[0:00] meeting of monday june the 14th 2021 to order

[0:05] i would like to welcome all of you that are here tonight

[0:08] and those that are following us via social media

[0:12] we welcome you also and we will give you a chance during citizens to be heard

[0:18] by calling in uh this number uh so write it down you gotta print some

[0:24] paper it's

[0:29] 4 980-522-747 5 and cynthia uh manning the telephone and she will

[0:36] keep you on hold until citizens to be heard at that time

[0:41] and we will allow you to speak again that number

[0:45] is

[0:57] lowe of 980-522-7475 presbyterian church followed by our pledge of allegiance

[1:03] you see i'm delighted to be here and uh it's great to be in a city where we

[1:08] still ask god's blessing on what we're doing

[1:13] uh i want to read just a passage from luke chapter 17

[1:18] verse 10. in the same way when you obey me you should say we are unworthy

[1:26] servants who have simply done our duty i think about gail

[1:32] sayers you know when i read that gail sayers was a

[1:36] tremendous football player played for the chicago bears and before that he

[1:40] played for kansas and um one of the things that

[1:45] highlights his life and who he is for us here in north carolina is that

[1:51] he roomed with a with a pro player who was from played well he

[1:58] played football at wake forest brian piccolo and uh

[2:02] we've seen that move years ago kind of kind of dates me when i say

[2:06] i saw it when it come on tv the first time but

[2:09] uh gail sayers was a tremendous christian individual and he lived this

[2:17] all of his life in fact a long time after

[2:20] his friendship with brian piccolo uh was you know in the in the distance because

[2:25] brian had passed away he wrote a book about that experience

[2:29] and he entitled it my god is first my friends are second and i am third

[2:35] and that started the i am third movement uh just on a unofficial kind of

[2:42] a way made its way into colleges and also

[2:46] uh in the high schools and we saw high school and college athletes with a

[2:51] with a shirt oftentimes it said on there i am third

[2:54] you know emphasizing that you know the goal of any

[2:59] college or professional baseball player is to help their team help their team

[3:08] win the championship game at the end of the season we know what we're talking

[3:12] about here uh cheryl is well on its way

[3:18] we know it takes dedication it takes strength and it takes a good

[3:22] measure of teamwork to get to that point in recent years however there's become

[3:29] sort of a fad across our society to move away

[3:34] from that teamwork to the outstanding individual performance that a single

[3:41] player brings of course we all know uh you can

[3:46] you can be uh a pitcher that has a no hitter but if that right outfielder

[3:52] out there is sleeping or got his mind in arkansas and his uh whistling

[3:57] dixie out there when it comes time a fly ball is hit out

[4:01] there but no hitter's gone he's not paying

[4:04] attention but if he catches it he keeps that

[4:06] he keeps that picture on a no-hitter so but in our day and time there seems to

[4:13] be uh this this trend to move toward the

[4:17] individual getting all the praise and getting all

[4:20] the credit sports figures rarely avoid the

[4:24] spotlight these days so when they hit the microphone they

[4:28] have they have an opportunity to exhibit

[4:34] a key leadership trait they can brag about and boast about

[4:39] their own personal accomplishments they can criticize other teams talk

[4:45] about their players or they can make sure that

[4:49] everyone on that team the team that they represent

[4:54] gets the credit that he or she deserves the ability to deflect praise toward

[5:02] those who deserve it is important for a number of reasons

[5:07] it's a good principle not only for sports but for

[5:10] every part of life giving credit to others

[5:14] keeps us you see from being conceited and self-absorbed

[5:20] in addition it allows those who have a contributing role

[5:25] to experience the success as well praising others also shows our personal

[5:32] desire to be a servant to be a true mark

[5:36] of leadership uh that this attitude is not one that comes naturally to people

[5:41] we all like to be what number one we stick that finger up there so often

[5:47] it's not the team is number one anymore it's i'm number one

[5:51] you know i'm number one and uh to this end we must commit ourselves to god

[5:56] daily asking not asking him to help us

[6:01] not live a life that reflects that selfish conceited kind of character

[6:08] if we're constantly looking for glory and praise

[6:11] from significant christians then our priorities are wrong and the same is

[6:15] true if we choose to give god and others praise but in a show look at

[6:20] me kind of matter you know too often

[6:24] god says you know we know it's a spiritual gift when you do something and

[6:28] you don't have to talk about it but uh jesus made it clear that we are

[6:33] to simply do the things that he asks us to do and reflect any

[6:38] praise we might receive away from others

[6:42] after all we're only doing what he's called us to do

[6:45] right weren't you called to represent the city of charitable was it a calling

[6:52] sure we're only doing what he asked but in the end that's more

[6:58] important than any honor or any award individually

[7:03] that we'll ever receive gail sayers died you know

[7:10] just not long ago but his lasting tribute was not on

[7:15] how many touchdowns he ran and how many yards he made for the chicago bears or

[7:20] for kansas university jayhawks it was this was a christian man who lived his

[7:27] faith for the glory of god let us pray

[7:31] lord we come to you this day and we pray that our calling might be ever evident

[7:37] now in the way that we conduct this meeting

[7:40] and the way that we go about the business of the day representing

[7:46] the citizens here the lord above all else

[7:49] representing you in this citizenship may we uh continue to give all the

[7:56] credit honor and glory to you who gives us so many good things

[8:01] that if we were to sit and count them it would take us

[8:06] a long long time in jesus name bless us now as we go forward amen

[8:12] amen

[8:16] i pledge allegiance to the divide of the united states of america

[8:21] and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible

[8:28] with liberty and justice for all you may be

[8:32] [Music]

[8:39] the seated item on our agenda tonight is to approve the agenda as

[8:45] president right uh do i have direction from council

[8:50] on the agenda approval

[8:55] [Music]

[9:00] and approve the agenda as presented all in favor please say aye

[9:06] all opposed there is none okay item 5 is approval

[9:11] of the minutes of a our city council meeting of may the 10th 2021

[9:17] b our city council work session meeting of may the 25th 2021

[9:24] and see our city council closed session meeting of may the 25th 2021

[9:33] and you did get a handout of our city council closed session meeting of

[9:38] may the 25th uh what is the council's pleasure on

[9:41] approval of the minutes of uh all three

[9:46] make a motion to approve amendments as

[9:51] okay you have a motion to approve all the minutes as

[9:55] presented of a b and c uh any discussion if not all in favor of the motion please

[10:01] say i'll oppose and there is none

[10:07] we'll now go to the mayor's comments and um first of all i would like to say

[10:14] that it's good to look over to my left and see our city manager is with us

[10:19] tonight he has been through some health issues and i

[10:23] know it was a scary event for you and your family as well but we're glad

[10:28] to see you here and we're glad that you're feeling

[10:31] better and we had a lot of prayers to fill up for

[10:35] you

[10:38] and um i'll begin my comments by sharing several recent correspondences

[10:46] the first is a card i received in response to the may the 20th

[10:51] plaque dedication and the city's abc building naming and it reads as follows

[10:58] dear mayor and members of the city council

[11:01] on behalf of my family we would again express our appreciation

[11:05] for your dedication of the abc store building

[11:09] in memory of terry terry loved cherryvale

[11:13] and wanted to see her grow and prosper the a b store has been able to do that

[11:20] by its contributions each year thank you for your kind words

[11:24] and caring for someone very special in appreciation

[11:29] and thanks janet fisher and the family of terry

[11:33] fish fisher and i'll pass that around to our council members

[11:38] the second one uh i also received a thank you card from

[11:44] the uh family of gene outer whole bean thank you

[11:50] sincerely for sharing our sorrow her kindness is deeply appreciated and

[11:54] will always be remembered and finally i received an

[12:00] email i want to share from the north carolina

[12:02] department of transportation memorial day starts the 100th deadliest

[12:10] days of the year for teenage drivers in other words

[12:14] more teenagers are killed in automobile crashes between memorial day and labor

[12:20] day than any other 100 day period during the

[12:25] year the dot of north carolina urges all

[12:29] government leaders to emphasize the three leading

[12:33] causes of traffic fatalities and they are not wearing a seat belt

[12:40] impaired driving and speeding your city officials ask all drivers to

[12:47] slow down avoid distractions when driving and

[12:51] buckle up at all times this past

[12:55] thursday public works director brandon abernathy

[12:58] finance director dixie wall assistant fire chief jason walford

[13:04] engineer riesel ryden's son and i met with patrick brindle

[13:09] an associate of piedmont lithium for an update on the status of locating their

[13:15] facility within our city's etj which is the

[13:19] extra territorial jurisdiction this meeting was to discuss the impact

[13:25] of the future development of piedmont lithium

[13:28] and what if any role our city would play in their future needs

[13:34] and later on that day i was asked to attend the cherryville little league

[13:40] championship game and i was so honored to attend that event and speak on behalf

[13:47] of our city in support of our little league and i

[13:51] see chad cash is with us tonight y'all do a

[13:55] wonderful job on that we appreciate it we understand

[13:58] that the district will be held later this month in

[14:03] cherryville we will be hosting the district

[14:06] we will also be hosting the girls softball state tournament sometime

[14:12] in july and also in july we will be hosting the american

[14:18] legion state playoffs so you see cherryville is living up to

[14:23] its name of being the big baseball city

[14:27] now the city's independence day celebration

[14:31] will be held on july the 2nd 2021 in the mini park beginning at 6 00 pm

[14:38] the band too much sylvia will be headlining

[14:42] this event with primarily beach music the primary lead vocalist steve long won

[14:49] the prestigious male vocalist of the year in 2020

[14:54] with the carolina beach music association

[14:58] the city and association with the cherryville

[15:01] chamber of commerce invites all of our citizens

[15:04] and visitors as well to join in in this celebration and enjoy one of the

[15:11] biggest fireworks displays in the surrounding area lots of food

[15:17] vendors and entertainment for children of

[15:19] all ages will be available throughout the event

[15:23] so bring your lawn chairs and come early fireworks will begin around 10 p.m

[15:30] weather permitting and this concludes our mayor's comments our next item on

[15:37] the agenda is our citizens to be heard and

[15:42] any citizen that wishes to speak may do so by coming to the podium and stating

[15:47] your name and address and before you speak comments will be

[15:52] strictly held to five minutes per person we also have uh

[15:58] cynthia cash manning the telephone have you had any calls

[16:02] for citizens to be heard so at this time if there is any citizen that would like

[16:07] to be heard that's present you may do so at

[16:10] this time

[16:30] um we currently have seven kids living in the house

[16:35] and uh since birthday went up um his people have been speeding them down the

[16:39] street and uh i've even caught two police cars

[16:42] doing like six to seven miles an hour on a little strip

[16:45] of the street one side of the street said slow down kids

[16:50] and the other side that comes up the main road there's nothing so when people

[16:54] come to the street because they don't want to

[16:57] catch that red light whatever kids that's out on the bikes in

[17:00] the street constantly

[17:03] like i catch them i'll yell something i'll catch them slow down

[17:08] i don't i don't feel like fighting at my house this is where i live

[17:14] i was wondering if you guys would

[17:19] [Music]

[17:26] certainly that wouldn't be a problem at all our police chiefs here

[17:30] if he wants to address that we can maybe put our

[17:34] speeding speed limit signs up there or we could uh do a patrol in that area

[17:40] yes all right comment that you would like to make and that's what's going to

[17:44] mention if you want to step in here if you get done and i'll talk to you about

[17:47] that we'll put up we have a radar sign that displays the

[17:51] speed it'll give us a print off at least

[17:53] something about that come off the main road all right

[17:56] that's like the last thing i want to come home from work and

[18:02] well those signs tend to work wherever we put them

[18:05] it slows the people down and then they don't realize whether they're still

[18:09] there so uh that that reduces their speed

[18:14] also so uh if you'll talk to the chief there

[18:18] uh maybe in the kitchen area and he'll be able to help

[18:41] up a whole bunch of uh trees out and they didn't pick up the trees they left

[18:46] there in the parking lot i used to run a tractor i got a like

[18:49] little tread to blow my attractors and i run and bite that even though it's not a

[18:53] land i just don't want you breathing in the

[18:56] yard something comes up from underneath the

[18:59] fence because the grass is like this but i i i don't want to go down there i

[19:05] don't know what's in there okay we'll report that to our public

[19:08] works director and let him uh when i go to pay the electric bill i

[19:12] usually tell the lady but i don't know who i should talk to and

[19:16] i've been talking to people well actually if you talk to one of

[19:20] those girls they can write up a work order

[19:23] to take care of that they came right you did the right thing

[19:26] yeah that's i didn't know that's why my first time

[19:30] all right thanks for coming thank you for coming i can address that issue that

[19:35] the gentleman is talking about that was not city services that

[19:39] uh relocated that debris it was a private citizen

[19:43] who had a uh septic or whale or yeah something happened they were

[19:47] digging over there and they took the

[19:50] trees

[20:04] it is his responsibility with the city i'm not going to pick that up i used to

[20:09] run the tractor up and down over there just to keep it short

[20:12] because the kids are out there all the time and just

[20:15] filed up i'm not going up there

[20:28] this side of the railroad track i mean

[20:37] right okay any other citizen that would like to be heard

[20:42] at this time floor no phone calls

[20:53] okay if not we will move on to our next item and that's out of 8 which

[20:59] is recognition of city clerk paige greene and paige

[21:06] i'll just embarrass you a little bit and just ask you to stand i won't ask you to

[21:09] come forward but i received this

[21:14] from the state of north carolina association of municipal clerks

[21:18] and it said uh paige h green city clerk of the city of cherryvale

[21:24] north carolina has been awarded for the second time the

[21:28] prestigious designation of north carolina

[21:31] certified municipal clerk from the north carolina association of municipal clerks

[21:37] along with the school of government of the university of north carolina

[21:43] at chapel hill for achieving its high educational experience and service

[21:49] requirements as an established member of the north

[21:52] carolina association of municipal clerk mrs green was among the class of

[21:57] municipal clerks from north carolina who received their

[22:02] initial state designation in 2016 and after meeting

[22:07] extensive continuing education requirements

[22:11] has been awarded the north carolina certified municipal clerk

[22:15] designation which will continue through july 2026.

[22:22] the ncamc is a professional organization of city town and village clerks from

[22:29] across the state dedicated to the continued growth and

[22:33] development of clerks and their municipalities was established

[22:38] on november 5th 1975 the association

[22:42] among other things promotes educational and professional development

[22:47] opportunities for municipal clerks to enhance their knowledge

[22:51] and effectiveness this is no small task considering the wide array of duties

[22:57] performed by municipal clerks which often vary from municipality to

[23:03] municipality the association partners with the north carolina

[23:08] league of municipalities the school of government of the university of north

[23:12] carolina at chapel hill and the international institute of

[23:16] municipal clerks to meet the needs of each individual

[23:21] municipal clerk the north carolina certified municipal

[23:25] clerk program is a five-year designation with

[23:28] requirements for continuing education to sustain and develop the ever-changing

[23:35] knowledge of the profession of municipal clerks

[23:38] the na mc together with the international

[23:42] institute of municipal clerks strives to promote educational and

[23:47] professional development to enhance the clerk

[23:50] this certification program was developed with the assistance

[23:54] of the un school of government at chapel hill

[23:58] and will be administered in cooperation with the school of government

[24:02] qualifications of applicants excuse me are reviewed and approved by the ncamc

[24:10] state certification committee

[24:16] congratulations

[24:21] next item on the agenda item nine is consideration of our 160d

[24:27] updates to the zoning ordinance and subdivision ordinance

[24:32] and we have our planning and zoning director derek mackey here

[24:36] and if you'll go to pages 26 through 60 in your agenda packets

[24:44] we will uh address that at this time so you have it forward there basically

[24:50] in october of last year the city took the contract with central line

[24:54] council to update our voters this has been mandated by the state of quran and

[24:59] basically what it says the new chapter 160d of north carolina jones statue

[25:03] consolidates current city of county labor statutes

[25:06] for development regulations into a single unified

[25:09] chapter chapter 163 places these statutes into

[25:12] more logical coherent organizations while the new law

[25:15] does not make major positive changes to shift the scope of

[25:18] authority grants globally in other words basically most of the

[25:21] terminology which could be seen with the county

[25:24] and the municipalities they're not going to change any of the core

[25:27] of our ordinance now but just make it more uniform

[25:31] it's going to be adopted by july of this year okay and uh we

[25:37] went through this in work session it's more just bookkeeping

[25:41] and terminology changing wording of what is m160 does any of the council

[25:48] members have any questions about the updates to the zoning ordinance

[25:53] if not i need direction from council to accept these updates

[25:58] we need to vote on that emotionally accept the update

[26:06] okay i have a motion in a second to accept the updates to the zoning

[26:11] ordinance and subdivision ordinance any other discussion by any council

[26:16] members if not all in favor of the motion please

[26:20] say aye all opposed there is none okay we'll

[26:25] move on to item 10 and i think uh this you can just stay up there derek

[26:31] this is consideration of the ordinance to demolish

[26:37] gis number 130249 which is located at 506 west 2nd street

[26:45] and uh for those that do not recognize that address that was

[26:52] known as the john l mcginnis parcel which now due to his death goes

[27:00] to his heirs at 100 terrace uh

[27:07] we would need uh direction on that also there you go

[27:13] that doesn't give you one 100k that's my address

[27:33] okay so were you handling some of this for them i was

[27:37] handling some of it until he passed okay yeah and i did i was just like what you

[27:44] just said that he didn't was another something he did some

[27:48] research and you thought that you know i tried to correct enough but basically

[27:52] is this house caught on fire january last

[27:55] year and if you've got the pictures you can

[27:57] see what kind of shape it is it's totally demolished

[28:15] we've done everything we can to notify the current owners i think they even

[28:18] missed the house that we're just going to search on before

[28:21] we can't find anyone like i said they didn't find someone in australia

[28:25] okay all right to sum this up uh you have that

[28:33] in front of you the ordinance to demolish

[28:37] uh and it would be now therefore be it today

[28:40] ordained by the council that section one the code enforcement officers should

[28:45] cause the dwelling or house to be demolished

[28:49] and all resulting debris and overgrown vegetation be disposed of

[28:55] and section two is the cost of said demolition

[28:58] clearance disposal and all enforcement shall be a

[29:02] lien on the premises to be collected pursuant to chapter

[29:09] 168-443 parentheses six of the north carolina

[29:13] general statutes section three a copy of this ordinance

[29:17] certified as a true copy by the town clerk

[29:20] shall be recorded in the gaston county registry pursuant to the north carolina

[29:25] general statute 168-443 for ephesus 5 and section 4

[29:34] this ordinance shall become affected upon its adoption

[29:38] and the adoption would be through council this

[29:41] um what day of may

[29:46] do you have the day of may 2021 it's just 2015 of march 221.

[29:55] okay so i would need direction from council to accept this

[30:02] uh resolution uh this consideration of ordinance to

[30:07] demolish this structure

[30:17] accept the resolution

[30:25] okay i have a motion in a second to accept the

[30:29] ordinance to demolish said property any other discussion by any council

[30:34] member if not all in favor of this motion

[30:37] please say aye all opposed seriousness thank you

[30:45] we'll move on to item 11 and this is consideration of a resolution to

[30:51] adopt a policy for mutual aid assistance with

[30:56] other law enforcement agencies this is on pages 67 and 68.

[31:04] and i think that is part two of your uh agenda packets tonight

[31:11] and we have our police chief here to summarize this resolution

[31:18] mr mayor this is a central iowa council of governments has a mutual aid

[31:23] agreement that we've been a part of as long as i can remember but it's due

[31:28] every so many years you have to remove that

[31:30] and what this allows is this year they're asking for a resolution by city

[31:34] council and also i will have to submit a

[31:37] signature page to central iowa council governments

[31:40] and basically what it does is it allows us to work in conjunction with

[31:44] assistance from any law enforcement agency if the need rises

[31:49] some things we use it for just like the fourth of july festival's coming up

[31:52] we're going to have the mobile command unit here to help

[31:55] block streets and sheriff's office we use it for that

[31:59] if if another hc needs assistance uh with any type of mass incident we're

[32:04] able to send officers there to help so that's what this resolution is pretty

[32:07] much saying we're accepting that we'll take the assistance if someone

[32:11] will give it and we can offer assistance as well

[32:16] okay and again that was in your agenda package

[32:20] i have a hard copy here but we will need action from council on that also to

[32:28] adopt this policy or this this accept this resolution

[32:32] on adopting the policy for the mutual and assisted aid with other law

[32:36] enforcement agencies nationally accepted

[32:42] okay i have a motion and a second to accept the resolution adopting the

[32:47] policy for mutual and assistance aid with other law enforcement agencies

[32:52] uh any other discussion about council members

[32:56] if not all in favor of the motion please say aye

[33:00] i'll oppose there is none thank you chief thank you mayor

[33:03] kelly's uh i'm not going to mention this but we sent two police officers

[33:23] carried her quite a distance and it was told that she was non-verbal and then

[33:28] all of a sudden she said put me down yes yes after they carried her all that

[33:33] way but yes it was uh officer schuyler and lieutenant brandon

[33:37] parker and they actually just did a story on it on news 14

[33:41] last week i believe all right good job good job okay

[33:48] we'll move on to uh item 12 and this is our public period in

[33:54] reference to consideration to adopt the fiscal year

[33:58] 2021 2022 proposed budget and i would need a motion from

[34:05] the council that we go into public hearing at this time

[34:11] okay city council is now in public hearing

[34:16] uh i think

[34:32] uh i'm sorry that's my fault uh do us all in favor of going into public

[34:39] hearing uh say i please oppose there is none thank you council

[34:48] okay and now we will discuss uh the budget uh city uh

[34:55] manager do you have any synopsis you want to give us on it or

[34:59] uh i'll read my multi-page letter or hit the highlights which do you prefer

[35:04] hopefully you've already read the two and a half page letter

[35:08] so if you'll let me hit the highlights there and get the citizens and those

[35:11] watching an idea what this year's budget composes off and uh if you have any

[35:16] questions that i can't answer i will just make it up and go as it goes

[35:21] or i will call big signal she's on standby

[35:24] because she's in theater school but she's

[35:27] on the youtube and on telephone standby well the only thing i'm aware

[35:32] of there was a change on our expenditure and that was under the downtown electric

[35:39] improvement including pink street and depot

[35:42] underground and we had it down on here as 220 000 and it was changed to 300

[35:49] 000. another little chance if you allowed me no

[35:52] recommended tax increase the first thing a revenue change for us we are

[35:58] increasing some planning and zoning fees and the community building rental fee

[36:03] and that's the only increases we're recommending expenditures uh

[36:08] we are not going to be able to fund a lot of things because we've made

[36:11] priority this year the bond project and all the renovations going on

[36:16] downtown with the sewer rehab the water and sewer line

[36:20] and the downtown revitalization this is the second year of our

[36:24] salary implementation and we needed some equipment so

[36:28] i'll get some of these and keep in mind a couple of things that's affected the

[36:32] general fund due to the auditor's recommendation

[36:36] we'll be moving the main street program salaries director back to the general

[36:42] fund away from elected fund which we mentioned to you earlier uh

[36:47] police department we were not able to fund

[36:50] the things that cam needed with the exception of the lease car payment

[36:54] uh he's got some serious roof problems evident storage

[36:58] need and body cam platform computerized information

[37:04] however back in march of last year i sent senator burr's office a letter

[37:11] asking for any type of funding and i got that call about four hours ago

[37:17] that they want more information and they're interested in

[37:21] give them a couple of choices and the police department is one of those to

[37:25] have a special appropriation from the u.s congress that would not be

[37:30] you would not have to pay nothing back so i hope to hear from that in the next

[37:34] few days so my first priority would be for the

[37:37] police department and that's probably around

[37:40] 30 to 40 000 maybe a little more with some

[37:43] ada issues the fire department we did not fund the defibrillators but as you

[37:48] well aware we had a generous benefactor to buy six brand new defibrillators for

[37:53] our fire apparatus public works no real changes street

[37:58] we had half of the budget but we found out we can replace the street sweeper

[38:03] with paddle build money so we're going to put it back in the

[38:06] budget and utilize powder money we do have some paving on the north side

[38:11] of town that we're going to look at and a couple storm drains

[38:14] that are our responsibility sanitation at the recommendation

[38:18] of the auditor has also been moved uh from the general fund to a

[38:24] self-supported utility fund and all these are affected

[38:28] especially the way the general fund typically looks recreation they had

[38:33] several requests we were not able to fund those

[38:36] the cemetery the scattering grounds we were not

[38:39] there are some electrical changes and i think we'll be very proud to hear this

[38:43] especially mr freeman this year we will

[38:47] provide for our residential customers a five percent

[38:52] electric discount so in the past three years there will be a total of seven

[38:56] percent discount to residential customers

[39:00] commercial no change industrial no change we're going to have some slight

[39:04] changes in the op-12 and cp98 rider which is some of our

[39:09] newer larger facilities that have never been

[39:13] put on the proper appropriate rate schedule and y'all know

[39:17] the ones that i'm talking about while we're under that uh our revenue

[39:22] changes i'd like to comment too that newpower had asked for a i've heard a 13

[39:30] increase then i heard a 9 but it basically got down

[39:34] to they're going up 5 so we're going down 5

[39:40] new powers going up 5 so that tells you how concerned these

[39:45] people are up here about what our utility bills are and where

[39:49] they're going so we're going to keep going as far as we

[39:52] can to help our citizens and uh we're going to probably get on a

[39:57] level play and field with duke power even

[40:00] better in the future so i just wanted to make that comment here i'd like to point

[40:03] out that we're already on the same level as most of our sister cities and we're

[40:07] beginning to creep closer to some of the other larger

[40:12] power agencies so we continue to chill

[40:15] chisel away at that um there's some repairs

[40:19] that the electric compartment that the mayor mentioned and we thought was going

[40:22] to be around a quarter of a million but it's going to

[40:24] be 300 000 um we are going to uh

[40:30] look at some administrative stuff we got the debt service that we're going to

[40:34] start paying the bonds back with and this year it will be 169 000 on the

[40:39] first payment and we do have to connect with lincoln

[40:43] uh we have the blackrock improvements that schedule that water line to go to

[40:47] that subdivision repair it to pump station the one that

[40:51] serves re roll for the electric and then a

[40:55] compound water needs a plant and a new pickup for that department

[41:00] uh the water plant they need to replace a high surface pump

[41:04] it's been in service a long time but we simply did not have the funding to do

[41:07] that and push that to other income that we

[41:10] may be experiencing uh the wastewater plant larry's

[41:14] department needs a roof on bowel or pumping station

[41:17] and a brand new generator because the other generator

[41:20] has had seven heart attacks and two strokes

[41:24] all funds again and salary adjustments are in there

[41:28] i recommended a one and a half percent cost of living increase

[41:32] which is on the lower side of many of these cities

[41:35] in our area um and our health insurance is going up on our employees

[41:40] five percent dental 2.62 we have an increase in local government

[41:46] of one and one point two percent from five

[41:51] point one from 10.15 i'm sorry to 11.35 which

[41:55] is mandated by the general assembly and the treasury

[41:58] department and the law enforcement so we pay for cam uh 1.2 percent

[42:03] increase which goes from 10.90 to 12.10 so we're having to incur

[42:09] some additional fringe benefit costs to the city that we have no real control

[42:13] over some other notes we are into the second year of the three-year cost of

[42:19] salary adjustment i did mention the one and a half percent

[42:22] cost of living raise and i am requesting for the first time

[42:26] to get competitive with other cities and other governmental agencies

[42:30] that we move our longevity pay from cash to a percent of an individual's year of

[42:35] service when dixie ran the numbers it was not a lot of money to begin with

[42:40] but the percentage seemed to be a little more fair to the

[42:43] employees in the cash benefit and when we did this hour study

[42:49] we're trying to get everybody on the same level

[42:51] what separate those long tenured employees

[42:54] is the longevity pay that's where they're

[42:58] rewarded for their loyalty and that's why we recommend it to getting to a

[43:02] percentage and mayor that pretty well hits the

[43:05] highlights and my letter covered the other smaller items and if

[43:09] you've got any questions i'll do my best to answer them okay

[43:14] we're now open for questions do i have any questions from any

[43:19] staff member citizen or council member at this time just like to

[43:26] say i appreciate you getting that five percent decrease in the electric

[43:31] rate i know you worked hard to get that our staff

[43:35] especially dixie and brandon worked hard to advise

[43:38] me you know i was very concerned about it and somebody

[43:42] mentioned seven percent

[43:46] five percent of where we said but the hardware goes for dixie

[43:50] and brandon and dixie is on the right committee so she pushed hard to keep

[43:55] lakerson's race okay and we need her like since she's

[43:59] made her school we can get her own and we've had a decrease

[44:07] this will be five percent the coming year last year as you said was

[44:11] two the year zero last year zero then we had two percent a year

[44:17] before two percent year before zero year before that so

[44:22] we're trying to get there and uh we will eventually

[44:27] to all our citizens we want you to know that we we feel for you

[44:31] we're working hard as we can we're making cuts where we can

[44:34] and we hope we'll have that as good a news

[44:38] uh next year at this time or for our next budget

[44:42] but uh anyone have any questions in regard to the budget i've got uh

[44:49] one thing that i'd like to bring up is uh

[44:54] we're incenting some of our equipment to be worked on

[45:00] and seemed like we keep having equipment

[45:04] down what i would like to ask this council to

[45:09] do is to add a full-time mechanic

[45:13] at 20 an hour that would help keep our equipment up

[45:19] and that way we could bring all vehicles and all equipment

[45:23] in-house that we wouldn't have to go outside

[45:27] to have anything down outside so that would require a

[45:35] amendment make an amendment to a hiring full-time mechanic at twenty

[45:41] dollars an hour for 40-hour workweek

[45:46] full time research whatever experience the certified mechanic can

[45:53] get one to twenty dollars now yes we can so this has already been

[45:58] discussed there's true a possibility yeah so this individual

[46:03] been hired already no so that would be definitely making an

[46:08] amendment to our budget now uh speaking as

[46:13] as mayor we do outsource a good bit of our

[46:18] i think one of our problems is one part goes to this mechanic

[46:25] one goes to this mechanic and it's sort of who they favor

[46:29] and if we did have an in-house mechanic all the work from the water plant waste

[46:34] water treatment plant for public works from sanitation we

[46:39] could bring them all in and say there's not a choice anymore

[46:42] we've got a full-time mechanic uh all the work will go to that and

[46:48] i'm going to tell you by looking at some of the checks

[46:51] i think the city would actually save money on this i'm not sure dixie would

[46:56] be the one that could give you more information on that

[46:59] but this would require direction from

[47:05] council to make amendment to our budget and we would have to

[47:11] uh have dixie to present that to us uh you could actually mayor approve this

[47:18] budget if that's your desire contingent on those dollars being added

[47:37] for sure before we do that but we're still open for public hearing yeah

[47:43] my only question can i still speak to that

[47:47] because we've had a budget work session all day

[47:51] and i don't know why i just don't know that this is the time to place

[47:54] it through something like that in the budget we went all day long

[47:59] to discuss these things i would think that would be the most appropriate place

[48:03] for that i don't understand watch this all of a

[48:05] sudden come back it wasn't brought up in the

[48:07] workstation and i worked i was i was there

[48:14] i remember being brought up but why didn't we include it then

[48:20] we didn't feel like we could afford it at the time

[48:23] and at that time we did have a part time and and also we were

[48:30] outsourcing at that time but we still have the part time and he's

[48:35] still being right right this doesn't affect the part-time time

[48:40] okay so my question is can we afford it but

[48:44] we can afford to do whatever you tell us to do but we may have to take think

[48:47] about fundamentals

[48:52] okay okay if this work is done by each one of our departments

[49:00] then some of that's going to come out of each one of them right it will this

[49:03] parker but there is no way one individual can handle

[49:06] all of the technical needs that we have for some of our specialty media

[49:11] they will be able to handle more like the hydraulics

[49:15] we've got some very technical equipment that we still will have to source i was

[49:21] thinking yeah yeah on some of that large

[49:24] equipment that uh

[49:28] well i really don't know until they look at it

[49:31] i mean i don't think the mechanic actually works on the patrol cars other

[49:36] than preventive maintenance and the the mechanic does not work on

[49:42] the fire truck we'll still be writing big checks for

[49:45] cars you know the checks you were talking about had

[49:49] parts labor included let's do that by parts my official

[49:54] standby is your manager we can make it happen i would just love

[49:58] to have known about it during this budget process not so much

[50:02] up to the night of budget approval yeah that's kind of

[50:05] makes planning very difficult and challenging

[50:10] okay we can still accept this budget contingent

[50:14] on discussing the uh the new position can we take that

[50:21] position for tonight and go ahead and prove this oh yeah

[50:39] the salary and the fridge benefits even though you've stayed at a rate

[50:42] i don't know if we can get a quality mechanic for twenty dollars an hour

[50:46] and we typically don't pay part-time staff

[50:50] twenty dollars we typically pay part-time staff twenty-five dollars an

[50:53] hour because they received some benefits and it would shake out on our flow chart

[51:00] of the salary deemed for that type of position stepping grade

[51:07] okay and we don't have that information in front of us tonight

[51:12] so we're still in public hearing uh any other comments to be made at this

[51:18] time before we go out public

[51:37] a second to go out of public hearing all in favor say aye

[51:42] all opposed we are now out of public period

[51:47] okay and yeah i got a couple handouts y'all need to be

[51:52] made aware of um can i get my lovely assistant

[51:57] why are you doing that

[52:00] i'm gonna make a motion to hire

[52:17] to open up a yes like that with all three speculative partners that's the

[52:21] manager's job to hire and locate an employee

[52:26] that's the manager's office actually the city

[52:29] council's job to look after the western city that's not i understand that

[52:34] completely but it's general statutes clearly gives your manager

[52:38] to hiring your firing responsibilities

[52:45] i made a motion

[52:49] and the motion is to hire a full-time mechanic

[52:54] at a rate of 20 an hour with the city benefits full benefits

[53:01] do i have a second

[53:06] okay let's just table it for right now until we can get some particulars with

[53:11] the managers we do not have our works

[53:17] director here tonight for our finance director so okay

[53:23] would you agree with that uh councilman parker that we

[53:39] okay all right uh municipal clerk if you will make note on

[53:45] the 29th that will be discussed in one obsession

[53:49] with uh a decision to be made at that time as i stated there

[53:55] we'll do anything to direct us to i would like to have the kind of

[53:58] research okay that is my job okay

[54:06] okay uh do you have two handouts later yes we do okay the first one is a list

[54:14] of the upcoming major projects for the next two or three months

[54:17] and i'm not going to read them all you can peruse down through there

[54:21] but one of them on there is the ada plant and you heard me mention that

[54:25] several departments like larry smith at the seward plant want a pumpkin

[54:29] station a generator other departments that didn't get funded

[54:33] we're going to receive 1.78 million dollars from president

[54:38] biden's a uh rp program the money is starting to

[54:42] begin to flow probably july 15 july 20th

[54:47] the staff at a staff meeting got together and developed a priority list

[54:51] that we want you to take a look at and most of this is stuff and we can't

[54:55] fund it all but you all need to give us a priority

[54:59] of those items because it's going to be a one-time

[55:03] expense there's going to be some streams but not as much as you would think

[55:07] normally dealing with federal dollars and we're also

[55:11] going to get a second payment uh half of it in this year and half of it next july

[55:16] and the state because of our size is managing our distribution the larger

[55:21] metro area has got the funds directly so you

[55:24] will have to help me make sure that our general assembly

[55:27] don't tuck that money away for something that they can't but it is

[55:31] federal law they have to hand it down to us

[55:34] if you remember a few years ago some money got handed down and it went in the

[55:38] state's rainy day fund so i'm going to be monitoring that very

[55:42] closely and so you can see that card now these

[55:46] priority projects none of these were funded in our budget

[55:51] so this is all items that were not i don't remember if the defibrillators

[55:55] were left on there or not um but there's some pretty large price

[56:00] items on there and uh i noticed the very

[56:05] second item on here is that kiosk installation uh i thought that was

[56:09] supposed to already be here i apologize mayor the company has jerked

[56:13] us around a little bit it is sitting in the bay

[56:17] at city hall now to be installed but i did not want them to install it without

[56:21] dixon being here to supervise it so that's why uh that has not been done

[56:29] as i mentioned on march 31st i sent a letter to

[56:32] senator burke and as you know senator burke is

[56:35] finalizing his career in d.c so he got my letter uh they called me today

[56:40] and because it wasn't from a lobbyist and because

[56:44] from a small town he wants to help us and we're going to submit tomorrow

[56:48] morning by launch of three proposals within the

[56:52] fund earmarked charitable some money and that's part of what things didn't

[56:56] get funded in the budget between that monies

[56:59] and the money from arp we should be in good shape

[57:03] and even in good shape for a while to work and we'll go out

[57:06] in here and possibly next year you can look at a tax credit

[57:12] good good so we're given approximately 890 000

[57:17] this year and then next year would be another 890

[57:21] 000. correct

[57:31] okay so council members will look you'll see the second page is where the

[57:36] priority list is of where the american rescue plan known

[57:41] as arp where that money would be allocated and when you see

[57:47] uh like the half cost of a street sweeper

[57:51] does that mean the next one the next year

[57:55] we'll do the other half no on the street sweeper remember i told you

[57:58] that and it wasn't corrected on that sheet we can fund it from power funds

[58:03] 100 of that where you see half and half means it's going to come out of one

[58:07] budget and 50 out of another budget that's why

[58:10] you see half one location half the other for example but it's on

[58:15] the priority list of the arp we didn't know if we were going

[58:19] to get the channel

[58:30] okay and that's not a wishlist but there's a couple of things on there

[58:34] that's a wish list there's recreational stuff but most of that is items that was

[58:39] fun

[58:42] and it's really unprecedented my 43 years of government

[58:46] i have never seen a direct

[58:50] appropriation to a municipality with very few strings attached

[58:54] unprecedented and i know at one time uh city manager

[59:02] chief cash we had talked about this and uh we were aware that there was a

[59:08] lot of bookkeeping involved with this so if the state's

[59:11] handling it now will that be less for keeping for us are

[59:15] we still going to be with

[59:30] but it's going to be a lot less headache than mr falwell

[59:34] than it would be somebody in budget and appropriations in washington dc

[59:38] so we got a good trade-off on i think exactly i mean even though it's not

[59:42] coming directly for us to deposit in the

[59:50] it's nothing to the tune that you all are familiar with

[59:54] with the uh like the sidewalk grant we got

[59:57] see man see mac

[1:00:12] us and on each seminar that i sit on or go to

[1:00:16] it's kind of free money it helps stimulate the economy

[1:00:22] we'll take it

[1:00:26] does uh any council members have any questions there any other items that

[1:00:33] stand out that have been funded other than this

[1:00:37] the street sweeper has not been funded it'll be funded this year but freeman

[1:00:41] and we will use 100 of pal bill funds uh you see the bond

[1:00:47] items are on there we have the money for those

[1:00:49] in the bond but if there's some monies y'all preferred to go there and save

[1:00:53] some of the bonds that could work too the blackrock would

[1:00:57] definitely be a priority the police department you heard me

[1:00:59] mention that we could get the earmark from

[1:01:02] senator of burr's office and the evidence room the body cam

[1:01:06] the street sweeper needs to come off uh we're going to fund it and it's going to

[1:01:10] come out

[1:01:13] planning and zoning software that derrick needs he's been researching that

[1:01:17] we couldn't fund it a little more for recreation

[1:01:21] a storage building for recreation a generator for larry

[1:01:24] the roof at the wastewater treatment plant and a raw water pump

[1:01:28] the water plant road is in disastrous shape down to the creek

[1:01:33] high surface pump the little lead parking lot for extra overflow

[1:01:37] parking uh ada at city hall remember with ada

[1:01:40] it's a huge monster we've attacked the deepsea youth fields

[1:01:44] we've got pricing and drawings at city hall

[1:01:49] that has done none of the other buildings the only one that's compliant

[1:01:52] right now is the fire station so that's a big animal a big price tag

[1:01:56] in as much as four to five million dollars

[1:01:58] come up with an elevator today right now i'd put elevator at city hall

[1:02:02] and you see west gates upgrades and a splash pad

[1:02:06] and ada citywide other locations staff's put a lot of research into it

[1:02:12] but that's our recommendation we'll do the priority details

[1:02:15] appropriately okay and the council members have any

[1:02:20] questions at this time

[1:02:24] we need to go ahead and vote on the budget contingent

[1:02:30] uh on tabling one item

[1:02:38] have a motion this second that we go ahead and approve the budget

[1:02:42] contingent on our work session discussion

[1:02:46] on another position okay uh any other discussion by any council members

[1:02:52] if not all in favor of the motion please say i

[1:02:56] uh all opposed

[1:02:59] it is unanimous okay

[1:03:10] we'll now go into

[1:03:13] other business and that's item 13 on your agenda packet at this time

[1:03:19] [Music]

[1:03:23] okay that's that's closed session i think that's where you work now

[1:03:27] we're going to do other business so that it's closed session we can just come

[1:03:32] back and got you close okay great great

[1:03:35] jinx approached me twice since the last meeting about debris

[1:03:42] that's not being [Music]

[1:03:47] he says it's causing some of that to wash in the storm drain

[1:03:53] another problem he says mostly elderly residents who hire someone like him

[1:04:02] to do work on the property and they place his stuff out the street and then

[1:04:06] the public works down they can't think of that because someone was hired to

[1:04:11] put it out there there's no calling off himself he says he's gonna have a truck

[1:04:14] big enough all at all he said he would drive a city truck

[1:04:21] but he said he would be willing to volunteer to work and help the movement

[1:04:39] you know again my husband cut limbs put them down there they never did they

[1:04:45] laid out there all week and then when i called the first week i

[1:04:50] got the chipper truck down again so now my grass is bedded

[1:04:54] in down there where it was so do we have anybody else contractual that when our

[1:05:01] chipper truck is out of commission i know rick's got a

[1:05:06] chipper truck we we have not missed parker but we could definitely research

[1:05:10] that and bring that back to the next man i know rick and he would do something to

[1:05:16] get it up you know a lot of our residents that are paying taxes and

[1:05:19] everything else that we offer they have like a loan service they

[1:05:24] pay a lot of money to keep their grounds looking good and you can't

[1:05:29] afford for it to lay down our two three weeks

[1:05:31] this is the second time because even when the leaf truck is down

[1:05:35] the problem is the policy states that if it's been contracted out

[1:05:39] we don't pick it up we're doing it ourselves

[1:05:43] we don't have a contractor involved in our case but

[1:05:46] it's still happening for other people and if we had someone

[1:05:50] in place that can fix these things don't know what the

[1:05:54] another mechanic could do i know brandon said they could use them

[1:05:58] but we've got to do something to get it up

[1:06:01] off of our residents i mean this is anybody not just

[1:06:06] something that a contractor puts out those

[1:06:08] big contractors have their own shippers yeah i can comment to that

[1:06:13] uh brandon's not here he's at myrtle beach at an

[1:06:17] ami meeting but uh i talked to jason today and he told me they have ordered

[1:06:25] the park and they're waiting on the park to come

[1:06:28] in on the chipper truck so public works has taken care of

[1:06:33] repairing but they have to wait on the parts and i understand

[1:06:38] that's not the whole issue that you're talking with but

[1:06:42] i wanted to tell you they do have the part on the way he said he thought it

[1:06:46] may be here today but i don't know whether it came or not

[1:06:50] they wanted that trump replacement but we just simply could not afford

[1:06:56] it's hard to keep it right

[1:07:06] okay any other business from any council [Music]

[1:07:12] member i can't help but get this off my chest

[1:07:16] uh i know we need to get on the block and i don't know everything about what

[1:07:21] goes on here but you know when i was elected i was told

[1:07:25] how things worked here that our city manager was responsible

[1:07:29] for discipline hiring and firing employees

[1:07:34] and when is that changed i mean when is it our responsibility

[1:07:38] we should give him direction and if he doesn't follow our direction we should

[1:07:41] fire him is my understanding uh i just feel like

[1:07:47] that here at the last minute you know an underhanded deal's been done

[1:07:51] that is against our city policy to hire somebody when it's not our job

[1:07:57] to do a hiker so if i'm wrong somebody tell me i'm

[1:08:00] wrong i'll get ready to tell you i know you're wrong

[1:08:03] nobody has insinuated to hire a certain person

[1:08:07] you said you had somebody already lined up as you said that's still the

[1:08:10] manager's job to decide if that's the right one or not

[1:08:13] okay one thing i was doing was just putting the position

[1:08:17] in place and negotiating the process and he will accept that process

[1:08:25] don't start insinuating that i did this and did that

[1:08:29] well when you've talked about apparently you've got a price set for him what

[1:08:33] he'll do it for so something's been done but still see

[1:08:35] the rangers supposed i think we've already addressed this and

[1:08:41] that it will be continued at our work session

[1:08:44] on june 29th just listen together are noted uh that will be

[1:08:55] in our minutes that you did note that but

[1:08:58] um i'm not going to sit here and hash this out during this meeting when

[1:09:03] we can do that easily on the i'm sorry i said that yeah the 29th of june

[1:09:09] and we've moved it to work session it will be discussed in detail at that time

[1:09:14] and we'll all have more information all of us will have more information

[1:09:19] and as the city manager as well he can do some research on the sport

[1:09:26] okay do i have any other business from any council member

[1:09:35] city staff

[1:09:38] okay okay if not then we will

[1:09:44] uh go to the next item which is item 14 and this is consideration to enter into

[1:09:51] closed session in regard to north carolina general statute

[1:09:58] 143-318-11 dot parentheses four and parentheses

[1:10:03] six i will need uh direction for counsel to

[1:10:07] enter into closed sessions i need a second sir have a second a

[1:10:19] motion and a second to go into closed session

[1:10:22] at this time all in favor of the motion please say

[1:10:25] aye all of those there isn't so we are

[1:10:28] considered going to close session i think we set up

[1:10:31] next door this

City Of Cherryville's City Council Meeting June 14th 2021

Transcript