[4:19] Testing one, two, three. How are we doing?

[4:34] She said, "Well, at least." All right. So, are we

[4:38] I guess so. I don't know. Are we online?

[4:40] We might be. All right. Well,

[4:44] whatever. I will officially call to order our special meeting of the Bvard

[4:50] City Council on Thursday, October 30th. Welcome to everybody that has joined us.

[4:55] As always, it's great to see the public and hopefully we are broadcasting and

[5:01] welcome to everybody that's watching us online.

[5:05] This is a special meeting, so our agenda is somewhat abridged. Madame clerk, do

[5:10] we have a quorum? Yes, you do have a quorum. All members

[5:14] are present. I will just introduce everybody that is

[5:18] sitting up here. On my far right is our city attorney, M.

[5:23] Mckeler. Next to Mac is Councilman Lauren Wise. Next to Lauren is

[5:29] Councilwoman Pamela Holder. Next to Pamela is Councilman M. tomorrow. I'm

[5:35] Mayor Moren Copelof. On my immediate left is our city clerk Denise Hodston.

[5:40] Next to Denise is Councilman and Mayor Prom Gary Daniel. Next to Gary is

[5:46] Councilman Aaron Baker. And on the far left is our city manager Wilson Hooper.

[5:52] Okay, with that council, you've got the draft agenda. Are there any changes or

[5:58] modifications to the agenda? Do I have a motion to approve the

[6:03] agenda? So move.

[6:04] Second. All in favor? I.

[6:07] Agenda is approved. We will move right into public comments.

[6:13] Okay. The public is invited to speak during

[6:17] public comment at this time only on the item on the agenda for this special

[6:22] meeting. Anyone who wants to speak must register with the city clerk, which is

[6:27] what this list is. When it is your turn, step to the podium in front of city

[6:32] council. State your name and address clearly. Limit comments to three minutes

[6:38] or less and avoid repetition. Direct comments to the full council, not

[6:43] to an individual council member or to staff. And I will give you a warning

[6:49] when you have 30 seconds left. Okay. I will call people up in the order

[6:54] which you signed. Our first speaker is Anne Hollingsworth.

[7:05] Do I need to bring this down? Just like that.

[7:09] Like that. Yeah. Okay.

[7:10] Hello. Um, I know most of you, but for those who don't know me, I'm Ann

[7:15] Hollingssworth and I live at 187 East Main Street, downtown Breard. and my

[7:23] husband Danny and I own 78 South Broad Street, which is occupied by Headline

[7:29] Salon. Last week, we were out of town when you

[7:33] all had your uh regular monthly council meeting, and we had just become aware of

[7:38] the issue. So, we emailed all our concerns uh

[7:42] relating to why we did not want a loading zone in front of headlines,

[7:46] cycle works, and looking glass reality. I would like to personally speak with

[7:52] you now for the public record. Brooke McCall, the owner of Headlines, has been

[7:57] in business at that location for 28 years. She has an established clientele.

[8:03] Many of her longtime customers are older and can't physically walk blocks to get

[8:08] their hair done. She has told us she has lost many customers because of the lack

[8:13] of parking. Now, another factor that I thought of after I emailed you all is

[8:21] for not putting a loading zone is the lack of visibility. When you come out of

[8:26] First Citizens Bank onto Broad Street, the large tractor trailers would block

[8:33] the line of sight and this would be extremely dangerous because of the speed

[8:38] people come on Broad Street.

[8:42] And um that's all I have to say and I thank you for your time and

[8:47] consideration. Thank you, Miss Hollingsworth.

[8:51] Our next speaker is Doug Miller.

[8:58] that back up. Hey, Doug Miller. I live at uh South

[9:02] Calwell Street and have a business on West Jordan Street. So, obviously have

[9:07] an interest in this uh conversation and I attended the committee meeting that

[9:12] you guys had to go over this again last week. Was it this week or I don't

[9:16] remember. It was recently. Um [laughter] and I just thank you guys for moving

[9:20] with such urgency on this. I do appreciate the sense of urgency with

[9:23] which you're moving and I think that the uh decision that was made at the last

[9:26] committee meeting was a good one. I think there was some really good

[9:28] conversation. I feel like we came to a good um balance between you know making

[9:33] sure that the businesses uh needs are met and that the businesses who need to

[9:38] get deliveries needs are met and that the safety of the folks that need to

[9:41] move around is [clears throat] taken into consideration. Um we're not

[9:45] blocking any fire hydrants with this decision. So I know that was a concern

[9:48] from the city but I think there was good conversation. And I feel like ultimately

[9:51] that was a good decision. [clears throat] So I'm here to say I

[9:53] support it. I think that's the right move at this point to go ahead and put

[9:56] the loading zones in the places that were recommended by the committee.

[10:00] Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Miller.

[10:03] Our next speaker is Melissa Driver.

[10:10] Good evening. I know several of you, but for those of you who do not know me, my

[10:14] name is Melissa Driver. I live at 370 Maple Street here downtown. and my

[10:19] husband Joe Driver and I own Cycle Works which we recently opened back in July

[10:24] and are leasing from Paul Willander. He owns the remainder of the building as

[10:28] well and I work for him as an agent. So I use the building for multiple purposes

[10:33] and I appreciate that you all sent the this item back to a special committee.

[10:38] So, I want to thank you for that because that gave us the time to understand more

[10:42] about what was being proposed and also discuss with that committee what we had

[10:46] hoped for as we all plan this downtown master plan together that's beneficial

[10:52] for all of the businesses, not just individual businesses. So, I appreciate

[10:57] having the ability to have that input and not focus solely on where do we put

[11:00] food trucks, but also our livelihood as a business and a new business and a

[11:05] retail storefront. So, thank you for hearing us out at that committee

[11:08] meeting. I also am in agreement with the the recommendation that came out of that

[11:12] committee meeting and I'm looking forward to your approval of that

[11:15] recommendation to place the parking loading zone away from our building and

[11:20] allow there to accommodate still the remaining three spaces in front of our

[11:24] building. So, thank you very much and I hope that you come to agreement with it.

[11:29] Thank you, Mr. Driver. All right. And that is everyone that signed up for

[11:33] public comment. All right, we will move on to unfinished

[11:38] business, the South Broad Street restriping plan. And I guess city

[11:42] manager will be presenting. I'll kick us off and then I'll throw to

[11:45] David to take us through the alternatives that were discussed by the

[11:49] committee last week, including their recommendation. Um, just as a reminder

[11:54] to you council, but also for the benefit of our uh, audience in person and those

[11:59] who are watching the meeting online, this evening's meeting is the result of

[12:03] your instruction from October 20th to send the South Broad Street restrip

[12:08] restriping matter back to the downtown master plan committee for

[12:11] reconsideration and the need to have uh, you all confirm

[12:17] or not their recommendation as soon as possible so that we can transmit

[12:22] to NC DOT and them to their contractor before the contractor's upcoming

[12:29] completion deadline. Uh if we miss that deadline, um we'll have to assume the

[12:34] cost of this restriping if we get it to them on time, which this committee will

[12:38] enable us to do. Uh most the vast vast majority of the cost will be borne by

[12:43] them. Uh so as I said before, downtown master plan committee met last week.

[12:49] They reviewed their original proposal from May, heard some public comments,

[12:53] including some of the folks who've shared with you again today, and uh they

[12:58] reviewed several alternatives that were developed by uh staff, and they

[13:03] considered an alternative that was profered by heart of Bvard, which David

[13:08] will go over as well. Um finally, and this is very important, the committee

[13:12] also considered um information from the logistics and

[13:17] delivery industry, which Deie Harris reached down into her rolodex and called

[13:23] one of her contacts to provide to us. And I appreciate that because they were

[13:28] a stakeholder that we didn't have enough time to involve in this discussion, but

[13:32] they're an important one nonetheless. And so I appreciate her bringing that

[13:36] information to the committee and it informed our conversation uh quite

[13:40] helpfully in my opinion. So before I throw to David, the one

[13:44] thing I'll say is that the logistics folks that she brought information from

[13:50] agreed with us that none of our alternatives are great. There's not one

[13:54] that's perfect and doesn't have some trade-offs. Um, but I personally feel

[13:58] that the alternative which was chosen has the fewest negative tradeoffs and

[14:03] for that reason I also agree that it's a good way forward and so I'll now throw

[14:08] to David to take us through the various alternatives if you would please sir.

[14:12] Yes sir. Mayor Council good evening. First thing I would like to do is walk

[14:18] us through the current recommendation and then I can show you the different

[14:22] things that we considered. So, the first recommendation that you see, this is uh

[14:28] I made our mouse bigger so hopefully we can see a little better tonight. This is

[14:31] Broad Street in Jordan with Maine up here. What this proposal does or this

[14:37] option does is it takes the current ADA space that is somewhere in this general

[14:42] vicinity and it moves it to the end and it creates a 69 ft loading zone that is

[14:50] contiguous whereas before it was broken into two spaces and it adds one

[14:55] additional 22ft parking space. So that is uh

[15:01] option one of what we are asking you to approve tonight and what was approved

[15:06] and recommended by the downtown master plan committee.

[15:10] Option two, I'm sorry, op this is not option two.

[15:15] This is part two. Part two would paint the parking spaces that let me orient us

[15:23] again. This is Jordan Street and Broad Street. Part two would paint the parking

[15:28] spaces in front of Looking Glass Realy, the salon, the bike shop that we're

[15:33] speaking about tonight back as they are currently painted. It would move the

[15:38] loading zone across the street in front of Eldridge Motors. This would be a 40ft

[15:43] loading zone. This would accommodate a box truck, UPS truck, FedEx truck, those

[15:50] type of vehicles. I do want to go back for just a moment to the first

[15:53] recommendation. The 69 foot loading zone should

[15:59] accommodate one of the I'm going to refer to them as

[16:03] the US Foods trucks. That's the kind of mini tractor trailer looking trucks that

[16:08] we see around town. Those trucks are approximately 50 ft long with a 14 foot

[16:13] loading ramp out of the back then with another 5t for working space to get in

[16:17] and out of the ramp and then onto the crosswalk. So we feel this would easily

[16:22] handle the largest of the US food trucks. It would not handle,

[16:27] [clears throat] excuse me, it would not handle a full-size, you know, 53 foot

[16:31] tractor trailer, but I' I've not seen one of those try to unload in Bvard

[16:36] since I've been here. So, that's two recommendations that are

[16:40] in front of you. What I'd like to do next is just quickly run through several

[16:44] other considerations that we looked at.

[16:51] So, one of those is the option one that we just looked at and recommended to

[16:55] you. Option two

[17:00] was a smaller loading zone. This reduced the 69 ft loading zone down to 47 ft

[17:06] with a 22t parking space. Now, one thing I I do want to just say for

[17:10] clarification, all of these numbers are approximate. They're general. The GPS is

[17:15] not exact, and that's what we've used to get some of these dimensions between

[17:19] this and a combination of field measurements, but things may be a little

[17:23] smaller than what they're actually shown. We typically would make that

[17:26] difference up in the largest space. So the in this case, the 40 7 foot loading

[17:31] zone might be a little smaller, a little larger. In the first scenario, the 69

[17:35] foot might be a little smaller, a little larger. In this particular scenario, you

[17:39] add a second parking space. But the downside is this is no longer large

[17:45] enough to accommodate one of the I'll call it mini tractor trailers, the US

[17:50] food service type tractor trailer.

[17:56] The next option we looked at is what we originally had been proposed from the

[18:01] downtown master plan committee which was to leave the striping in front of

[18:05] looking glass realy blank and allow us to place temporary paint to decide which

[18:11] parking scenario or loading zone might work the best.

[18:17] The let me just go back to that for a second. The the con to this would be at

[18:22] some point we would be responsible for painting that parking in and the

[18:26] thermoplastic as well as whatever traffic control had to happen. So would

[18:31] not be a huge expense but it's definitely an expense that the city

[18:34] would have to take on.

[18:38] Option four, we looked at converting the entire area in front of Looking

[18:44] Glass Realy, again, the bike shop, the salon into an 82 foot approximate

[18:50] loading zone. This would be uh more than suitable for the mini tractor trailer.

[18:56] And it would move the ADA space that's currently in front of Looking Glass

[19:01] Realy across the street and would add a ramp with that parking space. It's very

[19:07] likely that [cough] [clears throat] currently two parking

[19:10] spaces here that may result in the loss of a parking space, an extra parking

[19:16] space. If we do that, we really need to just get out there and place it. Make

[19:19] sure we have adequate sight lines in and out of the driveways on both sides of

[19:24] looking glass motors. You can see there's a driveway on each end. So in

[19:29] this scenario, if we assume that we maintain the parking space, the two

[19:34] parking spaces here in front of Eldridge Motors, there would be a loss of the

[19:39] three parking spaces on this side of the road in front of Looking Glass Realy.

[19:45] Another option we looked at is what we call option 4A.

[19:50] Option 4A again has an 82 foot loading zone from Looking Glass Realy down in

[19:55] front of the salon and bike shop. It leaves the spaces in front of Eldridge

[20:00] Motors alone, but it converts the last space on Jordan Street into an ADA

[20:06] space. This space, in my opinion, is uh very well suited for an ADA space

[20:12] because it's very flat, very centrally located, has easy access to the

[20:16] crosswalk, but it is, however, a lot further distance from the headline

[20:21] salon, which the current space is uh we believe that's probably the primary

[20:26] user. The next scenario we looked at, we'll

[20:31] call it option five. Option five converts the spaces in front

[20:38] of Looking Glass Realy to a smaller loading zone, a 60-foot loading zone,

[20:42] which would allow us to maintain one parking space and it moves the ADA space

[20:48] across the street. The downside to this scenario is the mini tractor trailer is

[20:55] 64 feet from the front of the truck to the end of the loading ramp plus the

[20:59] workspace. So the 69 ft would push the driver of that truck and unless he

[21:05] pulled all the way up into this parking space, it would push his unloading

[21:10] activities into the intersection, probably blocking access to Jordan

[21:15] Street. It does maintain one additional parking

[21:20] space here. So you have a loss of two parking spaces with this particular

[21:23] scenario.

[21:26] Option 5A does the identical thing but preserves the spaces in front of

[21:31] Eldridge Motors and moves the ADA space up at the end of Jordan Street. We do

[21:38] have concerns that I'm going to go back an option. If the ADA space in any of

[21:42] these scenarios is placed on this other side of the road, we are potentially um

[21:48] this is kind of true in any case because we don't know where folks are going, but

[21:51] if it was someone that was a client of the hair salon, they are going to have

[21:54] to cross the road and back up. The majority,

[21:59] it's hard to say majority of the businesses are on the other side of

[22:03] broad, but in this particular area, there are probably more businesses on

[22:07] the other side of broad.

[22:12] Option six that we looked at creates a 55- ft loading zone moves the

[22:19] ADA space to the end of this range. The 55 ft loading zone again has the

[22:25] same issue of not being able to accommodate the mini tractor trailer,

[22:28] but it would easily accommodate one or two box trucks. It also puts the

[22:34] accessible parking space in an ideal location for folks at the salon and it

[22:40] maintains it if nothing else on that side of the road.

[22:49] That's the options that we reviewed. The heart of Bvard brought a another idea to

[22:54] the table. [snorts]

[22:58] While I don't have that exact proposal laid out, I do have the dimensions of

[23:03] that area that we can look at.

[23:10] Me just a second here. I'll try to make this a little bigger. We can see it

[23:12] better.

[23:35] Okay. So, in this particular scenario,

[23:40] I've just laid some dimensions out here, but what you currently have on East

[23:44] Jordan Street, so let me orient us again. This is East Jordan Street. This

[23:47] is Broad. This is Coyote's right here on the corner.

[23:52] What you presently have in this location are three parallel parking spaces that

[23:57] kind of run the length of the building. They start down here where this driveway

[24:03] entrance goes in. They start 11 ft up from that and you have three parking

[24:08] spaces that move up 32 foot from the corner approximately. I

[24:15] just measured off the uh traffic signal pole. There is a fire department

[24:21] connection onto the building. There's also a fire alarm control panel access

[24:26] door into the building that we definitely would not want to block the

[24:30] fire department connection, but we also probably would not want to block the

[24:34] door as well. Here's a photo where you can see the

[24:40] this is the fire department connection here. And I believe I've got another

[24:44] photo that shows the door.

[24:54] So, here you can see the fire department connection and the door. Another issue

[24:59] of concern with East Jordan Street is that it does have two lanes as you exit.

[25:05] So, it's got one lane if you're turning straight or if you're going straight or

[25:09] turning left and it has another lane if you're turning right. when they recently

[25:14] repaved the signal control loops for that traffic light were brought a lot

[25:20] further down the street on Jordan. I'm not exactly sure why that is. I suspect

[25:25] it has to do with the stacking count for the light to change. So, this really

[25:30] pushes the usable space a lot further down East Jordan Street, especially if

[25:36] you want to give cars space to drive around any potential loading zone that

[25:41] might be there.

[25:45] to get stacked into the traffic count. So those loops come down somewhere in

[25:51] this neighborhood where I'm showing my area arrow right now.

[25:59] Mr. Hooper, is there anything else you would like me to show [clears throat] or

[26:02] review with them? The other um thing we brought up to the committee that they uh

[26:07] considered was the fact that the downtown master plan uh foresees one day

[26:13] East Jordan Street being converted into a road with a bike lane on it and we

[26:19] didn't want to foreclose on that possibility by using that space as a

[26:24] loading zone. And then finally, with the way that the road is oriented, one way

[26:29] going west to access that loading zone, the trucks would have to drive a big

[26:35] loop uh around East Main Street, making that tight right turn off of South Broad

[26:43] onto East Maine, or that conflicted, and when I mean conflicted, I mean a turn

[26:49] that faces a lot of oncoming traffic coming left off of North broad onto East

[26:56] Maine. And so just the traffic situation that it would create by forcing trucks

[27:02] to drive all the way around the block to get pointed in the right direction on

[27:06] that uh potential loading zone was something that we brought up to the

[27:10] committee that they considered when they were making their recommendation.

[27:14] [clears throat]

[27:18] Okay. Anything else, Mr. Manager? No, ma'am.

[27:22] All right. Council, we are looking for a decision tonight. Do I have a motion?

[27:27] Staff is recommending that you approve the recommendations from the downtown

[27:34] master plan committee. Do I have a recommendation to approve those?

[27:40] Do I have a motion? A motion. Okay.

[27:42] Um, a motion that we approve the recommendation from the committee um at

[27:47] this past meeting. Do I have a second?

[27:50] Second. Okay. We'll open it for discussion. Miss

[27:53] Holder. Um I'm co-chairperson of that committee

[27:59] and um we did not take lightly what needed to happen to

[28:07] uh not hurt businesses that would may be affected by parking a truck there. But

[28:12] we know that loading zones are necessary. And so the idea to take it

[28:16] across the street was a a good one. and I felt like the best option and I'm glad

[28:22] that we were able to come to where we are now to this point to move forward.

[28:28] Mr. Mororrow, it seems like we found consensus as well

[28:33] and that's always good. [clears throat] Mr. Weiss.

[28:37] Yeah, I think um someone stated there's no perfect answer to this problem. Um, I

[28:42] think the original plan in front of looking glass was perhaps the easiest

[28:45] for drivers, but um, we I think the impacts outweighed the ease for drivers.

[28:51] And I like this solution in front of coyotes

[28:55] because it also gets the trucks more where they're likely to be needed. So,

[29:00] um, in in light of the not great options, I think this is the best one.

[29:06] And I and I and I also appreciate the downtown master planning committee uh

[29:10] giving this some extra thought. Mr. Baker,

[29:15] yeah, just a couple questions. You mentioned that we heard back from some

[29:20] of the comp logistics companies. Can you just briefly summarize what they what

[29:27] their input was? Um they agreed that putting it down the

[29:32] hill in front of the bank was probably not a great option. And that was

[29:35] something that was discussed at the committee meeting, but uh was put to bed

[29:39] pretty early because of the feedback of the um logistics folks. Uh they also

[29:44] agreed that navigating over to East Jordan Street and the large trucks um

[29:49] would be tough because [clears throat] most of their traffic of course uses

[29:52] broad as the main artery in and out of town. Um, and then they, as I said, also

[29:58] agreed that none of these solutions were great, but that the one that the

[30:02] committee recommended was, as Council Member Weise said, sort of the the least

[30:06] bad of the decisions.

[30:10] And have we had any other conversations with the DOT contractor on their timing,

[30:16] or we're still kind of unsure of when that might actually happen?

[30:20] We suspect it'll happen very soon. We think that they lost a few days due to

[30:25] weather. Um and so their um deadline has been extended by a few days. Uh so I

[30:32] think we're going to get in under the deadline. But as for when they're going

[30:35] to actually be out there and install it, probably within what the next two weeks.

[30:43] [clears throat] They initially indicated they were going

[30:46] to start early this week. So we were really pressed on time. So

[30:50] the weather helped us. So I suspect they'll they're probably delayed on the

[30:54] job they were working on. I suspect they'll start sometime next week if not

[30:59] early the week after is my guess. Okay.

[31:02] And of course they've got the whole, you know, footprint of the entire project to

[31:06] do. And so I don't know what order they're going to do it in, but they

[31:09] might not get to this part for a while because they got to go from the college

[31:13] all the way to the Sunset Motel. Yeah. Well, um, last thing I'll say is

[31:17] just thanks to the staff and the committee for doing some last minute um,

[31:24] rescheduling and spending some more time on this that they probably didn't uh,

[31:29] bargain on. So, uh, I think we've reached a a good consensus and heard

[31:35] from the necessary uh, stakeholders and I'm comfortable with moving forward.

[31:42] Mr. Daniel. Yeah. Uh, this proposal comes to the

[31:46] council with a unanimous vote from the downtown master plan committee and but I

[31:51] would like to state that my vote was made with the intention of moving this

[31:58] uh proposal to city council. Um, and I'd also like to remind the

[32:06] council that the downtown master plan committee was formed to advise us on the

[32:13] implementation of the downtown master plan. An issue that is politically

[32:19] fraught as downtown parking should ultimately be the sole responsibility of

[32:25] this council. And indeed, that's what this vote tonight will do.

[32:31] The issue I have with this proposal is that it's essentially what's in place

[32:36] now. Uh it's the same proposal that the downtown master plan uh made uh

[32:44] previously and was implemented and um it obviously it doesn't work. Uh, I have a

[32:52] video on my phone uh from a week ago, a little more over a week ago, of a

[32:58] tractor trailer parked on East Jordan uh unloading

[33:03] and the uh loading zone in front of coyotes was empty. They had the option

[33:10] to park there and they did not. Um, and I [clears throat] realize that where

[33:16] to place these loading zones is a difficult decision,

[33:21] but staff's proposal, original proposal, which I believe is the most practical uh

[33:27] location has craw caused great concern with the

[33:30] merchants affected by that location. [clears throat]

[33:34] And although I understand why these folks feel as they do, I truly believe

[33:40] that their concerns are largely misplaced.

[33:46] Though it would be much easier for me personally to go along to get along on

[33:52] an issue beset with peril on all sides and an issue that can easily be

[33:58] rectified if it's later determined that it needs to be. So, um, I was not going

[34:04] to be able to support this. All right. All right. Is there any

[34:10] further discussion? All right. Then I have a motion and a

[34:15] second. I will call for a vote. All in favor?

[34:17] I. Opposed?

[34:19] I. Okay. Four eyes, one nay. Eyes have it.

[34:23] Motion passes. All right.

[34:27] That was the only item on our agenda. And with that, I just need a motion to

[34:36] adjurnn. So move.

[34:37] Second. All in favor?

[34:39] I. We are adjourned. Thank you.

[34:44] All right.

Brevard City Council Special Meeting | October 30, 2025

Transcript