I had other topics I wanted to bring forward this evening, but I will hold those for another time as I believe another pressing matter continues to come up and I believe it critically important for our town leaders and residents to have all the information they need to make informed decisions about the future of our town. Because of that, I will revisit my statement from our September meeting on the land use status of the Hunter Farm. Given this is almost 60 acres neighboring our downtown core, it has and will continue to be at the center of many discussions before our council. The question of what the conservation easement really means continues to bubble up. I'd like to take the opportunity now to clear up any conjecture, speculation, or outright misinformation the council may have heard. I have with me our legal documents, but as Albert Einstein once said, "If you can't explain it to a 5-year-old, then you really don't understand the subject matter yourself." And so I took that opportunity to load these legal documents into Chad GBT with this prompt. Someone keeps claiming we can get out of this agreement and develop this land into commercial sprawl. Can you explain it to me like I'm a 5-year-old? Would we be able to do that? This was Chad GBT's response. What this document is, it's a conservation easement, like a forever promise that your family made about the land. It says, "We will keep this land as open farm and nature space no matter who owns it later." Your family gave this promise to a group called the Kataba Land Conservancy and they are now the watchdogs of that promise. That promise runs with the land forever, not just while your family owns it. It's written into the land records. And it says things like no commercial or industrial use. No splitting up or subdividing the land to build neighborhoods or shopping centers. No new roads, parking lots, or large buildings except for things like

related to farming or education. You may still do farm things, grow crops, raise animals, run educational programs, and have visitors learn about agriculture. You can fix and maintain existing farm structures. Can you get out of it? Basically, no. The easement says that in perpetuity, which means forever and ever. The only way is to end through something called impossibility of purpose. And that means that a judge, the Kataba Lands Conservancy, and the North Carolina Attorney General would have all to agree that keeping the land as open farm space is no longer possible. For example, if the land literally disappeared under a lake, that's not something you can just vote on, buy out or reverse because someone wants to build stores or houses. So, when people say you can get out of it, they're either confused or they're misleading people. You can't undo a conservation easement to allow commercial development. The land is legally protected to stay rural, agricultural, and natural forever. So then I took the next step. What happens if under the extremely low likelihood that a catastrophic environmental event such as a meteor, earthquake or being trapped underwater happens and the impossibility of purpose clause must be granted because the land can no longer remain open space. What happens if that ever occurs? Perjat GBT explains what happened to the value of the easement if it's ever extinguished. Here is the key part. The Kataba Land Conservancy, the grantees would re would receive a share of the proceeds money based on the easement's proportional value. They are legally required to use that money only for conservation purposes. For example, to buy or protect other land that has similar

agricultural, scenic, or ecological value. Council members, Mayor Bell, and the residents of Weddington, I would ask you now that you have this information, I would ask for you to share this information with others, correct misunderstandings, or amend any statements, online comments or posts that you may have. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Phillip. I do respond to Philip.

Most people don't know that's my name. Mayor Council, I want to uh I'll continue with the uh information that Ann Marie was giving. I I'm really at a point now after 30 or 40 years hearing the same claims uh reminds me of a uh uh John Baptist Alons Carr 19th centuryman that said the more things change they are the same. I'd say it in French, but it's been 60 years since I've been in college, and I couldn't do well then. I can't now. So, and try. Uh, one of those claims uh is about the uh uh can be uh extinguished or they can uh pay back taxes. Three-year look back. They're confusing that with tax law. tax law. If I'm farming and I decide to stop farming after 10 years, then I must pay a three-year look back on the difference between the farm rate I was paying and what the residential rate would be. And believe me, on our acreage, I can't afford to pay uh the residential rate. Imagine your one acre house and you have to pay 60 times that every year. Can't do that. um that that easement can't be undone as Anie said. Uh uh a conservation easement is a legal property agreement. It's on file at the Union County Register of Deeds. An Marry gave you all a copy that you can share. If you hear these claims made, just say, "Hey, wait a minute. That's not true. It just absolutely isn't true. I'm tired of slaying dragons." You know, it gets old

after a while. Said, "Oh, well, you can just sell." No, we can't. We could sell, but whoever acquires the property is bound by the same conservation easement forever and ever and ever. That means no commercial, industrial, no subdivision, only agricultural, educational, and conservation uses. Um, we can build one per agreement with the uh Kataba Land Conservancy. they can build one more house on that property somewhere, a mutually agreed to spot, only one acre where, let's say, a family member could build a house in our back pasture or something. In the meantime, we're still raising cows and and strawberries just like over on Athetherton, but people that live over there, I did 10 acres of strawberries on my wife's old farm, the Delaney farm, and we raised cows over on the uh where Brmley is. Those were that was pasture. Okay, it's not pasture anymore. But uh lovely homes. Um I like our neighbors. But please people if when you hear that just correct it. Say no that's not true. Can't happen. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate that Fred.

Oh no. It was it was up there. Just leave. That's not mine. Thank you. It's a gift. Good evening. My name is Fred Leaf Frank and thank you, Mayor Bell and council members. First off, Mayor Bell, I want to thank you for helping us get the black hammers installed at the entrance to our community, which uh after the burgies that we had nearby

gave people peace of mind and an officer ran. I'm sorry to turn that way, but I want to acknowledge him for joining us at a security meeting that we had with many of the neighborhoods around to look at uh improving the safety of our community. I'm not here to talk about that, but I wanted to acknowledge that. So, pleased to meet you. I'm the president of the HOA for Enclave at Baxley and I'm here to talk a little bit about the situation with the release of the bond for Toll Brothers. We're not here in complete opposition to Toll Brothers and organization, but we feel that that bond should not be released because of the pending issues we have in our community. We seek a proper resolution for all the issues faced in our community and it was built by Toll Brothers as all of you know since you approved it. We had some initial conversations with Toll Brothers including a walkthrough with the representatives. Initially they had rejected many of the things they requested but after the walkthrough when they saw firsthand some of the conditions that we have they did change their mind and agreed to support some of the recommendations that we had given them though not all the things. However, the changes they made were grateful for that because they were trying to do that in good faith. At the time we were it was recommended that we seek advice of council to make sure that if we had any kind of agreement since it would automatically wipe out any ability to hold the McConnell for everything else. Uh those attorneys gave that we investigated realized there were more matters that we needed to address and I'm here to address those the five ones that are left. Number one we have a retention pond. Uh there are cracks in the retention pond on two of the BMS. Uh we are not engineers. We had requested that an engineer come out and review that to make sure that it could last long term. Uh because that's a big concern recently because of this meeting toll came out and finally laid some tarp around the pond to eliminate a tremendous amount of overgrowth. For a while there it was like a jungle. Uh they did clear out most of what was overgrown. However, the outlet valve for the retention pond has still not been completely cleared. So, it's difficult to get down there to see whether or not that is constructed in such a manner that would be safe to release excess

water upon any kind of torrential rains. Uh the other thing is we have a park in the middle of our community. It's an embarrassment. It's horrible. Um it's half dead. We have children that play there that now don't play there as much because of all the holes that are there and we think it's a safety hazard for them. It should be We have a lot of children in our community. We want them to be able to play safely in the community. It's kind of a cute community in the sense that the kids come out and play after they come back from school. But sadly, the park, which is the largest area we have in the entire uh excuse me, neighborhood is really unusable. In addition to that, when they was installed, all the valves did not connect into electricity. So, all the valves were run by battery. So, when they run out, the valves stay open. We've had $7,500 water bills and we and there's no electricity that we can find and to has not agreed to connect. There is a connector and it sticks up out of the ground. It's got the wires there, but they have not agreed to connect those yet. We we're concerned about that. Uh there's dead trees in the surrounding conservation area around us, and we're just concerned that at some point they may fall. God forbid someone is close by. And we did have one tree fall at our at our entrance. Uh nobody was hurt, but we think those should be reviewed and the dead trees eliminated. Also, our roads were turned over uh to the Department of Transportation without proper measure to make sure that there were no dips in the roads that would hold water. And we have about three major ones. One of our neighbors is going to speak about that later on today. Uh because when it rains or runoff from irrigation, there's just a lot of standing water. It I don't think it's a big correction, but we like to get that taken care of. Lastly, this may not be under the purview of of the of the council, but our HOA was forced upon us against our objectives last November was a bum's rush. And when we got that, we got $8,000 in the reserve fund. When 55, no, excuse me, $52,500 was collected as a deposit by all the residents upon the purchase of the house. Effectively, we're out of money. Uh, and it was just handed to us and now we're having to deal with it. So, I appreciate your

consideration. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Okay.

Uh, uh, Eric Good evening. Um, I didn't really want to have to find the time to come out here tonight. Work many, many hours, and I think the last time I addressed the town council was when a previous council was could not read a contract that it had and ended up getting the town getting sued for close to a million dollars, which they lost. And I would just like to reiterate that it is irresponsible to tell people legal contract says one thing but it doesn't say that. And if you grew up here I know who taught you and I know that they taught well and I know like Mr. Tomkins who survived a tour in Vietnam in a helicopter would have taught them, you know, how government should act. And it does concern me that you can't, and this is not just the conservation easement on our farm. Certain things come up. I understand that Toll Brothers doesn't do a good job, but if people are following the law and they're proposing developments, if those developments follow your own rules and you deny them anyway, you will get sued and you will get law lost. I would really like for the tax rate of Weddington to stay where it is and not have to be like Charlotte's because we're heagering money from lawsuits. I don't want Weddington to have a house on every acre. If you don't want that, you have to change your rules

because if somebody follows your rules, you they come to you again, you're going to get sued. We lost a great fire department. We assumed debt from other municipalities because wrong information was given. This is probably 10 years ago now. Um, let's try not to make the same mistakes again. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Wesley Winsley.

All right. Good evening, council members. Thank you for giving this opportunity to come and share. I'm just following up on what Fred was talking about. Just to give you some context, uh the enclave at Baxley, it's been almost two years now since they came. It's a beautiful neighborhood. The promise so many new families moved in. A lot of them with young children and the homes were all about 1.2 to 1.7 million. So it was not something that you paid like couple of hundreds and gone. It's it's a luxury neighborhood or touted to be one. Today, if you walk through the neighborhood and look at the common areas, if you pick up any other neighborhood in Readington, it is going to be better than this. It is such an embarrassment to see the common areas. And that's the word that Fred used. And I would love to reiterate that because we have so many young kids who don't have a place to play because the park is full of potholes. They play on the roads and all the cars have to drive so slowly because the kids can come from anywhere because they cannot play in the largest area in the neighborhood which is a park which is full of potholes. All we asked is can you fix that? So far no response. That's one big thing. All the other common areas are so unckempt. The trees are dead. The walls that Fred was talking about is not working. So it's it's such a challenge to live when we had done so much for this neighborhood. The pond where we behind some of the homes was supposed to be a premium. Some of them paid premium to get out the park view and the pond view and there's so many issues. Till last week nobody was there. Today last week they came in put some grass out there and they left. All we're asking is make this a livable place so that the children and the community that wants to grow up here, love it, and make this a community that they want. So we request you, as what Fred mentioned, to hold this bond release for a few months till a few of these are taken care of. And I know a few of our other members are here to talk about drainage issues, traffic, the lighting is not even around it. Some

areas are dark, some areas are bright. So there's a lot of nickpicky things which I don't want to go into the entire one, but just wanted to let this council know that we all came in here with a dream to build our families here and to grow and that's what we're here for and we request your support in this. Thank you. Thank you. Anad

good evening council. Uh thank you for the time. Um I'm in the same neighborhood that Winsley and Fred are in and I'll reiterate the same. My issue is more about uh road. Uh we have standing water in front of our house all the time. We're in a culdeac. We have two culdeacs. The other one has three storm danes. We have none. And it's because of the level as in the map, but the leveling is not done right. And like Fred said, the kids, not my kids, but we have neighborhood kids who play hockey and standing water is not helping. they fall and you see them getting hurt. The second thing is you have it getting marshy and muddy after every sprinkler after every water rainfall that happens. That's the same issue that stays and so we are also again asking to fix that along with the other issues but it'll make a big difference and me like Winsley we have just moved from Charlotte to Weddington with the same dream it's possible we just need some few things addressed and if that can be done we have nothing against releasing the money but till that is fixed we can hold it thank you

thank you so much Sari Good evening, council. Um, I also live in the Enclave at Baxley neighborhood. To reiterate some of the same, um, I'd like to talk about the pond area, the common area, and the drainage. Um, I'll start with the pond. So, like Winsley mentioned, we did pay a premium for our lot facing the pond area. And while they have come out, I think four or five times I've seen them out there. I personally go out there every time to talk to them to see what they're even doing. They have laid seed out there. They come and do some cleanup, but it has never been completely established where it's enjoyable to watch that yard. Um it also faces my I mean it touches my backyard. there is a section between my yard and the pond that I'm not really sure what the solution is where I feel like the transparency has not been very clear um since taking ownership as to what we're doing with that area. Um, not to mention the safety of the pond and my I have two young children actually, three and a half and one. And I too moved from Charlotte into this area. And I feel like betrayed because I definitely moved in this area because I originally from New Jersey and I heard so many great things about South Charlotte and Weddington. So, we moved here and I just feel it's really it's not honest of toll and I'm just here as to represent our community and speak to you guys about what we can do to kind of correct this and make it enjoyable for all. The second is the drainage. We live in that second culde-sac where the first culde-sac does have drainage. It doesn't affect my yard or my front yard. The water doesn't stand still, but like I said, we moved with the dream of this community and we would be handed the community in proper care. So, while we spent $2 million on a home, I just feel like the community

doesn't speak to that. And when we go to other communities, Brmley, there's so many others that we kind of have seen and we just don't see it in this state. The third is the common area. Um, like I said, I have two young kids. The yards, our personal yards are not that large where we can have the kids running around. So, this common area, there's no park, there's no pool. That is the area for them to kind of be around and play. There's ant piles, there's the irrigation issues, there's no grass, and so it's very unsafe. And obviously, we don't want the kids on the road. So, and and that's not an enjoyable spot to play soccer or or ball or anything like that. So, I do feel like the common area should be cleaned up and maintainable by our community. I mean, it's unfair. We were told what fees were, what we were kind of walking into. Um, so I do think that that area should be addressed. And as that many others mentioned, um, if you just come and look at our homes, they're beautiful homes. The community is nice and small. We all kind of get along and then we see these yards. We've drive in. It's just I don't I don't want my kids growing up in this. So, um, that's Thank you.

Thank Thank you,

Kathy. I'm Kathy Kellow Brown. I live in Lake Providence. Toll can relax. I'm not here to talk about you tonight. I want to know when I see that we want to do something for our veterans. That's my daddy received seven medals following Pat. He's a hero. But a three-day limit, that is an insult. He gave four years of his life. Many people in this community gave four decades. Some of them gave their life and didn't come back home. My mom and dad grew up seven miles apart. Grandma uh mother's family here, daddy's in Indian Trail. the Indian Trail Veteran Memorial. I think it was built a little over three years ago. We paid $100 to put Daddy's name and his brothers, you know, there under the flag and what branch of service they were in. There's no deadline. The the military still goes on. Why the big rush on the website was posted what, five days ago, and the deadline was the 11th. That's totally insulting to me. Totally insulting. You can still, if you live in Indian Trail and you're a veteran, you can still pay to put your veteran, your son, your husband, whoever's name on that. And they keep it clean and well lit. If we have one, it's hidden under bushes. I don't see it. I think it's an embarrassment and I think somebody

should do something about it. Thank you, Kathy. Ruben.

Good evening, council. I am uh vice president of the backy association um homeowners association. Um and talking about toll today, we just need your help. Um I know there's certain areas where you guys maybe can't help us in, but there's other areas where you can. Um there's certain areas that planning and uh you you have jurisdiction over to hold up their bond release, and that'll help us tremendously. um some of the issues that STEM, you know, maybe might might be gray areas for you where you might somebody will say, "Well, maybe you can't really have an impact, but there's other areas that you can." And we ask you guys just to help us out. There's a lot of people in our community that are struggling. I've got four kids um and that that playground where they're supposed to be playing, we've got standing water in certain areas, and they've told us, "Oh, that's because it's depressed. Different things have happened." And so Tol has just taken this idea that as soon as you purchase that house and you sign, they walk away from the house. And they try to blame contractors for everything. And they try to say things like, "Oh, your HOA will take care of it." Except we're the HOA, except it's our it's our dime all the time. And so they've gotten a lot out of you guys in order to build the homes the way they've built them. They've gotten, you know, easements for conservation easements, so they can build lots that are.3 acres as opposed to an acre. So they've they've they've asked for a lot from you and in return they're trying to basically get their buck out of it and run. And so we're asking you guys to hold up, give us some time to work with them, make them come to the table. Let's try to negotiate this out. Let's try to fix some of the issues we have because there's a lot of, you know, there's 36 homes or 35 homes in the community. Every single person has invested to be there. They want to be a part of this area, but it just seems like toll's trying to dine and dash, and we want to make sure that we can hold them accountable, and we need your guys' help. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Is it Ventrak?

Yeah.

Yeah. Hi, this is Venet Machala. Thank you uh mayor and council members. Um I'm one of the homeowner from Enclave at Baxley. I'm here representing our homeowners here. Um again I'm here to talk about you know we we're seeking your help to hold the bond for some of the issues which we want to address. Right. Uh we seriously see like lot of safety and infrastructure issues in our community. Things like retention pond which we mentioned about there are cracks on the uh pond area which we would like to have a professional engineering survey or inspection to be done. Um and then the park area it's been really eyesing. Um you know the leveling has not been even across. Uh we see a lot of uh water lag you know logging everywhere. Um like kids were unable to use it. you know at at one point we are just starting to seek some wildlife not humans over there so it's such a bad it's in a very bad situation um and then there are some other hazardous situations like you know Fred mentioned we have some dead trees um you know those need to be taken care as well and then some of the trees around the pond area need to be cleaned up as well because we were not able to step in and see you know uh h how it was done and you know if everything like first of all they didn't even give a proper instructions saying okay these are the maintenance maintance that you need to do, right? We had no idea. We just going by, you know, what some of the some of like landscapers or some maintenance guys say like we have no idea like what type of pond, what frequent maintenance that need to be done like no information from them, right? Uh and finally, I don't know if that's something you could help the the situation that they given us on the financial HOA matters. Uh we are like totally out of funds, right? So they just oversold you know saying like you know um your maintenance is so low but especially we have been pay I'm part of HOA board and we are paying like over 25,000 water bills every year right uh we are a small community right and we we

the rising cost we want to keep our HOA costs at nominal prices right but this the maintenance or the state what they have given we we cannot afford to fix any of those so we want to told to take responsible and you know fix these issues yeah and thank Thank you again. Yeah, my request is to hold the bond until all this issues are fixed. Great. Thank you. Great. Thank you.

Okay, this uh closes our public comment time. Uh and we'll we'll come back to this. As you guys know, this is later on in the agenda. Uh we're going to move on to um section eight or item eight. Uh it's the presentation of proclamation for World Polio Day. And I have a proclamation here. do a presentation and I'm going to ask Tom to speak here in a minute too after I read the proclamation proclamation P225-05. Whereas pol whereas Rotary is a global network of 1.2 million neighbors, friends, leaders and problem solvers who unite to take action to create lasting change in communities across the globe. And whereas Rotary the Rotary motto service above self inspires members to provide humanitarian service follow ethical ethical standards and promote goodwill and peace in the world. And whereas Rotary in 1985 launched Polio Plus and in 1988 helped establish the global polio eradication initiative which today includes the World Health Organization, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Gabi a vaccine alliance to immunize children around the world against polio And whereas polio cases have dropped 99.9% since 1988 and the world stands on the threshold of eradicating the disease altogether. And whereas to date, Rotary has contributed more than $2.9 billion in countless volunteer hours and volunt and countless volunteer hours in protecting more than three billion children in 122 countries.

And whereas Rotary is working to raise an additional $50 million per year, which would leverage for maximum impact by an additional hund00 million annually from the Gates Foundation. And whereas these efforts are providing much needed operational medical staff, laboratory equipment, and educational material for health workers and parents. And whereas continued political and financial commitment is essential to overcome the final hurdles, strengthen health systems, and ensure that no child anywhere suffers from polio ever again. And whereas World Polio Day observed on October 24th serves as a moment to honor the progress made recognize the dedication of health workers and volunteers and renew our collective resolve to finish the job. And whereas I, Jim Bell, mayor of the town of Weddington, on behalf of the Weddington Town Council, do hereby proclaim October 24th, 2025 as World Polio Day. encourage all citizens to con uh recognize the extraordinary efforts that have led to countless lives being saved from polio and to join the fight with Rotary International for a poliofree world. In witness whereof, I do hereby set my hand and cause the seal of the town of Weddington to be affixed this 13th day of October, 2025. And Paula, I'm going to ask you to come up, too. Is

she left? She left. Okay. Tom, you want you want to say something?

Well, I said part of it already, but this effort is a billion dollar a year effort and we immunize I say we, the global polio eradication in initiative vaccinates approximately 450 million children a year, typically from the age of three and below. As you have new children in these countries coming on every year, it's a continual process and until you break the cycle of transmission, you have to keep doing it. Uh we we got uh India which was a huge challenge clear in 2020 but Pakistan is next door than Afghanistan that's transmitted back and forth between the two of them and it's been a problem. And just for basic information, polio is a virus that lives in the human gut. It is excreted like we all do. And if it gets into water, contaminates the water, it is a waterbornne disease is the best way to describe it. So it's unsanitary water is the transmission mechanism for it. So in these third world countries where you have poor s water and sewer systems uh it's a problem. It's a problem in the summertime especially and uh as we know kids like to play in water no matter how nasty it is and that's how this this transmits. So unless we get 95% or more of the children vaccinated it will continue to transmit at some level. We have eradicated two of the three types of polio in the world. So we're down to type one polio which is in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Everything else has been removed. So we're very close but it's very difficult because of logistics where these children are sometimes in very remote places. U religious

objections, you name it. There's a number of them. But it's a very difficult thing to do. But we're doing our best and um with our 50,000 uh paid workers and hundreds of thousands of volunteers, we are we're getting there. So hopefully in the next few years we'll have it eradicated. Thank you. And Tom is very active in this and your role. You travel in this aspect, right? Am I correct? Yes. Okay. Yeah. And you've raised uh a bit of money, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars for this. So, he's he's worked very hard on this. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. And and Paula just left, right? Yeah. She needed to go back for a moment. Oh, okay. All right. Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry. On behalf of the

Tom, would you would you like to come up? Mayor,

my name is Craig Horn. I'm president of the Rotary Club of Weddington Waxaw. And on behalf of the of the club, the local club here and Rotary International, we thank you for this proclamation and for the recognition of the efforts being put forward. I'm old enough and I suppose there are probably some folks here old enough to remember the iron lung and what a terrible thing that was. I knew kids that were subjected to that incredibly that terrible, terrible inevitability. They could not breathe on their own and they had to be put into an artificial breathing device and they spent the rest of their lives, albeit sometimes quite short. So this effort is critical. We in Rotary like to say we're this close. They're this close to eradicating polio worldwide. We cannot stop now. The importance of this effort cannot be overemphasized. So on behalf of, as I said, on behalf of the Rotary Club of Waxaw Weddington and Rotary International, we are grateful for your uh presenting this this uh uh proclamation.

We would like to present this to you, President. Great. If you wouldn't mind taking one as well, which we would like to post on our Rotary website. Right here.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much. Oh, yes. Appreciate that. It's tight quarters in here. Yeah, it is.

Okay. Okay. Uh, public safety. Deputy Ren, come on up and entertain us. Every meeting it gets more difficult to follow certain things, awards and public comments. So, I apologize. Uh, mayor, council, once again, is always a pleasure to be in front of you. Citizens, thank you so much for having me and allowing me to be in front of you. We got a lot on the consent agenda, so I'm going to try to speed through as much as I can tonight. So, I apologize if I talk too fast, just email me. So, in the month of September, we answered 63 91 hang-ups. We answered 29 wrecks to include serious PI wrecks, which is personal injury. We answered 24 alarms. We answered 10 different services for animals. We answered four armed subject reports, five different assaults, two home burglaries, one burglary to a vehicle. We stepped it up and did 52 business checks, 17 different calls for service for careless and reckless driving, seven different disturbances. seven different disturbances to include domestics, 562 prevented patrols, which are going to be in your neighborhood, just like we spoke about before, 13 different different residential checks based upon the information that you gave us. So that's someone going outside on vacation or things of that nature. We did 13 of those just in one month. 57 traffic stops, which gave us a total of 1,400 different calls for service just in the month of September. I'll be real quick on this one. We're going in October. We all know what that means. In the town of Weddington alone, we have 10 plus churches. Those churches are going to be holding different fall types, whether it's a bizaar, um, anything that is going to be like trunk or treat or things of that nature. Please be very cognizant, especially at night. Um, it's getting darker quicker. With that being said, there's going to be kids out doing what kids do, whether it's uh in a neighborhood, whether it's running across the street, things of that

nature. I shouldn't have to beat the dead horse, but we're going to go ahead and lead it to water. So, the biggest problem that we're facing, we've already contacted a lot of HOAs who have agreed and decided to have their neighborhoods or even in their neighbors who are going to participate in trunk or treats or trick-or-treats, they're going to go to the end of the driveways. We thought it was a fantastic idea. So, whether you're out on a golf cart, whether you're walking with a wagon, you're not having to go up to someone's house, if that kind of makes a lot of sense. Plus, you're not setting off a lot of the Ring doorbells and the blinks and getting a lot of those alarm calls. We think this is a fantastic move to the future. you're not having to walk up someone's driveway that you don't know or are the lights on, are they not? Um, we've seen people the last couple years with their fire pits out there hanging out. We think it's a fantastic idea. Um, if you see us out with our cruise lights, it's just a standard blue light on. All we're doing is riding your neighborhood. If we're going slow enough and we're not chasing someone, you know, everything should be okay. Uh, we can't say thank you so much enough for having us. Uh, we've received a lot of calls, especially for a lot of good things along with bad. We don't normally get a lot of good, but here lately we have and we want to say thank you so much. Thank you so much for being our foot soldiers, letting us know about certain things in the area. If it's Halloween, you're in a gas station, someone's wearing a mask, it's not Halloween, please call us. I say that there's an individual at a retail store, um, he decided it probably be a good idea, maybe there's a new strand of whatever's going around, so he wanted to indulge himself in wearing a mask. Uh, he received an additional charge for that. Um, but it was based upon the information that you called us and let us know about. It looked suspicious to someone. See something, say something. Uh, he had a lot of, it was several hundred dollars in merchandise that he was hiding on his person. Um, so he received an additional charge for wearing the mask. North Carolina general statute now saying that he's using it in the act of a crime. So, we're able to push that a little bit harder. It looks suspicious. Probably is. Looks and quacks like a duck. It may be a horse, but let us figure out if it

is a duck. We w we want to get out here and help and we can't say thank you enough for calling us and getting us out here. Thank you. Thank you de Deputy Ren. Thank you. Uh let's move on to the consent agenda. Can I get a motion to uh approve the consent agenda as presented? So moved. Okay. All in favor? Okay. All right. We'll move forward as unanimous. Um old business. There are there is no old business. So we're going to move on to new business. discussion of the web uh website upgrade to include AI capability and to meet ADA requirements. And I'm going to let uh Karen kick off on this. Correct. Sure.

And and then Tom, I think you have some some to add on this too. So in April or by April 2027, the town website has to be ADA compliant according to the general assembly or federal federal government, sorry. and um and so I've started getting uh quotes to to upgrade the website. Um right now we have a bare bones minimum. We're not paying a lot of money. We we run it all. Um so the the cost will be a little more significant to add with the website as well. Okay. Right now.

Okay. So we're just starting to to look into it. I just brought this up because I've I've been in several meetings, things like this have come up with the concept that as the price of this has come down substantially in the last couple years to use these things and u and that with the concept that if we can incorporate some of these it would basically make it easier for the citizens to navigate the website get what they want to almost automatically versus having to sort through, search the website, you go in, where do I find a form, whatever it may be, and it takes you instantly there versus having to go from this page to this page to this page and maybe not find it. Having to call Debbie or or Karen and say, "Where do I find this?" Just make it more user friendly. And if we're looking at the ADA at the same time, this probably could be incorporated together because the AI part probably solves a lot of the ADA problems is what I'm thinking.

Not necessarily. Possibly. It is a separate. Yeah, it is separate. It is a add-on, but some of this what is done with AI rolls into I believe what the ADA part is. That's my thinking. I may be wrong. That's why we need to I think we ought to just explore and keep exploring and figure out what is reasonable, practical, and useful best for the town. That was why I wanted to bring this up. Okay. Um

and I think I sent a little email out to all the council showing some things that from a company. Can someone send a list of what the ADA is requiring of the website by 2027? Um, I talked with a professor at one of the universities that teaches u computer science today and uh asked him, you know, what is your what is your take on adding AI into a government computer? You know, that kind of thing. And uh because my concern was I don't I don't want our tax records or any kind of personal information, you know, getting out accidentally. and his his thing was if it's if it's on a website, it's out there already.

It's already out there. I mean, he he's he's like, you know, because he deals with a lot of uh what do you call it? The dark web and he teaches all that and he's very very very brilliant guy. And uh so my main concern is make sure you know when we look into this uh he he had three items to look at you know return on investment, make sure it's not expensive that that it's you know it's it's worth what we would pay for. So, we have to determine that. Uh that there's a flat fee. Uh there's bots out there now that will that will just hit websites and ask and query ask questions and it will drive up the price on uh on this and how it works and also limit where it can go so it doesn't get into residential uh records and distribute that all over the world. And so there's there's there's things to look at and we need to make sure that we're protected and we don't open ourselves up. And that was that was some of his big concerns about it. Um is this something we, you know, we need a sort of a head knot or vote to just sort of at least look into it or we need to do that and this just determine if we you know cost or you know we just need to look into it. which I think it certainly needs to be looked into, especially if the state is requiring these ADA requirements by 27. It's going to have to be addressed at some point,

right? So, I would say look into it, you know, see what the costs are, see what the um electronic security things are. I know there's people out there that I'm certain computer expert, but I know there's ways you can have certain records on different servers that are not connected to an active web page. that and and there's no way somebody can get to them. So, I know there are fixes for some of these concerns, but certainly I think looking into that. Now's the time to start. We got two years to to get it done. Okay. Okay. Um, can I get a I don't really I guess need a need a head nod. Okay. So, everybody good with that?

I'm fine with it, but the AI looking into is not going to have anything to do with the ADA. Right. Right. We're Tom, did you say you sent them something? Yeah, I sent another I thought I sent had sent already sent it to you from a particular company. Yes. Okay. I'll look and if not I'll if not ask me. Thank you. It just gave some a little demo type stuff and things like that what it can do because they've done it for several I'll forward it to you. Several they've done it for several counties or whatever you know municipalities and just an example not saying use them or anything else. I I want to get a couple different to see what

but this is purely just things that they have done and showed examples. Okay, you know like how do I find forms or how do I find this that or the other and not have to bother you Debbie or Greg or whoever it may be and take them straight to where they need to be. Information that's in the website already but just automatically puts it there. Gotcha. Yes. Um any comments uh ladies? No, I mean of course we are going to be ADA compliant by 27. Um in terms of AI, sounds like there's a lot more information that needs to be gleaned and researched before we even take a step down that pathway. But yeah,

we can research and glean and then start walking if we need to. Right. I don't think it cost anything to look. Right. And and again uh for everyone, we're just looking. We're not spending. No money is no money. We're no sp not spending millions of taxpayer dollars on this that kind of thing. So just want to let everybody know we're just uh researching at this point. Okay. Um all right. So Karen, we're going to move forward on that. Uh so uh the next item uh um discussion of landscaping for Woodington Road roundabout. And I assume it's this roundabout right here. And you had mentioned that. I me I mentioned this because my wife who was on the um tree union board I think with Darcy

with Darcy

they evidently had a conversation that a town municipality can beautify a roundabout and I've seen a number of them that have been done around and u I know their rules about what needs to be done and this that or the other. I have no idea what it costs to do. Um, but I understand that you have to plant drought hardy, you know, very hardy plants, you know, shrubs, you know, smaller trees, whatever, and just try to make it make it look a lot nicer and that with some mulch. You don't put power over there. You don't put water over there. This is purely drought hardy plants and the state allows it within their guidelines. And I just wanted to explore is it is it worth looking at because we have a roundabout right by town hall and would make the town look nicer if the roundabout look nicer. So I know they're over there. They mow it when they come mow our stuff. They're mowing it over there now. And I know the same time with the medians we have. It's the same thing as with the medians. Planting is on the median. It's the same concept but it's putting in a roundabout versus what we have on the median. Is it something we want to explore or not? And uh

and you have to look too would it u hinder visibility when you're going around. That's why there's there state rules on all of this, right? On what it what you can or can't do, right? Just don't let do it. I can look into that. You can um and follow the rules and get a a quote for a nice plan to see what it is. We may or may not want to do it, okay, but it's at least an idea. We've done this before, Karen, right? Do we have a Maybe we didn't go all the way through for the roundabout. We didn't go all the way through. I think that we got maybe a mockup and realized that the height of the things and the mockup was non-compliant or anyway, right? Okay. Yeah, there are state rules on that.

Well, the other thing we need to keep in mind, too, and I'm all for making it look better. I think anything that enhances the town we should certainly explore. I do know that it was less than two years ago after we put all this money into all these plings. We had a couple of drivers down there at Envy and Providence that decided they didn't need to stay on the asphalt and went right through it and tore a bunch of stuff up. And help me out here, Karen. I don't know if what the town had to wind up replanting that or so if if there's a way we can figure out if somebody does uh decide to rearrange things that that we can make sure the town is not having to pay for that

probably be a question for deputy rent if they have a wreck run up there are they responsible there you go that's because again we want to be good stewards and Yeah, I but I I remember that distinctly because we had I don't think this plant's been out there a month and somebody went right and threw it and tore everything up and then we wound up having to pay again, you know, to put it back just it is an idea to consider. Yeah. Uh any other comments from ladies about this? Okay.

No. And and and again, this is not a vote or anything to spend taxpayer money. I know things have been said but uh we're just looking into it. This is just an exploratory type deal. So we're not multi-phase operation here. So anyway, that's uh so uh so Karen, you want to just get some ideas? Okay. And just uh while we're on this subject, uh the the shrubbery here on the side that's been been waited on until instead of planting stuff in the middle of the summer and it dying, they've sorted the landscapers sorted waited and that's coming up real soon. I hope so.

Okay. All right. So, you're working on it and there's I think there's a couple poles that were knocked down out there and that's being worked on too. So, it hasn't been forgotten and blah blah blah. You've got that in the works and so it's uh for anybody has contact with Boswell Electric be great. Okay. That's a light pole. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, they did the lamps. They So, the pole is separate from the lamps and electric company installs them all, but they provide the lamps. Pole company in Pineville provides poles.

Okay. So, you're you are working we are working on that. So, it hasn't been forgotten. Okay. Um All right. So, let's move on to the uh item C, which we move down to this, the bond performance. And Greg, I'm going to let you take off with this if you don't mind.

Yeah. Uh thank you uh mayor, members of council. Um so, this was on the consent agenda. This is the release of a performance bond in a not small amount over $2.5 million that encompasses the entirety of the Enclave at Baxley subdivision. This subdivision has been a long process which has gone through multiple names, multiple developers, certainly multiple staff members. So, this is not something that just popped up overnight and they're rushing to to get it done. Um this has been in the planning phase for almost a decade. Um the performance bond is in related to infrastructure. So this is the road, the sidewalk, the curb and their large detention pond that's on site. This is a conservation type development. So this is a development that preserved 50% of the open space as the way it was and is in a conservation easement in perpetuity whereas the other 50% was developed in old way of doing conservation development. So these are smaller lots as small as 12,000 square feet. Um, part of the deal at that time under zoning was that if you do a conservation type development, you have to build a neighborhood green. And that's the central feature of that development. And that was uh, from what I heard from public comments tonight, a key uh, concern from our citizens is is truly heartbreaking to hear that so many people are are frustrated with their homes that they bought for for millions of dollars. Um, so I I do not take that lightly at all. Um, but the money that this is bonded for is

for basically the roads, sidewalks, and the pond. And the main thing that uh we look at at this phase of the game is price basically the pond. Um, because the roads are done, the roads have been turned over to the DOT. The final layer asphalt has been put down. So, if you're familiar with a subdivision that's under construction, you have kind of your base layer of of asphalt, which is shallower than your curb, and you have like the manholes that stick out of the ground that you have to drive around, right?

You know, so that's not the condition there at all. Now, there's a final layer of asphalt. Sidewalks are done, and they're are in good shape. The curbs are in good shape now at this time. And that top layer is done. There's not concern with the road infrastructure at all. And again, that has been turned over to the state at this point. Um, town's primary concern was the storm water pond, uh, which we went out there, uh, myself and representatives from Labella Associates, um, not less than two weeks ago to investigate that. Uh, at the time of our inspection, they were basically redoing all the grading and seating around the pond. Uh there were issues with the stability of the soil, the stability of the pond, the way it was sloped into that detention pond. And when we did our inspection, they were literally grading it with like a tractor and putting the uh the matting, basically the seating around that pond. And that was the main thing we investigated. Um upon doing that inspection, we did a follow-up with um the contractors and with Toll Brothers that seating was established. Um the condition of that seating, we'll we'll have to see if we get some some more rain. We've had quite a bit of a drought in the past couple weeks. Um but the the issues that Lavella brought up during their inspection uh at this time have been addressed um by the developer and Labella actually provide you a letter of the performance bond saying that we're we're comfortable releasing that money. That's not saying that we fully endorse the product. That's not saying we love the product. That's not saying that everything in the development is perfect. That is saying that the things that they

bonded for, which is basically the trees that are on the street, the sidewalks, the drainage, and the pond are installed in functioning condition. Um, so if if there are dry patches in the common space or the homes have issues with siding, those are what home warranties are for. Uh, those are things that are private kind of issues. It's not necessarily something that's addressed in the bond, but um you know, we have provided endorsement of releasing this money. Again, that's not to say that we think everything in this project was done perfectly. There have been multiple very public statements regarding how Toll Brothers and how this development has been built. And we have actually amended our code several times as a specific reference to this project. We have made Weddington standards stronger based on complaints we've received for this project. Um, but they have done the things they need to do to release the bond for the infrastructure of this project. That said, the the decision is yours. We have uh we have brought along Bob Wilson with Label Associates. He's senior member of that organization. He can speak to any infrastructure concerns that you may have. you can speak to the letter that he signed and provided you as a council and has provided in your agenda packet um to our our comfort in releasing those funds. Um so if you'd like to to speak with him, he is here. Could

Bob would you like to come up? Yes, sir. Could you address any, you know, you heard the public comments and you've seen the the letters, emails, um, is there any anything that we can as as a town as Labella, you know, can help out the the residents that we've missed or anything that we can can do here?

Yeah, I think of of the issues raised in the email and raised by the citizens, um, the only one that I think we could uh look at towards the bond, let me let me speak to them one at a time. One was related to the cracks in the embankment of the pond. I can certainly investigate that. That was not something that was evident to us during the inspection. I wasn't on the final inspection, but I had a representative there. We can look at that and see to that. Uh the issue with the roads, the roads have been accepted by NC DOT. They haven't formally incorporated them into their system yet because that is a long process, but we have their acceptance letters where they so we can't really overrule in CDOT on what they say about the streets. Okay. Um, as far as the the common area that where the park area is, um, I don't know that's not covered by the bonds. So, I don't know that we could necessarily hold up the bonds for that. As far as dead trees in the conservation easement areas, um if it's a conservation area that was supposed to be left undisturbed, I mean trees will die and I don't know that there's we can hold the developer to to do anything with that. The only issue of what I heard raised that we can reinvestigate and look at again would be related to the cracks in the embankment which could be you know surface cracks has been so dry could be an issue maybe a non-issue but we can certainly look at that if we feel it requires further investigation we can require toll to do more we do have their engineer certification as far as it was built in accordance with the plans and specs and so we kind of rely a lot on that and what we see visually Okay. Could that be something that, you know, say, "Hey, you know, we can we can look at that and and come back in 30 days and Yes, sir." and and give a final report on that.

Yes, sir. I I would like to look at that with uh with the HOA raising the issue with the cracks in them so I can see exactly where they're talking about.

Okay. Let let me ask you this. Uh speaking of trees, I know in our UDO it talks about in a conservation uh subdivision there should be a plantings in front and back. I know in this this subdivision here that those trees were not planted in the backyards. Um where do we go from here? Uh uh I don't know if that's an oversight or but by the developer to not do that, but there's trees missing in the backyards of those homes. Uh now that now that the HOA and the homes have been bought, it creates a little bit of a problem because now it's private property and I guess it's up to the homeowners if they want that and how that works out. So I'm not sure where to go or how to go with that.

Yeah, I'll speak to that. So this has been a a more drawn out subdivision than typical to changing from believe it was a Beachwood property to a to pole toll property. Um this took place and the entitlements of this development predate our current UDO. So uh approved plan set was uh accepted by the town in 2020 and our current UDO uh was implemented in 2021. Um our current UDO says that you need two trees in the front yard and two trees in the backyard. um the plan set that is included in their approved construction plans, which is 100 some pages, chose trees in the front yard. And so, yes, we would like trees in the backyard. Um but it's difficult to say that they were bound under our current terms at the time when plans were accepted. Um as far as if trees die, once you own that property, that is your private property. There's not really a mechanism to say that a private developer has to replace your dead tree other than a home, you know, warranty, which is a private negotiation. It has nothing to do with government.

Um so, um I we've discussed at length as as a policy um between myself, the town manager, the planner. Um better mechanisms to enforce these items. I think personal inspections of every home inspection is a policy we'd like to do moving forward. We are absolutely committed to doing that. I think that's something that's necessary. Uh we frankly had a planner that didn't live here for a period of time and wasn't able to do so during the period which this development was done. So there was literally no one to do it at the time. And so we can learn from that. Y

and have someone do that moving forward well wisely using our taxpayer dollars. Right. No, and I agree and I appreciate you implementing a policy to inspect every home that you know make sure it you know, you know, compliant with our area of, you know, that we can regulate. Um, I want to ask you this, Bob. As far as I know you said the roads were turned over to DOT, but as far as, you know, ponding and that kind of thing on the roads. Is is there anything that we can do at this point since it's been turned over to help alleviate that?

I don't think we can force their hand. And I had a similar issue with the subdivision of Wesley Chapel, which I do work for them as well. And even had the DOT follow up with it. And their comments were this is a minor surface issue. They say they have these issues all over and they're not that concerned about. Um if if the town were the one accepting the streets, you have ultimate control. Um, for example, uh, places that do their own streets, but that's a that's a big undertaking. They also maintain their streets. They can dictate whatever terms they want for the acceptance information. Right.

So, we're kind of we're kind of in a catch 22. I mean, as far as the obligations of the bond, the the DOT has signed off on the streets. Union County Public Works has signed off on the water and sewer and we has drawings for the storm drainage which were several years have recent as the storm the pond. So those are the obligations that we tie to the bond uh and then passing a final inspection. Like I said as far as the bond is the only thing I feel that we have the ability to enforce at this point can be to re-evaluate the pond itself.

Gotcha. Okay. And I know this doesn't fall under you, but I know there's a uh we have in our UDO, and I want to address this to you, Greg, is a syncing fund. And that should be, you know, funded. Uh there there's a layout, and then, you know, how much it it should be getting each, you know, year, that kind of thing up to a maximum amount. um if there was only 8,000 in that originally and I think uh the residents have paid 55,000 or somewhere in that ballpark and whatnot and drain them. Was this fund not not um was this the scing fund not funded? That would be my question. You know, is that an oversight someplace?

I mean that would have been five six years ago. Uh, I think we have policies in place now and we've emphasized that as a council and as a town to fully fund those services. Uh, I I think just people need to be realistic that HOAs of million-dollar homes require a lot of money to to operate and maintain their systems. Uh, that is a responsibility of that private entity. And so I can't I can't speak to how much money was put into there, you know, at that time. Uh that was before UDO and before well before my you know my service here but um I am saddened to hear that it was drained. Um there could be a variety of factors about that. I did not hear that until today. Um so I wish I could speak more confidently on that on that fact but I just don't have that information.

Right. No. And it's it's disappointing to me as well to hear this and I you know of of these various issues and I'm hoping you know at least with the the cracks in the pond that we can we can look at that and uh and if there's anything else we can do to help the residents and you know maybe the developer can be I'm going to say a good neighbor, you know, and there's trees in the back that should have been planted. If the residents want those, give them an option to have that. Uh, I'm just going to leave that out there as, you know, hey, you know, uh, let's see what we can do. Does any council members want to speak into this? What do you want?

I I was really looking more at the sinking fund aspect of it of trying to investigate was it properly funded under the approval terms when this project was done in whatever the governing law was when this is done. You know, if it's before the the new UDO, we may not have even had it. I that's what I don't know. I just want to make sure the developer has done what he's supposed to do there. It is separate from the bond. I understand that.

But I just want to make sure that the developers done what they were supposed to do for the HOA and you know done what they were supposed to. That's all I ask about that. I do believe when it comes to the pond that we probably ought to defer for a month to make sure that is inspected and uh hopefully the it rains and the grass comes up and it looks better. Well, that was that was one of my questions. Personally, Greg, is there another bond associated with this project? Is is this it? This is the full bond uh for the whole project and so, you know, which is which is a little unusual. Sometimes they're split.

You mentioned, I believe, when you were speaking that you have like two weeks ago, they've just done this new grading. They've just done this new grass planting. That isn't enough time to see if that's going to take. That's right. Right. If I feel for those folks. I mean, you don't want to when you go into something, you want it to be as ad. And if unless there's a legal reason we can't do it, I think we should wait and and make sure that the corrections that were made two weeks ago are going to hold.

Yep. Right. Right. Uh, first of all, now I guess my question to you, Bob, is that the it's odd to me that the the DOT will just go in and I mean, I don't know what kind of criteria they're using, but these people have been saying they've got problems with their with their streets and their roads and there's no remedy that that they've got I mean, if you're saying DOT has accepted them,

what options do either we as a council or they as the residents have in appealing DoD and saying, "Look, again, I don't know what the the the plan said that the grades and the thicknesses and the drainage and all that had to be, but it's pretty obvious that that's not working." Yeah, it could be. I mean, sometimes it's a matter of um just the finishing of the asphalt if you get you get these little dips or whatever, which shouldn't be there. Um, I guess what I'm saying is these will become NC DOT streets and if they say they're good enough for them, I don't feel we have the authority to overrule them is what I'm saying.

Say the minimum was good enough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Again, you want it done right. Right. I don't disagree. They're saying some of their streets were working fine and some of them aren't. Well, you look at some of the DOT streets that we drive on now and they hold water. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

but I feel like we're belaboring something that's not controllable. We've been given the answer. We just don't like it. It stinks for the homeowners. I heard mention of like antills and grass things after that's personal property. That's your job to handle. If it's 1.2 2 to 1.7 million homes. Maybe everybody can chip in whatever amount of dollars and do a weekend together of plantings. Maybe even Trees Union can help with some of that. I mean, we can't hold the bond for the roads. The DOT has that the common area, the park area, the conservation area, but our engineer is here saying that he would like to look at the cracks in the embankment and that is what we need to have done. The only thing

I would is my opinion based on what I'm understanding the legal situation to be. I think we're all on the same page. I think we're on the same page. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we we definitely are on that. Uh let me ask you this. I know uh you mention mentioned roads. Could we could we request DOT to come back out and just just do another look? Yes, we can do that. Let's let's do that. We will do that and make sure there's no settling that's happened since they've they've looked and uh and make sure it is acceptable.

So, let's request that. Is that cool with you guys? That's fine with me. And I would just hope for general good neighbor purposes toll brothers would go back and look at the common area and see if they can fix it, make it make it practical, but that's we can't require it, but we could ask them to consider doing that. I'd like to uh you know, I see Robert. Robert, would you like to speak into this? Robert represents Toll Brothers. How are you?

Good evening. I'm Robert Price. some with tow brothers. Um I I agree. We definitely want to be a good neighbor and I think I've said this multiple times here. Um I do know there's been a lot of conversation from the inception when this was turned over about a year ago. And so since then there has been a lot of conversation back and forth with the homeowners to make sure that we could figure out a plan that was conducive for both. A lot of it was many of the areas they spoke about today far as common space things that were kind of unrelevant to the petitioning what we're trying to do today. Um we completely understand those concerns. They're definitely emotional and I think from from a builder perspective. We want to do the right thing. This is what I've always said when I'm I'm up at this stand. We as a as a builder understand those concerns from from a from a homeowner perspective. We want to make sure that we do the right thing. Um, I think the conversation for today is going back in and those things that are applicable based upon what we're petitioning, which everything that Greg spoke to before are what we're here for today. Um, the other thing I think I would mention too is the purpose behind the walk that happened last week was to go out and inspect those items and then the recommendation did come back from his team insinuating that everything was in place correctly and even a formality from a standpoint that they actually wrote a letter validating that. I think the other thing to think about too is the way the process works, which I think everything really kind of correlates back to the the basin that we're talking about today is that there's multiple different entities that validate that it's operating correctly and that it was built correctly. And those go from a standpoint of a professional engineer that comes out there, a professional surveyor that is going to asbuilt conditions to verify that the conditions that are in place are per what was proposed. and then on top of that even takes another stance because you guys have done a very good job of having a

third party as a benefactor of Weddington to go out there which is the engineering firm to further validate all of which is what's happened. So, I guess it's just I think while we're saying that let's go take it another 30 days or whatever that time lapse that we're insinuating, but one of the things that we did just to make sure that we kind of put our best foot forward is that this we could have petitioned this a year ago and we wanted to make sure that we took the time to go back in and do the elements that we needed to do to make sure that we did it the right way. So I guess my my request or my ask is that we would move forward and accept it for today given the fact more so that the inspection from your third party took place as recent as last week and even provided validation in writing that it was built to standard.

Well, you know, and I I'll say this. You said, you know, you could have requested this a year ago. Well, if if that's the case, then I don't see a problem. what's 30 30 more days compared to a year ago, you know? So, I don't see a problem with with with waiting if we've waited this long. So, let's I'd rather make sure the residents are protected, they're safe, and we can we're doing everything we can do as a town in our purview to to make sure it's right. And uh and you know, and I I would ask you guys too, and I know you guys are in the business of making money. I I know where you're coming from. And uh but at the same time, we're in the business of protecting our our residents. Of course. Sure.

And and making sure everything's taken care of. And so what I would like to see if you can help them, you know, because you guys do have other projects in in the neighborhood and in the community. And I'd like to all work together and be good neighbors and and just you've heard the concerns tonight and just say, "Hey, you know, I can, you know, for not much I can do this over here." Yep. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I think

can work with them. And I agree and I think that's where we are today. Um, as I mentioned before, it's been about a year since the transitional piece of it and we're still part of that conversation today. So, it's not as if we have just moved on uh and not immunable to make sure that there's some um resitution to some of their concerns. So, I think um that's still ongoing. We want to find a resolve for it. I know that there's individuals outside myself. more from an infrastructure land development perspective, but I can attest to that there are individuals within our company that are making sure they're addressing their concerns. And if not, I'm more than happy to leave my information here um and more than happy to make sure that those questions are getting answered.

Okay. Um and one thing one just if I can add one last thing. I'm sorry. Uh I'll go back and I'll look to so one of the things we talked about HOAs before uh in some of the other meetings and one of the things that we do is that we always establish that with a management firm

and that management firm when we're at a point that we're going back in and we're doing a turnover process they do multiple different assessments. There's reserve assessments going back to that syncing fund that you kind of insinuated before. The whole purpose behind that is to go back in and correlate what is associated back to from an overall turnover perspective that would either be more so homeowner responsibility because largely what happens is you're not going to do assessments on items that obviously are being turned over to another entity. So I i.e. in this case roads. NC DOT is going to have those acceptance and responsibilities. Now outside of that what they'll do is they'll go back in and understand areas that then would be common ground. They would put associated cost in this case basins and or other areas that would say we know the life of the community from a annual perspective is X and therefore we want to make sure we have associate funding for recovery and on top of that associated dues that could be applicable to maintain those areas. So I would say all those have played out. I'm more than happy. I can't tell you I know the specifics, but I'm more than happy to go back in and just make sure what was our assessment initially and then do the funds that we have appropriated from a homeowner um from a homeowner annualization of dues, does that cover what we know to be those common areas as well. And I'm I'm going to ask uh our staff to go in and look and research the scing fund to make sure it was funded properly and make sure you know it it there was enough however we need to do this to make sure there was enough put in into that and if not then we take action from there. Um but uh uh I I would ask that you you know like the the park area you know again I I think uh uh if if I'm selling a product I want my customers to be happy. I want you know word of mouth goes a long ways.

Totally agree. And so I I think you know if I'm if I'm selling a a $100 product and and if I can make it a little better for 50 B not 50 bucks 10 bucks or whatever. What I'm saying is add that to it. You know, if you can go in and just say, "Hey, look, I can fix this for the park. I can do this leave these little things in here. Add a few more trees if the if the residents w them." You know, I don't see a problem with that. Yeah. And I don't know this is the beginning of the specifics of some of that. So, I'll tell you a lot of that has already happened. Uh, and there's conversations back and forth with those um applicable board members. I think we're just looking for some understanding what that final outcome is going to be.

Okay. So I think a lot of that's happening. Um I just don't know if this is the platform for that.

Right. So I I think uh I would you know I want council response on you know waiting a month. Well, I think I think certainly in regards to what you said, the things that were listed by that, you know, that the roads have been accepted, that's not our say, that's not our say. But the two week ago repairs that were done to this retention pond, I don't think there's been enough time to make sure that is working right. And if we've got a say in that part of it, then I think we need to wait and make sure it's working before we turn back. Yeah, I agree. And that's and I'd like to get

as long as we need. Yeah. And I'd like to get Bob to do have DOT to come out and just look at the roads one more time, make sure it's okay. Uh and and again, staff look into the scing fund and if you guys can do anything with, you know, some of these other things that we've addressed, I'd greatly appreciate it. Yeah, I guess just for point of clarification, um, feels like we've taken a lot of those steps, but I guess if we could work Leella, maybe kind of repeat those same steps and just make sure that their opinion has not changed from what they assessed a couple days ago. Yeah. And just stay in a good relationship with the HOA. I think Can I get a uh I'll make a motion we table this item till next month.

Okay. Can I get All in favor of our vote on this? All in favor of tableabling it till next month. I Okay, unanimous. So, we'll table this till next month. And I encourage you guys to, you know, work with everybody so you know we don't repeat this process again. Thank you. Appreciate it. Um, okay. We're going to move forward to uh code enforcement and um take it take it away.

I'll speak to this uh mayor. So, we we've actually closed nearly 50% of our cases in the past month, which I think is an extremely positive step. Um, we've levied a fine for several thousand dollars and are are not backing down on collecting that revenue, which I feel is another extremely important step that will fund the code enforcement department for several months um just in that fine. And so we are not only um taking stronger enforcement action, we are collecting revenue from those actions and saying that we're not going to put up with some things we put up with in the past. Um lastly, you know, we we contract that through Central and some other agencies. Um uh Matt, who is our current code enforcement officer, he oversees multiple u cities and departments. uh he's going to be phasing in a new inspector soon. So, we will change kind of inspectors, but we expect the same um positive improved level of service moving forward.

Perfect. Okay. Thank you. Any any comments on this from you guys? Karen, anything you need to add to any of this? Um because I know you do coding for Okay. All right. All right, we're going to move forward to uh update on the u the financial finances and taxes. We just finished the first quarter of Hey, Liz, can I get you to come to the mic so we can hear that at home? Thank you.

We just finished the first quarter of the year. The financial statements are in your packet. Um next month I will give you the quarterly updates on our grant funds. they were not ready for the inclusion in the packet for this month and the audit is getting ready to crank up. So, we'll be in the midst of that for the next probably 30 45 days. So, okay, any questions? I just want to say I appreciate you every month. You give us the full rundown of the town and where we're at and uh where every penny goes and and I I appreciate, you know, you you you're on top of it. So, thank you for for all you do.

Karen, I'll tell you, I was tracking down $8.80 today. Yeah. So, so it's probably costing more to find it. Oh, yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate you being being on top of it. So, thank you so much. Not a problem. will say um just to make you aware Kim has been receiving a lot of um where appraisals have been challenged and being adjusted and they're significantly more than usual. So the amount that we initially build will come down a little bit. Okay. Yeah. And they're they're challenging that with the the county which will affect our

Exactly. And she's getting notices from the county as they get adjusted. Yeah, we have settled a huge amount of them. Several of them have been very significant. Some weren't. So, ones that are worth approving get approved. A lot of them get done by the internal staff before they go to the board itself. Then we approve the settlement agreement between the two, right? Is how that happens. But it shouldn't be material because the the initial final evaluation was more than we had budgeted for anyway. But just to let you know that between probably the two exactly. So all right.

All right. Great. Thank you. Uh update from our uh town planner and town administrator.

Thank you, mayor, council. Uh, as far as pending projects, I know I don't provide kind of an updated list in your slides anymore. That's because we have our one development item per month rule and it's really hard to really guarantee a slot or to post a slot for somebody when that is extremely volatile and variable. Um, I would say we have two pending projects that would come before y'all in the next couple months. Uh the first is a conditional zoning revision to the Arya subdivision that was a uh relatively uncontroversial nine lot subdivision that came before you earlier in the year. Um this would be an amendment to their proposal to use wellwater instead of public Union County water. And so if it's 12 lots or more, we have to say, hey, you know, you need to connect to a utility. you should be a traditional subdivision. If you're under that count, you're really a rural subdivision. And so we allow um them to do kind of wells for that type of small lowdensity development. Um however, conditional zoning makes you specify exactly what you're trying to do at the time of approval. At the time of approval, they said they were going to use Union County Water. Now, they don't want to uh because it's too expensive. I'm not trying to make excuses for a developer and say we're going to do something to save you money. Uh but they have they have the right to petition and say that they'd like to amend their proposal uh and say that simply they're amending their exhibit B of their conditional zoning ordinance that says we have the option to use public water or wells. So they have paid a relication fee for that proposal and that has been submitted. So that could come before the planning board very shortly. The other item is a Toll Brothers development which is on

Wayne Matthews Road uh where they're proposing a uh a conventional type subdivision that's gone through seven several revisions and community meetings. Um staff has been working very closely with them to find tune the details of the layout of that. Uh it was kind of culac heavy. It was kind of long roads. Um there were some design flaws with that proposal and so even before getting planning board method we have worked through probably four revisions of that project and once that's fine-tuned and we're confident that it meets all the rules and regulations we'll be bringing that before you publicly. Um bonding is still um a kind of mad rush to bring before you guys. I think you guys are exerting extreme caution in that and that is wise uh that people are trying to get all their money back in in a hurry. uh that's not uh we want to be good stewards of everyone's money and so we just had uh Toll Brothers Slave at Baxley another proposal which we're all very familiar with uh Weddington Glenn they're also requesting their money back uh we have an inspection for that this week again we had one two weeks ago for that proposal um so Weddington Glenn which is a Beachwood project could be potentially asking for their bond money back um in November We have released most of that bond already which in my professional opinion we lost a lot of leverage in that. We've had some issues after that release of money. Um and so this should be also looked at in a scrutinous way to release that final amount including some sets of complaints.

Agree. Uh lastly I'd like to um introduce our new permit technician. This is Jasine Mo. She's here in the front row. Uh she just started with us last week. She's part-time. Um but that should greatly improve the town's customer service in regards to permits and how things are done on the development side of town. I think it's a really positive addition to Weddington. Yeah. Welcome. Glad to have you with us. And and uh your responsibilities. I I've heard out there, oh, we've got a full-time planner and all this stuff and that's not true. What's what's your title and what's your responsibilities? I am. You want to come to the mic? Thank you. We'll put you up there.

Hi, my name is Joselyn and I'm the planning assistant and permit technician. I started about two weeks ago. Um, I graduated from Davidson in May uh with a political science degree. I have a passion for zoning and I'm excited to help with the permit processing and do more customer service, helping people uh walk them through permits and make it easier for everyone. Great. Thank you. This will help Greg out release some time and so he can get out and boots. I call it boots on the ground. Did you say Jasine? Yes. Okay. Jasine. Great. Thank you. And and Greg, I'm going to ask you to mention this too because we talked about this this past week about the minor subdivisions being on the internet and Labella before planning board.

Uh yes, thank you mayor. So first per that point uh Jasine is is assisting the planning department part-time. We still have one planner. We are not hiring multiple planners. Correct. Uh make that clear for the record. Yes.

Um in regards to our uh items online, we've because we've strengthened our major subdivision regulations, we've had people apply for minor sub subdivision approvals instead. Minor subdivision being anything from six to two lots doing a minor subdivision to splitting a lot in half to doing kind of a really small culde-sac or things like that. Typically, they don't involve extra roads. they just involve splitting a lot that's on the existing road. Um, those are done administratively, but people are still questioning what's going on next to me, what's going on with my neighbor, that kind of thing. So, we have posted those online, including our other development proposals in an effort to be more transparent. Also, in an effort to be more transparent, um, we had, um, Bob Wilson with Leelle here tonight. um any development proposal that comes before you guys because of our new adoption of appendix 2B which has some pretty strict engineering standards. You know, things like, hey, does this this pond is it sized correctly? Does it have accurate calculations for how that water flows? Does it grade properly? Um those were brought up by our planning board um very recently in two meetings. Um, we're gonna have Bob attend basically every public meeting moving forward um to give expertise and guidance to not only our staff but to our elected officials when we make decisions. you'll have an engineer on staff to ask questions about it.

And and when a developer brings a project, it will go uh to Bob before it even comes to the planning board just to give a sort of just a look over, not that that detailed thing that they would do later on, but just a look over to make sure we're not missing anything. Correct. That's correct. So the the construction document phase, that's when we're looking at the giant roll of plans, which cost thousands of dollars, right?

Which we bill back to the developer. So we don't lose any money on that. That doesn't cost us anything. Um they're still going to do that, but uh in this case, we'll actually have uh the engineer look at the preliminary layout of projects, um for the expertise of the planning board. So when they're checking off boxes of does this meet appendix 2B, uh we have Lubell's guidance as well. Okay, good. Anything else uh you want to add? Yes, please. Staff received a request last week. Um

staff received a request last week. Um, the family of the Eagle Scout that installed the monument behind Town Hall for veterans, uh, the family of that vet of that Eagle Scout has offered to update it, but they needed help getting the names and they would like to get it updated by Veterans Day, which is why there was a deadline on the on the request. It will be an ongoing project. Okay. and I will continue to to take the names and all of that information from the veterans, but for now we're just trying to get as many as we can before Veterans Day this year. So, they were just wanting that deadline is just because they were wanting to get it done before Veterans Day, but you're you will continue on and I mean it's not like you know now or never.

That's it, right? Okay. Um and also, as I said earlier, I am working on getting uh proposals from website companies to update the website. Okay, that's it.

Okay, great. Thank you. Um Okay. Um transportation report. Um I've talked with DOT several times and just to let everyone know, uh we've talked about a couple times. Uh the railroad extension and the widening of 16. Uh we'll say it one more time, uh they're estimating that they're pretty confident that it's, you know, it keeps moving down and they've been talking about this forever, but they're they're like confident that it's going to start. They're already buying right away on on the railroad extension and even on 16. Uh they're confident it's going to start June July of 2029. It's still four years away, but uh they're confident it's going to start. They're already buying land up for this. Uh I've asked DOT to come give us a communitywide update on it. I mean, I'll I'll invite, you know, everybody involved, all the towns, municipalities that it touches, and but uh they I thought they were going to have it by now, but uh uh they're doing some tweaking on 16 here uh on the uh the Michigan left that's in front of Stratford and some stuff and I think some stuff down on Ray Road. They're they're going to tweak as well.

I can say something on the Ray Road. Okay. And uh and so hopefully before the end of the year, DOT will come in and give us this is what it is. And uh and they want to be pretty pretty pretty sure and and they're pretty dug in with what they've got. So I've been trying to get them to tweak and move and massage some stuff to I'm trying to protect people's homes. Uh especially in Stratford on Providence. I want the least amount of impact to those guys if possible. and and DOT guys are nice guys, but so we've been doing this tug-of-war type deal and they're pretty, you know, they're dug in, but I'm they're not giving up.

On Ray Road, um I believe it was Weddington Hills wanted a culde-sac instead of connection. Correct. And they have gotten that worked out. Yep. with the HOA and the land owner and the state to where I don't remember the name of the road, but it will it'll culdeac and that's what the neighborhood wanted and they have gotten that agreed to. Yeah, I was a part of that negotiating thing, right? The final final evidently just got done.

Yeah. No, that's good. And again, you know, I I I do think the widening of 16 and the railroad extension is needed. It's going to take about 10,000 cars a day off of this right here. Uh but I want I don't want it to impact uh as people as much as I'm trying to look for minimum impact on everybody. And that's and so we're playing again I use the term the tugof-war type deal and uh and so that's where we're at with it. So we'll see what we what we can do and I'm still trying to work on it. Um council uh comments as we start wrapping up and I just want to congratulate Greg and Karen. Two years ago when I saw that list, I never thought that we could close out 50% of those cases. So, thank you for your hard work and for being strong and collecting fines that good work. Thank you.

Yes, I agree. Thank you so much for your hard work on that. As always, thank you to our town staff and council and everyone that makes the wheels turn here in town hall. I wanted to take uh thank Rotary for the flags at 911. Y'all always make Weddington look so sharp on on days when it's important for Veterans Day.

Well, I look forward to that. Thank you so much to Rotary and I know that um former mayor has stepped out, but thank you to the Rotary for for doing that and making Weddington look good. Um, and then I wanted to I think Ren stepped outside, but circumstantially I ended up being in the elementary school when they went on um hard lockdown a couple weeks ago. I had gotten one of my children and I was walking down the hallway to meet another of my children that was in a classroom um and it was terrifying. And I think maybe some of it was that I was walking down the hallway and um there was a time in my life when I experienced um a terror a terrorist attack and I think those officers walking down the hallway with their big artillery and it was just so reminiscent. But this time I had my kids with me. Um and it was it was terrifying. And I just wanted to thank Ren and the the UCSO for their their work, their quick response, their disposition in the building, the way they made everyone feel and the way they carried out the operations there. It was um scary and it was seamless and I just um as a council member, but as a as a as a citizen and as a parent just very much appreciated that. So, I'll share that with Ren personally, but um I just think it's important to know that they were there, they did their job, and um they got got things moving along and the kids back on track for the rest of their day. And that's all I have.

Cool.

Um I guess I'll just agree with everything that's been said so far. All the accolades that have been given, they're all very welld deserved. What I'll add again is welcome Jasmine. uh if you look around at the ladies and gentlemen sitting here, you have joined a great team and you can learn a lot from them and please do that. Uh the last thing I would mention is that before we meet again, uh we will have an election and I would encourage everybody, I don't care who you are, what side you're on, get out and vote. That is a right that we pay a dear price for. do it.

Yeah. Y thank everybody who came out and actually stayed. It's always nice to see the people who stay to the bitter end to thank the staff for all their hard work. But I think we've come a long ways on many things and I keep looking forward to the financial updates each month and especially as we get farther through the year when we really get to see how things are shaping up. The first quarter is really the revenue is not coming in, the expenses are going out and whatever, but when it comes into that and welcome Devil, is that correct? Jasine, I'm sorry. I I got herinades in this room. I don't hear real well. Welcome and thank everybody for being here.

Yes. And I I want to say thank you as well. We we always go longer. I looked at the agenda and I thought, "Oh, we'll be out of there in 30 45 minutes." like I guess I jinxed myself, you know, and so uh so anyway, but no, a part of you like like uh Jeff was saying, you know, it's election time. You're going to see crazy stuff out there online. Stuff is exaggerated, stuff that's not true. And uh and if you have any questions, come talk to the staff, come talk to the council here, and we can tell you, we can set you straight on on things that's not accurate, whatever. I've even heard we weren't here recently, we're buying all the land over, including that house on the other side of this empty lot here that we own. We're buying that. We're building a multi-phase, multi-million dollar town hall. You know, there's crazy stuff out there. And that none of that stuff's true. And uh and even our part money, we're using taxpayer money to to to do that Leella study and none of that's true. We're using grant funds and that's correct. And so, u so there's a lot of misinformation out there is not true at all. If you have any questions, come ask the, you know, council staff and get clarification on some of the crazy stuff that you're hearing. So, but anyway, it's great to have uh have everybody here and thank you. And we're going to go into a close session to discuss some business matters here. So, let's uh we're going to pause for about 10 minutes. Let everybody clear out, then we'll go into our close session. Okay.

And can I get a motion to go into session? Okay. So, all in favor? All right. We have a unanimous vote. Thank you. We'll come back in just a few minutes.