Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Let's go.

We call the meeting to order the Wilmington City Council on this pre-agenda. We're gonna do a roll call real quick. Mayor Pro Tem, are you here?

Good morning.

Good morning. Councilmember Jordan, are you here? Good morning, I'm here. Councilmember Andrews, are you here?

Here.

Councilmember Lau?

Here.

Councilmember Santaguida?

Here.

Councilmember Clinton Quintana?

Here.

The chair's here. Everybody's here and accounted for. Presentations, we have two tomorrow night. One from the Board of the Thalian Art Association Community Arts Center and the other one is from the Wilmington Urban Metropolitan Planning Organization. Then we have the consent agenda. Item C1 is a resolution awarding the contract Environmental Services at Flemington Landfill to Geosyntec Consultants of NCPC.

Mr. Mayor.

Yes, ma'am.

I had a question about that one. Okay. Just what is the anticipated annual cost of this contract? What's the estimated cost over the original three years? And what could the total be if we exercise both extensions?

Sally Thigpen will address those questions.

Thank you. Good morning, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, City Council. To address your questions, we are going to have to go out for a scope and fee once this contract is awarded. We do think it's going to exceed the $90,000 limit over the three year period. I'm not exactly sure by how much.

Okay, so that'll come back to council.

It, I don't believe, well.

The, I meant, okay.

No, no, if you agree to this, then you're, um, then you're approving the contract and allowing the manager to negotiate the contract and the extensions. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Item C2 is a resolution authorizing the city manager to apply for $245,000 in boating and infrastructure grant funds with a proposed local match of 255,000 for the Hilton bulkhead corrosion repair project.

And Mr. Mayor, I just had a question about that too.

Yes, ma'am.

So I see that the minimum local match is 25%, but we're proposing 51%. I just wanted to have somebody explain how the higher match amount improves our competitiveness for the grant and whether staff considered a lower matching amount.

Justin Carter will address this. Thank you.

Thanks, ma'am. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, members of council. Yes, ma'am. We did consider a different match. So the maximum for the state is $300,000. So as you see, that's $55,000 more we could have asked for and shifted. As you look at what the proposed match is, we get bonus points in the grant for putting more in there. That's why we went to 51% because at 50% and below, It's actually in different thresholds. But I believe we get an extra four points out of a I think it's 35 point total or 38 point total. So when we looked at the rating system and trying to make ourselves as competitive as possible, we decided to go with 51%, which puts us at that 255, knowing that there wasn't too much difference in the additional 55,000 and it could hurt us from getting the grant period.

Good. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you. And then C3 is a resolution authorizing the manager to enter into an agreement with Piedmont Services Group LLC for HVAC and building automation control services for the Skyline Center. C4 is a resolution conditionally releasing drainage easements within the River Lights MX-1 drift at River Lights. And then C5 is a resolution authorizing a one year extension of the janitorial services contract with CSI International Income Skyline Center and 115 North 3rd Street.

Mr. Mayor. Yes, ma'am. I had a question about this one too. Yes, ma'am. What is our current annual cost for the Skyline Janitorial Services and what will the total annual contract be after adding 115 North 3rd?

I don't, we'll get those amounts for you. Okay. Before tomorrow night.

And then how much of the increase is specifically attributed to 115 North 3rd? That's fine.

C6 is a resolution authorizing interlocal agreement with New Hanover County and the New Hanover County Board of Education for school resource officers.

And Mr. Mayor.

Yes, ma'am.

This is the last one, I promise. Go ahead. I need, this one I had a lot of questions on. Can someone walk us through the complete cost sharing arrangement and what is the total projected annual cost of these four officers? How much does the Board of Education pay? How much does New Hanover County pay? And what's the city's net cost?

So I know that we do not have all of those figures at hand. In general, Chief Zutema, would you be able to walk through the general format of the arrangement?

Good morning, Mr. Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, members of council. So we provide four school resource officers to J.C. Rowe, Williston, Hoggard, and Hanover. Right now, I believe the number is somewhere right around 69,000 that's reimbursed by the county. Council Member Andrews, I'm not sure which portion of that comes from the county or comes from the school board, but all that does come from the county. They're there to supplement resource officers that are already in the schools that the Sheriff's Office provides. We believe it's a good arrangement for us for a couple reasons. One, it helps us understand what's going on in the schools that may spill over into the community after school lets out. It also helps us educate the schools on what happened in the community maybe the night before that could then impact what happens in the school that day. So this has been a longstanding relationship between us and the county, something I would certainly continue to do. And obviously we can get the numbers that the manager spoke about to answer your questions.

Okay. And Madam Manager, the one The financial question is, why is the school system's contribution capped at 69,914 if it's supposed to represent one third of the actual costs? And is this the same cost sharing formula that we've used in previous years or has anything changed in the agreement?

Sure, so what I can answer at this point in time is that this number has not changed in years and years and years. And so this was something that came up during the budget process. And we looked at the contract and we were too far in the process to go back and ask the school system to adjust the numbers for FY27 because they were far in their budget process. But our intention is to go back and ask for it to be adjusted starting in FY28. So we plan to max out the $69,914 for FY26 and then would look to continue with the one-third agreement regardless of the increase in cost to be seeking that starting in FY28 forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. And then C7 is a resolution authorizing changes to the pay calendar for the mayor and council. And then C8 is approval of the minutes of council's agendas meetings. And then public information, public hearings, ordinances. 01A is an ordinance appropriating $68,853 from the sale of the Sable assets to the Sable-UAS program. And then 01B is a resolution declaring certain Sable helicopter equipment as surplus property to be donated to the Brunswick County Sheriff's Office. And then resolutions R1 is a resolution authorizing city manager to tune into an agreement with Brad WHA, Dawson Lofts to apartments LLC for gap financing for new affordable housing development utilizing 1,500,000 of the affordable housing fund.

I have a question about this one, Mr. Mayor.

Yes, ma'am.

Go ahead. Is it typical with an item like this asking for funding that we would see plans along with the ask?

I will have Gilbert Combs address that.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor, Mayor Patel, members of council, ma'am. Through the LIHTC, so this is also going to be a LIHTC project through the state, North Carolina Housing Finance Agency. Generally, they're gonna provide some sort of site plans, some elevations, similar to what we see for rezoning. Is that something that you all would like to see?

Yeah, it's not in our packet and I'm specifically interested when we're contributing funds to projects like this, which I think we should do as much as we can. I want to know as soon as possible what the plans for the site are and what that's going to look like and ensure that it's in line with our vision for the city. If we're going to be contributing funds, I just want to make sure that we're in line with ourselves there.

Yes, ma'am. Yeah, thank you. I'll get that to you. Thanks.

Ms. Low, did you have a question, too?

Yes, I wanted to see also the pot of money this is coming from. I know in the action plan, there was the annual allotment, and also the applicant had asked for more. And these LIHTC budgets are really, really, really tight. And they don't happen without local support, even though there's a lot of federal support coming through the state for them. So I would like to see where the affordable housing general funds is right now, and if there's any other, like, I know we don't have that much CDBG in home funds, but taking a look at what we're planning to do with that more specifically maybe than was in the action plan or updated action plan so that we can see, like, the whole picture, not just one applicant. Yes, ma'am. I'll bring those balances. Thanks. Okay.

Thank you. And then we have R2's resolution awarding a construction contract in the amount of $2,430,217 to Highland Paving Company LLC for the construction of phase two of the Eastwood Road Access Management Project. And then R3 is a resolution awarding a construction contract in the amount of $4,378,734 to King Asphalt Incorporated and approving the associated contingency fund for the Dawson and Wooster Streetscape Improvement Project. And then RP1 is our Reports of Council's Appointments, Committees for Boards and Commissions. And this concludes this portion of the agenda. Any further items, Bureau of Forward?

We have no presentations this morning.

Anybody else? Okay. Mr. Mayor? Yes, ma'am.

I know that this weekend we've had a lot of rain pouring down on us. And I've noticed there has been several reports of flooding on Dawson and Wooster. What I'd like to know if any of the staff members can assist me in this is, what is the cause of the reoccurring flooding?

The locations in particular, Mr. Gordon?

17th.

And we have some engineers here.

Okay. Rob can give us at least some level of explanation, thank you.

Well, I don't have much of an explanation, but I'm happy to look into it. I don't know.

Okay, so what I'd like to know is what's causing the flooding? in the capacity of the existing stormwater. I noticed that there are a lot of drains along the side of the road that are clogged, and this is coming from leaves, pine needles, things of that nature. It could also be trimmings from trees. All of those things are causing that water to back up. Now that's what I see on the surface. I don't know what it looks like in our drains, but I would like to see that addressed immediately. There are a lot of pictures that people are posting where they're driving through water that is as high as the undercarriage of their cars. So, I mean, and I have one to show you from this past weekend if you need to see that. But can we look in that as soon as, look into that as soon as possible?

I will, yes. I'll work with our operations staff to get your response on that. Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Anybody else? Okay. With that, we stand adjourned.