This is two o'clock, and I'm going to call the May 18th Work Session for the Chairman County Board of
Commissioners to order.
First, on the agenda, do we have any additions to lesions or corrections
to the Work Session agenda?
Yes, no, no, no, no, no. There are a couple things I wanted to raise. The primary one is that as we
get started, I want to make sure we all have the opportunity to deeply commit it to the way and
phase that we are implementing our procedures and other norms that we've got in place for
ourselves. So I want to return to a question of putting an item on the agenda to do a quick
overview of our updated procedures that will be led by the attorney.
All right. Thank you, Commissioner Delaney. Is there a second for the commissioners motion?
Do we not have that support from the chair and or the vice?
I don't hear any support.
Commissioner Delaney.
Okay.
The number of concerns about that.
I want to make sure we have an opportunity to put it on and talk through those things,
so we don't have to have other conversations.
I will make a motion to approve the.
I have a second plan before we.
If there is no interest in having that.
My concern is that we're in a position where we have a number of known problems including possible violations of law that have to be discussed in public.
So if we're not able to have that conversation, we may have to think about some other action.
So, I'll ask members to consider that as we think about shaping the agenda.
The second one is to ask that we come back to this idea, the topic of my impending vacancy.
So either at the last meeting or a previous meeting, I had made a motion to add this to the agenda
because it was already under discussion in the public.
And my understanding is that back in April, when there was a discussion, including a form of this board,
with the Chatey Chanukuni Dems, we put ourselves in a tough position of not addressing it
here in this public forum, which was noticed. So I want to give us an opportunity to have
a brief discussion of that and revisit those key points, particularly the report that this
chair support a particular candidate for that vacancy at the time, minor studies that we have to
do that only in public too. So I want to make sure we have a chance to do that.
And can you formalize that in a motion that's what you're doing here to add something to the agenda?
Sure, the topic, the agenda topic would be to discuss the steps and processes in timeline to fill the vacancy created when I resigned from the board.
Is that a motion?
Madam Chair, I'm proposing that as an agenda item to you.
Okay. Is there a second to add that discussion to the agenda?
I believe that one has failed.
Commissioner Clinton.
Yeah. Okay. I mean, my concerns there are that if we as a board are not able to have those conversations
or get our attorneys to be able to bring those topics in the conversation with us,
then we're putting ourselves at some serious risk.
that we have the ability to undo and we should take the opportunity to do, especially by the chair.
Well, I'd definitely be interested in that once we have a resignation letter and it's an actual process that's happening.
And actually when I ran, I filled a seat of someone who had resigned early, so I've seen this process happen.
And there was no discussion prematurely to a resignation letter, so just so you know for your information, I definitely support that discussion once that process is in play.
Because it's not an immediate process.
I don't care if you mean my understanding is not clear.
The motion did fail for one of the second and I feel is that we are heading into discussion and I'm concerned about that.
So in the absence of support for that, I want to ask our attorney to have a discussion here about how we can address this, whether as an agenda item that we had or find another appropriate procedural way to make sure that we have the conversation and understand what the legal and other issues may be on those topics.
I don't know that it has to be a separate agenda item, but if we can bring the attorney into conversation, we can certainly do that now.
I don't see that as an agenda item or relating to approving and adopting this afternoon's agenda, however, so I'd like to get through that.
Well let me else get to the point.
And I did second approving the agenda.
I was trapped.
Let me else get to the point.
My concern is that we have, and we know we have likely violated the open meetings law in a couple of different ways recently,
and that we've had significant difficulty in this forum implementing our procedures.
Point of order, Commissioner Delaney. This is not a factual statement, and this was already
confirmed with the county attorney that this did not violate open meetings law. Do you have an
agenda item? You would like to put on the agenda today. If not, we have a motion and a second.
Madam Chair, and we have had quite a bit of discussion so far.
Madam Chair, what I've received here is a significant bias against me and perhaps to protect your own interest and perspective,
which I am deeply concerned about.
So I think this issue in the set of issues has to be turned over to someone other than you to be a neutral administrator of the discussion.
Whether that's our voice chair or the attorney or someone else that is absolutely an essential part of having an ineffective public meeting.
Madam Chair, you could call the question.
Thank you, I think we're all in support.
The calling favor of adopting tonight's agenda as written.
Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
No. Okay.
And I need to call on the attorney to be what we can
Convert these points in the conversation.
Because what I perceive is that we have a significant number of problems
related to carrying out our responsibility, which is our equally
our individual responsibilities, to follow established procedures,
to make sure that we are not venturing outside of those procedures, and to make sure that
we have a chair and a vice chair team who will do that at all times.
So, I'm actually relating.
I'm not.
You're out of order, and I already told you this has been up for discussion with the
attorney who said that this was not an issue that violated open meetings law, and I would
like to carry on with the agenda of today's meeting.
I'm going to have to do a check formally and strongly to your one failure to reduce yourself
from leading this conversation, because you were biased and not objective, and too, it's
now important that we bring the attorney directly in the conversation and understand what
you have been told about this, because our ward has not had a conversation about that set
of issues.
So, I'd like to call on the attorney to address this topic with us.
Chair Robertson, I think that the rest of the ward is fully comfortable and confident in
your ability to continue moving ahead with this agenda.
Thank you.
Excuse me.
I've called on the county attorney for input on a legal topic that is germane to all of us and
certainly to the conduct of the rest of this meeting.
We need input from the county attorney.
Emily, so under rule three to add an item to an agenda, you have to have two votes to
add it to this agenda and a second to add it to a future agenda.
Yeah, I'm not raising that question.
I'm raising the question about what has been put in the public record that the county attorney
has advised some members of the board that there has been new violation of the open meetings
law with some recent activity. That is something that I have not heard in a public forum,
that has ever been discussed in a public forum, but this issue was absolutely discussed in
a role with a majority of this board present with an outside body. So we need to understand that
and be able to address that set of issues.
Commissioner Delaney, that is not true, and it is off topic from what we are discussing right now.
we have approved the agenda and the first item on the agenda is a special presentation and
I will read the following statement.
I'm sorry.
We have, I'm sure, I cannot accept that that is the outcome of this set of issues.
I'm just saying if you are out of order, you are out of order.
I was disrupting.
I am raising a different issue and saying, not to add an agenda item, but that we need to clarify the discussion purposes of what was just stated as a fact by you.
As a matter of fact, you are attempting to add an agenda item through a back door that is not open to you.
And the rest of the board may proceed with the actions of the board.
I'm going to raise the point of order as I've done in previous meeting.
What is your point of order, Commissioner?
The point of order?
Who is the point of order?
What is happening?
I think Commissioner Delaney, you believe you are running this meeting and you are not.
You are out of order.
I told you several times, you are out of order.
We are discussing the agenda, we have moved on with the agenda, and now we are moving
on.
Madam Chair,
this is not a question of whether we have moved on.
What are the options available when a commissioner becomes belligerent and interrupted in a meeting when you're trying to hold a public meeting?
Could the attorney come forward so we can all see and engage in the conversation directly?
Now she has a speaker where she is.
I'm speaking to the chair.
I
don't believe we have anything specific in our rules that address that,
but, I mean, certainly the chair could, again, tell the commissioner that he is out of order and if he continues to interrupt, escalate in terms of what the appropriate action is.
I believe that's what I'm asking for. What is the appropriate action?
I mean, that's what I'm wondering. Can we physically have him removed? And I don't know if that is acceptable.
I'd like to know who is here on behalf of the Race Amity Day Resolution.
Is there anyone present today for that particular resolution?
Madam Chair, I raised a point of order earlier.
You asked what it was about.
And the answer is that when you was the chair running the meeting,
know whether a commissioner should be interjecting and stepping on and directing the meeting.
And that has happened on the immerse occasions here.
I appreciate you responding to my request in the moment, but you missed the chance.
And you're just waiting in here to try and be disruptive to this meeting.
I've called you to order several times, and you're not responsive to that.
And quite frankly, I think you're really getting in the way of the function of this meeting,
and annoying the rest of the commissioners who just want to do their job,
not disrupt the business of the county, but they want to do the business of the county.
I think the options you presented have failed my lack of support we do need to keep moving forward.
Yeah, I hear the interest.
My concern is that the point I am raising is demonstrated.
There's actually no way by these points that this is not being conducted in an appropriate way.
I have lost confidence and the chairs are going to do that.
And I think if we can move forward, we can move you out.
I'm calling as a point of order, Mr. Vice-Chairman.
I'm calling as a point of order for us to take appropriate action regarding the
chair's behavior for not following procedure today or in the past conduct of those meetings.
And in other circumstances, this is a question.
I'm Mr. Delaney. I respond to you are called order.
And I disagree and rule against it if another commissioner would like to counter that or disagree with my ruling, they have a right to do that.
So the question I have for the chair or for the attorney is that since the performance of a chair is and can only be a matter of public discussion,
And when and how is that proper to raise in various ways that award meeting?
Is it only through an agenda item or is it in some other way?
Which I understand, be the case.
We have had a motion and a second to approve the agenda.
We have had several motions from you and no second, they have failed.
So I think that it would only come if you had not failed in your motion.
And I'm still waiting on our county attorney to find out if there are things that can be done to remove the disruption of our meeting.
I believe that if you leave Commissioner Delaney is interrupting the meeting that you can have him removed.
I don't, if that, if it continues.
Thank you.
I think that's extraordinary.
I'd like to hear the legal basis for that.
They don't think that's appropriate at all.
especially because I've asked questions of our attorney that are related to legal issues about how we address a chair's performance.
I would like for you to stop disrupting the meeting and if you cannot stop disrupting the meeting commissioner, I will have you removed.
That means
All right. So again, we have several resolutions to read and approve after which we will pause to take photos of any of the
groups and organizations that are present. The first one is about to approve and present a resolution
recognizing June 13, 2016 as Race Amity Day in Chattam County and I will read the
Resolution. Resolution of the Chattam County Board of Commissioners recognizing
Race Amity Day or as Chattam County embraces the diversity of its residents and
supports the United States motto e-plurabasunum out of many one and whereas the
people of Chattam County from many racial and ethnic backgrounds are the
counties greatest asset, and whereas friendship, respect, and kindness are ideals that bind
together all communities in the state of North Carolina, and whereas the race amity movement
encourages counties and cities to join together to celebrate interracial friendship and
promote understanding on race amity day, and whereas observing race amity day provides an
opportunity for residents to reflect on shared values, strength and relationships, and
fostered unity across diverse backgrounds.
And now, therefore, be it resolved
that the Chattam County Board of Commissioners
hereby recognize race, amity day on June 13th,
2026 in Chattam County and urge all residents
to observe the day by celebrating unity,
friendship, and understanding throughout our diverse community.
Adopted this 18th day of May, 2026,
I make a motion that we adopt the resolution as there a second.
So move. All in favor? All opposed? All right, the motion carries. Thank you.
Next is item 2600263 about it to approve and present a resolution recognizing Juneteenth as an official holiday and honoring its historic significance and Commissioner Howard will be reading this one.
Whereas, June 10th observed annually on June 19th commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved
African-Americans in Galveston, Texas, learned of their emancipation more than two years
after the signing of the emancipation proclamation.
And whereas, June 10th represents an important moment in the history of the United States,
and serves as a day of reflection on the legacy of slavery, the enduring struggle for freedom
and equality, and the continued pursuit of justice for all people.
And whereas Juneteenth is recognized as a federal holiday and is observed across the nation
through education, community engagement, and remembrance of African American history, culture,
and contributions.
And whereas Chatham County is committed to fostering a community that values diversity, equity,
inclusion, and mutual respect, and to acknowledging historical events that have shaped our nation
and our local communities.
And we're as recognizing Juneteenth encourages
opportunities for learning, dialogue, and reflection,
while honoring the resilience, achievements,
and contributions of African Americans
to Chattam County, North Carolina, and the United States.
Now, they are four be at resolve
that the Chattam County Board of Commissioners
does hereby recognize Juneteenth as Juneteenth in Chattam County.
And encourages residents to observe this day
activities that promote education, reflection, and community understanding.
And the further resolved that the Board of Commissioners affirms its commitment to equality,
inclusion, and respect for all residents, and acknowledges the importance of continuing efforts
to ensure fairness and opportunity throughout Tadam County, adopted this 18th May
of May 2026.
Thank you, the motion passes.
Next, we have Item 260265 about to approve a resolution recognizing Pride Month, and
Commissioner Kevin will be reading this one.
Resolution of the Chattam County Board of Commissioners, recognizing June is Pride Month
and Chatham County, whereas Pride Month is observed annually in June to recognize and celebrate
the history, contributions, and resilience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer,
and other individuals who identify within the LGBTQ plus community.
And whereas the origins of Pride Month trace back to the Stonewall uprising of June 1969,
a pivotal moment in the ongoing movement for civil rights, dignity, and equality for the
LGBT, Q plus individuals.
Whereas Pride Month provides an opportunity to reflect on the progress that has been made
towards equality, while acknowledging that efforts to ensure fairness, understanding, and
respect for all people remain ongoing.
Whereas residents of Chatham County who identify as LGBTQ plus contribute to the cultural,
social, civic, and economic vitality of the community strengthening the county as a whole.
And whereas the Chatham County Board of Commissioners are committed to fostering a community
where all residents are treated with dignity, respect, and where diversity and inclusion are valued
as strengths. And now, therefore, be it resolved that the Chattam County Board of Commissioners
does here by recognized June as Pride Month in Chattam County and encourages residents
to observe the month through reflection, education, and activities that promote understanding
and mutual respect. Be it further resolved that the Board of Commissioners'
reaffirms its commitment to an inclusive and welcoming Chattam County were all individuals
will still valued and supported adopted this the 18th day of May 2026.
Is there a motion to adopt some moved?
Second.
All in favor?
All right.
The motion carries.
Thank you.
Very much.
All right.
So now we're going to have a 15 minute recess to take any photos for the resolutions.
Whoever is here.
Do have folks in attendance for any of these resolutions?
I don't think there are any.
But for Tara, if you all would take a picture, and then she, that way she can use it when she does some releases.
Good. Sounds good. Awesome.
It's but I figure we can keep going through this agenda.
All right. Next up on our agenda is public comment. Do we have anybody signed up for public comment?
We have to read. I'm sorry.
We have three individuals.
Three, great.
Okay, so I will read the following statement for those who are signed up.
We want to remind speakers that they will have three minutes to speak.
The green light illuminates for the first two minutes.
The yellow light illuminates along with one beep to let the speaker know they still have one minute left.
The red light illuminates along with three beeps when the three minutes have expired.
If possible, it is appreciated if speakers can provide a copy of their comments
to the clerk in writing and please speak directly into the mic at the podium up there and the clerk is sitting right over there, who's up first, Jennifer.
I'm John Alderman.
Thank you, John.
John, if you can, the mic is right there towards the front.
The button on the top closes to you.
There you go.
Thank you.
It's already?
We're all citizens, including our farm families, have been told in the past that zoning
helps protect our properties and our rights.
We please use your zoning authorities to protect our farms and rural citizens from the
intrusion of a 28 mile industrial gas pipeline across our properties.
The purpose of zoning is to ensure that land uses are reviewed consistently, fairly, and in a manner compatible with surrounding properties and adopted land use policies.
Traditional spot zoning concerns arise when a small part will receive special treatment that is inconsistent with surrounding zoning classifications and land uses.
In this case, with an industrial pipeline, the concerns effectively, the reverse, a major industrial
utility corridor would be treated as if it is exempt from meaningful zoning review altogether.
Despite crossing agriculture all one lands, bona fide farms, forestry properties, and present
use value agricultural and forestry lands, otherwise subject to ordinary zoning requirements.
If a typical farmer, example, were to put an industrial site on his farm, he'd have to go through zoning.
But not so, with supposedly, with a high pressure gas pipeline.
So, you need to be consistent.
Failure to conduct such a review creates arbitrary and unequal application of zoning principles and undermines the integrity of the county's land use framework.
This issue does not concern pipeline safety regulation, which is addressed through state and federal agencies.
Rather, it concerns the county's independent responsibility to evaluate land use, compatibility, zoning consistency,
and the appropriateness of industrial scale utility infrastructure within rural agricultural zoning districts.
I will remind you of relevant North Carolina case law.
I'm not going to read this part because I only have 50 seconds.
Olderman versus Chad and Cady.
I was a young man when that occurred, read it.
Tant of Apex versus Ruben, read it.
Local governments are responsible.
They need to protect the citizens' rights.
Finally, Rutherford Electric membership corporation
versus 130 of Chattam, LLC, 10 Swinney Land in Rutherford County.
He won.
He needs to read that, too.
You guys have responsibilities.
Please help your farmers.
Together, these North Carolina cases support the principle
that local government must apply zoning and land use
review consistently, especially when industrial scale infrastructure
affects protected rural agriculture and forced relans, five seconds.
Refusing even to evaluate zoning compatibility for a 28-mile industrial gas pipeline corridor raises serious concerns regarding equal treatment, consistency, and the proper administration of local land use authority, and beware.
Other things can happen such as compressor stations in such an area. That's critical.
So, this is big and it involves a huge number of landowners in chat.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Alderman.
Thank you for sharing that tonight.
Would you like to get a copy of that to Jennifer, our clerks,
so she can share it with Jason Sullivan.
She can make sure she's good.
I've already given that.
I have it.
I'll share it.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
And if people would like to talk with me in the future about this, feel free.
I know what a fine-to-map of the way you're having to do with all of this.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Jennifer, who do we have up next?
Timothy Eckert is next.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
Thank you all for serving.
I appreciate your civic mind in this and taking these positions.
As a quick preamble, the one I'm going to read, I just want to share that I'm here during
work day on PTO to share this with you because of child care issues. I know you've heard a lot
about the issues that I'm going to speak to. Last meeting, probably this evening as well,
but I don't know what you know that for those of us with child care needs, it's hard to get out here,
so I just wanted to come and represent the views of several of my neighbors as well as my own family
and these issues. First, I wanted to thank you all for agreeing to research a potential golf cart
ordinance. I am a resident of Breyer Chapel and appreciate that
mode of transportation. I'm unaware of any safety or traffic
congestion issues as long as they're handled by a licensed driver and
appreciate you all being able to explore the potential for residential
areas to be able to use golf carts. More pressing, I wanted to
speak to you regarding the Feringon Preserve proposed
development. My family and I live near the portion of Breyer
to tackle that borders that parcel of plans.
So certainly I'm biased and I have to stake in all of this.
But I have serious concerns about the potential
for the zoning change.
I understand the implications of a zoning change very well.
I was the chair of the planning board
for an under-menu-sipality North Carolina
before moving here in 2024.
So I understand what the implications are.
And I just feel really strongly that zoning is something
that was given to us by our forebearers
to make sure that we're managing our growth
and our land use and our sustainability.
ability and we'll just say
I encourage you all to have a very high threshold for considering any change, disowning, particularly
comes to high-density communities, because there is quite an impact that comes along with
that.
It's my understanding, though my spouse attended the last meeting, because of the child care we have
sort of hospitals, but that's a developer is potentially proposing that briar chap, one of their
areas, can absorb some of the commercial and other needs of this community, if it were to
be built, and I can assure you that that won't work. The pool, the other recreational things
commercial, they're already super saturated as it is now. I just wanted to state that I'm
not an envy. I think that we need to make sure that we have affordable housing in the area,
but I would just say in my experience on a planning board, developers looking to increase the density
to increase their ROI on their developments, tend to use that as an argument praying on civic
minded people like yourself because they know that you care about your communities and that's oftentimes
an argument used in my experience to try to increase the density of a development, to increase
the return on their investment.
Thank you.
And next, is Theresa Wheat.
So I had a whole thing here to say, but John covered every point that I had.
I was one of the people that got the letter from Enbridge, and that was what my concern was
about, and he did cover everything.
So I won't take up any more of your time.
I appreciate all of you serving and I hope that you can look out for the people that
elected to.
It matters that you came out.
Thank you for coming out to speak with us and taking your time.
Thank you.
Appreciate that.
Is that it?
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you very much.
All righty.
Next up, we have board priorities.
we will receive item 206262 annual Community Child Protection Team, CCPT Child Fatality, Prevention
Team, Presentation, and our Health Director Mike Zellick, and Social Services Director
Jenny Richardson will present this item.
Thank you for coming today.
Thank you for having us.
This is our annual presentation.
We'll get this up here for this is for the Child Fatality Prevention team.
So this is the structure in the state, you have the state office, which started last year.
They kind of coordinate the whole system.
Then you have a local team within each jurisdiction county, which is what we represent.
That reviews child fatalities in that jurisdiction.
Then you have a national system that took off actually January this year.
So to brand new system, an online system that will help aggregate the data, which is exciting.
I think we were the last state in the country to do it.
So here we are, so we're getting used to that new system.
And then we review all cases, particularly those that are preventable,
but highlighted the escalated cases, escalated reviews,
which are for fatalities with prior CPS involvement.
So as I said, our local team reviews active child welfare cases
to determine gaps or deficiencies and resources.
This is optional, but we've decided to keep doing it because we saw the value here in Chattam County.
We review child fatalities, all children under 18, and look at strategies to prevent fatalities.
With these changes last year, we really prioritized those that are preventable.
As I said, something could be done about them.
Examine policies and procedures at the state level, local level, so we can make recommendations to the state level.
we can also do things at the local level to hopefully address these gaps or issues.
And then we get an increase, but small amount of money from the state each year, $1,200
is about what we get in Chattam County.
So it's enough for meals for two of the four meetings and we invest the rest in over the
last couple of years of invested the rest in car seats for our passenger safety program.
So it's not a ton, but it's helpful every little bit helps in addition to the support
the commissioners gave this year, this helped us really work through the weight list we had
in terms of families in the native car seats, which is very important.
So these are mandated members as you can see Jenny and I co-chair the local team and then
we have a number of mandated members each represents a specific position within our team.
And then we have some ad hoc members as well, so you see that.
So it's our team. We get really strong attendance, very engaged group. We're very fortunate to
it. We have a range of expertise, which is super helpful as we weigh not only the child
of fatalities, but also the active CPS cases. And with that, I'll turn it over to Jim.
So as Mike mentioned, we've elected to continue to review child welfare cases.
I think it gives us the opportunity to really talk through the challenges that families are facing
in our community oftentimes they're very complex and really difficult for them to overcome.
Anyone on our team can recommend a family to be reviewed. Often our social worker at DSS
is looking for some feedback and direction or any kind of recommendations from the team.
It's nice to have the opportunity to present in front of a group of community leaders who
understand what's going on and can maybe offer suggestions. We also look for, as Mike said,
gaps and ways that we can recommend to make things better. Just to give context to this,
I'm going to talk a little bit more about the reviews, but we, this past year, accepted about
300 reports of abuse in neglect, so we reviewed eight families, so it's definitely not
representative of our entire child welfare population, but it does give an idea.
I think for, you know, we come every year and we're often talking about the same,
the same challenges, so we talk to, we reviewed eight families this year involving 11 children,
and all of the families re-reviewed. Children were in custody of the Department of Social Services.
7, and 7 of those families, children were either placed with kin or with a parent and
like an inpatient substance use treatment program, and then we had one child who's placed
in a residential placement for behavioral health treatment.
The barriers that we saw in our reviews were lack of engagement with substance use disorder
and mental health treatment, availability of services and educational support for children
who have IDD diagnoses exposure to domestic violence need for dental care and when we're
looking at child needs we're also looking at parent needs and often there's overlap
between the two. We also took a look at how we talk about housing and in our reviews
two of the families had stable housing two of the families had unstable housing three were
in a residential treatment program like I mentioned before and then one family had housing
support from a family member. And then in seven of the families reviewed, there was some sort of
justice involvement, including charges related to drug use or possession of firearms, and also
child abuse charges. So, Jenny, before you leave that screen. So, when you say there were three
in residential treatment, do you look at whether they had stable housing to return to after
that or did not, like, I didn't look at that and we didn't talk about it a lot to be honest
when I was going back and looking through our notes. Some of these treatment programs are
longer term so parents can stay in there for 18 months. So it felt, I think there's value obviously
always in talking about it and something we can do better in the future. I think we were looking
more of like snapshot in time, this family stable and doing everything that they can do right
now. The other advantage of the inpatient programs is they offer so much support. This is
typically moms. As they discharge and so there is support in helping them find housing as a part
of that planning and so that's another plus to being in one of these programs. Thank
you. Turn
have some opioid settlement funds going towards housing supports through
reneed esteem, so not speaking specific to those individuals, but there are some.
There's a recognition of the social determinants that affect many of these individuals
and supporting them on their recovery journey.
So we had 10 child fatality reviews in last calendar year 2025, which is pretty consistent
with previous years.
As a reminder, our reviews take place, at least a year after the death, of those
10, 7 were determined to be unpreventable, so 3 is where we kind of focused our attention.
And obviously that's a small number, so we look at factors going back a few years.
And what we tend to see is topics of concern include traffic safety.
So we have a lot of rural two lane roads.
I know we've talked about this in the past.
But traffic safety, as probably the leading cause of mortality among our youth, youth mental health,
a certain safe storage, including a firearms or medications, as well as this come up in our discussions.
And Mike, when you say there were a few places, so you went back and looked to you mean,
you went back and looked over time, or you just looked.
So looking kind of over the years, we have cases where we last year, we look at the previous year,
and kind of go back, let's say the last five years or so, to see kind of what causes of death
we see recur, and I'd say traffic safety is the number one of those, and mental health
is certainly come up as well, safe sleep often comes up too, but I think over the last
let's say three years or so, car accidents would be by far the number one, set, two
with you.
Just to add one thing, I think one of the advantages of participating in the statewide data
system.
We'll also now, I mean, it's going to take a little while to have enough data in there
to be able to look at, but we'll be able to compare, because our thankfully, our numbers
are low, so it's hard to know if there are trends, and to be able to compare across counties,
I think we'll be really valuable in understanding, in contributing factors.
Just to clarify then, we are looking at babies all the way up to 18 or 17 rather, as far
the age groups and assuming then you've got this sort of by age where they tend to fall
the most over time and then do we compare our stats to similar size counties or populations
and see where those fall and you guys are able to do that right.
Great question. So I think as Jenny mentioned with the new system we're going to be able to do
a better job of what you just asked about. So I don't know that we've done a great job of it so far
by part of North Carolina now being the last state on this system as we will have an ability
to aggregate the data across jurisdictions and across years to see that matter.
Fortunately, we don't have the numbers to be able to sort of statistically figure out if we're
out of whack, which is a really good thing I guess, but still nice to know.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Where we can.
Usually, when we look at numbers like this in public health, we look at five year trends
as kind of the benchmark because you can imagine even within one year, you could have
a traffic related fat fatality may affect multiple children.
So, but yes, we're looking at zero to 18.
We look at issues, birth defects, things like that.
Oftentimes, are considered unpreventable,
but we have the medical records.
So, we're able to go in and see if there are factors.
We also have our medical examiner.
We have an MD who can go into epic or the electronic medical record system
to get any records that apply.
We try not to make an assumption that it's
unproventable, even if on base value it may appear that way.
True, but I mean, everything's like a statistic.
So if you have two children that died at the same location
and what's wrong with the location,
it's something even though it's just two people.
That may not be something you'd raise an eyebrow,
but it's the same location that becomes something really problematic.
That's great.
Could we look at the speed limit?
Totally.
Yeah, all kinds of things.
That's a great point. We should recruit you to the thing, because these are what we need to be thinking about and trying to determine what level of influence we can have on policies like that.
So some of our successes from last year, as I mentioned, traffic-related fatalities are concerned.
So, we prioritize our car seat safety program which there are several providers in the county that provide car seat safety checks.
The health department's one of them. I think last year we had close to 200 clients served in that. It's been very successful.
Thanks to you all, we had some county dollars. I believe $5,000 that went towards purchasing car seats for families in need.
We hate to thought that a child will leave a clinic or the hospital and not have a car seat to go home in that's a very big concern and we had a wait list
Previously on that program it got so long that we stopped being able to have it, but with the additional resources that you all have given with the funds we get from this and some other grant funds
We've been able to
pull in I'm happy to say we've really
been able to work through that wait list and
serve many clients in our community who really need these resources to protect their little ones.
We continue to focus efforts on addressing youth mental health and suicide, including a suicide prevention task force that was formed.
The help department will look at this concern that's gotten grant funds to purchase gun locks, which I mentioned safe storage before.
So that's a resource we'll be giving out through outreach.
And then we'll have a presentation soon about the opioid settlement funds, which is ongoing, work through the share prevention partnership for controlled substances.
But we have a number of strategies focused on early intervention funds getting out to nonprofits like communities and schools,
Elfuturo, among others, that are doing important community-based work to hopefully address youth who may be considered a higher risk of poor outcomes.
And as I mentioned earlier, we have a big team, but they're a very involved team.
We never have issues with quorum, we consistently get attendance of 80-90% which is really
good.
It's, of course, a heavy topic.
It's an important one, but it's not always the most fun way to spend Friday afternoon, but
the team is very much engaged.
We have active participation across the team, which is great.
I mentioned, like, we didn't have to keep doing the child, the CCPT side, the DSS side, active
cases, but that was something our team decided to continue to do because we saw a value and
I'm sure Janet could speak more to that, but that was a willingness of our team to say,
this is a space where we all come together, we want to do our work on the front end, and
if we have to the back end as well to hopefully prevent outcomes like this.
Talk about the last two successes, the first of which was the goal-live of our state-wide
Medicaid plan for children in foster care. Prior to this, the children received services based
on being associated with an LMEMCO. So if we had a child who was in DSS custody in
Chattam County and they went to live in a foster home or with a relative on the other,
you know, some other part of the state they may not have access to the same behavioral health
services in particular. So that went live on December 1st. Had a few bumps in the road,
But overall, I think we're moving in the right direction.
And then the second was that we were
approved as a developing child advocacy center
for a bud child advocacy centers in North Carolina,
which is kind of the accrediting agency for these.
So what does that mean, Jenny, exactly?
Child advocacy center?
Yeah, what does that mean if you've gathered?
This is a play.
This child advocacy centers in North Carolina
accredited CSU required to meet certain standards.
But in a nutshell, it's a place where children can go
after there have been allegations of abuse and neglect where they get in a valuation.
And so it provides a child friendly, trauma informed setting where kids tell their story once.
It's a partnership between the Child Advocacy Center Department of Social Services and all of our law enforcement agencies
so that we can have one place for this to happen in a way that's, yeah.
And there are other services associated with that, and some of which we've had in place in Chattam County for a long time.
we're formalizing pieces of it and then adding onto it. But requirement is to offer behavioral
health services to the family advocacy. There's a medical part of the interview and a medical
examination and then a child interview so that it's all very spelled out for what we.
So, did you just add that to the collection of things you're already doing?
Yes, because I got bored one day.
because you have all this time pre-
I'm hearing it.
This came about because you want these evaluations to happen very quickly so that kids are not waiting.
And we, for a million years, have used Beacon Clinic at UNC because of our proximity, we haven't had a CAC.
I think there's like 50 CACs in North Carolina.
And so our kids are waiting sometimes as long as them on Thursdays weeks, which is really hard and not what we wanted.
So actually our Child Protective Services Social Work team came to
and said, hey, these kids are waiting too long.
What can we do about it?
And so that was really kind of the impetus for getting started.
Okay.
Yeah.
Thank you.
And just FYI, there are grand opportunities available
through the Governor's Crime Commission for CACs.
Yes.
This is on the radar.
Unfortunately, the funding amounts have dropped.
Oh, and you're dealing with it.
But there is still funding available for sure.
So we will, yes, tap into that.
So looking to our current year, opportunities
These recommendations, continuing with the Health Department
seeing expansion of our community-based programming,
number of existing services like home visits,
outreach education.
I mentioned some of the resources like gun locks
that we can distribute throughout reach events,
and other things.
Also looking at partnership with emergency operations
to expand mobile health options through our clinic team.
We're looking to share the cost of a mobile unit with them
because they also need a mobile command center,
which is a great opportunity for us to
co-tubers with one son, so to speak.
So that's likely down later in this calendar year
in the early next year, but some opportunities there.
And I know we mentioned services for those
with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
I wanted to highlight monarchs going to be opening
and activities based day program for adults
with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Thanks in large part to your support with startup funds,
which was a tremendous boost to get that off the ground and the expectation that itself
is sustaining, moving forward, which is great. So they have a location right just north
the town and expect to go live. I believe next month, so this is really coming together
and they've already got, I think a couple of dozen applicants received in our currently receiving
more, so if you know anybody who could benefit, that's 18 and up, but we're seeing, you
start aging out of getting to adulthood and this could be a resource.
The benefits them, compliments existing services like chat and trades on the Western side of the county.
So I just wanted to take an opportunity to thank you all for your support of that into
highlight a positive update on it that it's nearing fruition.
And I think we're anticipating a ribbon cutting in like late July.
Okay, last two, we went live, we were one of 11 pilot counties to go live in a new, the new new statewide child welfare information system and so that has been a busy time for us and but also exciting and that we will have access to information no matter where a child lives in North Carolina.
So, we're, we're, our staff have been great and plug-in through all the health districts and figuring out how things work.
So, and then finally, we're evaluating the feasibility of implementing a professional foster parenting program and partnership with a behavioral health nonprofit.
And what this is is the foster family lives in a house and, like, they all do.
I guess but it's a house provided by the behavioral health provider and so a whole family is served
with that family so they kind of follow them through their course in foster care and it allows
a place for parents to come and work with that foster parent with a goal of increasing
reunification rates with parents and so this is a model that's continuing to be studied
but some preliminary research shows that it's 82 percent effective in achieving
permanent C for kids and over half of those kids go home, which is huge.
Yeah, so we're excited about that too.
Yes, any other questions for us?
I do have one.
So will this new data, statewide data system,
will that help us be able to look back and see beyond incidentals?
So could we look back at families?
Does it capture data in any way that we could track whether there is a family that is at risk
because of prior incidents or does it give us information that we can look back and
see that a family is actually there outcomes are getting better because of services like they
have housing and we're not seeing, you know, truncy or delinquency or whatever,
the parents are not on drugs, not drinking or whatever, and we are seeing better outcomes.
Is there any way for us to use that data to track that sort of thing over time?
I don't think it offers a way to look forward and, you know, when it went live was the
date that all the counties in North Carolina started putting data in, so eventually I think you'll be able to look back.
I'm not sure what it looks like for tracking individual kind of case level information but it does collect
a lot more information about potential contributing factors or like social determinants of health kinds of
data points that could help us see
our certain types of children more at risk
for a fatality
than our certain experiences associated with certain outcomes.
And I think we have national data on this already
and I also think it will allow us
it's just different to be able to see it in your own county
and compare it to other counties in North Carolina.
And that doesn't exactly answer your question out if you have anything you want to add.
I think that was right.
I think, you know, with the escalated reviews, we'll look at fatalities where there was
prior CPS involvement, so we'll do dig into that a little bit how much we can compare cross jurisdictions.
I guess time will tell.
We'll have to see it depends on how much is entered into the system and I don't know how much detail
we'll be able to get from other counties.
But I think part of our continuing to review active child welfare cases is getting at kind of what you're speaking to as we don't want to just review things on the back end.
What could we have done?
We want to be talking about what can we do now?
Not just for this child or this family, but for those like that family.
And I think that leads to really important systems level conversations in addition to the individual level conversations about what gaps are we seeing?
And example that comes to mind for me is we had over the past few years we've had a couple
we've reviewed a couple of fatalities where there was an issue with safe sleep and children were
being cared for not bad parent but like another caretaker like a relative and so we had this
conversation about safe sleep messaging because a lot of it's targeted towards parents and in this
There's lots of grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins who take care of babies and making sure, like,
talking about how we could broaden our message to reach those audiences.
That's just one example that comes to mind.
And I feel like it would be helpful for us when we're thinking about how our investment,
particularly when we're looking at issues of poverty and access and mental health, et cetera.
Where does our investment have the highest impact, right?
So, if doing all of the other things doesn't help if housing is still insecure, that's important for us to know.
If, you know, the mental health continues to be a persistent problem when other things have been corrected for,
I think that should help inform how we invest and when we're talking county dollars.
So, there's a fatality review model called femur, and I think it's not going to get the acronym right.
But it's specifically for infants who like perinatal child fatalities, and it really is a much more intensive review that looks at it.
It doesn't involve interviews of family members or anything like that.
It's a much more structured broad review of the challenges
that a family is facing, and what could potentially be done.
And there's a few counties in North Carolina that are doing this,
but it's really pretty small.
It's been something that the stage hall fatality task force
has looked at several times over the years.
But I do think it's an interesting way to take a more holistic review,
particularly at perinatal fatalities or instant fatalities, sorry.
It's a great place.
Are there any other questions?
Thank you, thank you.
You guys, this is wonderful.
It's a hard topic, but I'm deeply grateful that you are here
and you're with us here in Cham County.
And thank you for all your hard work and your team as well.
Thank you.
Thank you for all your support.
All right.
Next couple of items, I have Mr. Brent Hart on DAC.
Item 2600185, receiving update on the Chattam County Minority Entrepreneur and Small Business
needs assessment and peer county's Small Business Association research.
Good afternoon, commissioners, I hope you're doing well, you'll have me for the next couple
of presentations so you'll be used to my voice.
So just wanted to start off for the Small Business presentation we have today.
There's two critical pieces, well three, but two for updates and those sorts of things.
So staff receives direction for both of these items to come to you all, give an overview of them.
And just so you can see where we are.
So the first is the minority small business needs assessment.
this was presented to the board in 2021 and was commissioned by the Kenan Institute Private
Enterprise and I'll have five other five recommendations within the report and I'll go over
each of those recommendations and then we also receive direction a couple of months ago for
the first small business research to see what small businesses, how small businesses are assisted
throughout the state what different counties are doing, regards to that, and a little bit more.
Permission there. Did want to note that Sydney Chief, the intern in the manager's office, was going to be here to present that research. I'm going to do his work done. Do some justice to that. Hopefully we'll see he wasn't able to be here to do some family matters. So just wanted to point out that the second piece of this presentation is not buying.
So to get started, like I mentioned, we'll go over the minority entrepreneur and small business needs assessment update,
and then then the peer community, small business research, and you can see there, some of those items.
Do you want to know if you all will wait for your questions toward the end of the presentation,
There's at the end, there will be a staff recommendation in regard to this, so just wanted to give a heads up there.
You may have some questions, but it might be best because you all might, that recommendation might meet those asks.
So feel free to ask any questions, just put in that out there.
So to start off, I already kind of went over it generally, but the go over one more time.
the minority entrepreneur and small business needs assessment was presented to this board
in 2021, a contracted in 2019, and it was done by the Keenan Institute of Private Enterprise
at UNC.
So there were five recommendations in this report, went over some of those different data needs
on how minority entrepreneurs and their small businesses are doing throughout the community,
And those five recommendations were in regard to helping continue growth in that area.
So just to go through the recommendations, the first was to embrace a place-based approach
to building an inclusive entrepreneurial and small business ecosystem.
Each of these recommendations has a fairly long section with below them.
I wasn't able to fit them on the slides,
but a lot of this was in regard to Chattam County being a convener
and working toward working with minority entrepreneurs
and those small businesses to continue growth.
And so we wanted to highlight a couple of things
that Chattam County has done since this time.
We work primarily through our partners through this work
and that's through our annual nonprofit allocations
and then subsequent funding that goes to them
and then also in just general partnerships
with the organizations.
So the first is web squared.
They receive funding in the Human Service
nonprofit grant process and work with minority
and sponge from yours.
We'll get back to them here in a little bit.
But they partner in programs that we have
and are a major partner with, I know that.
Yes.
And don't they have funding through other ways not just through that grant process?
Yes, and we'll get there in just a second.
And that also is through their innovation lab.
So we'll, and that's our second recommendation.
The second partner here is the Small Business Center at CCCC.
They received funding through the annual CCCC allocation.
So they are a major partner in the growth of small businesses in Chatham County and all of that good stuff.
And then they also partner with us in different programs as you'll see in a couple more updates as we get there.
And then just we wanted to highlight some other partnerships with other organizations.
This list is by no means exhaustive.
So the first are our chambers of commerce, both the Chatham Chamber and the West Chatham Chamber,
the EDC for economic development, along with the organizations that they work with and then
cooperative extension for our agriculture businesses.
So we have a pretty large section of folks that we work with to effectuate positive interactions
with small businesses and working toward their growth.
So that's just a general update for this first recommendation.
For recommendation two, much more specific is to create balanced approach to economic development
and given that the economic development corporations primarily primary mission is business recruitment,
establish a parallel entity, a chat of county innovation lab, the focus is exclusively on entrepreneurship
and small business development.
And as I mentioned earlier,
WebSquared receives funding for that innovation lab,
post this report,
and we work through them for to complete this recommendation.
And I believe this is what you're referring to,
Commissioner Canlin, or maybe on mistake.
But the WebSquared continues to work on this lab,
And I received some data from them for FY-2526.
They just for FY-2526, they have been funded in prior years,
and I can get that data for you all as well.
But just to go through it, briefly, we have,
they have served 37 by Pock Entrepreneurs.
They have delivered 200 plus hours of personalized business
coaching, 24 entrepreneurs receive on-going services, and then they hosted 19 workshops
and round tables and events.
I know we're supposed to hold questions, but is there data on how many of those are
Chaudham County residents, the 37 entrepreneurs supported?
I believe so, and I can get that for you.
I don't have it off top of the top of my head, but I have the report, and I can provide that
for you all.
Any other questions on this recommendation before we go to the next one?
So this is the third recommendation and this is one of the larger ones of the few.
So for this recommendation, this recommendation is to adopt a mission-driven innovation approach to minority entrepreneurship and small business development.
and the general gist of this one is to lead by leveraging
Shadow County Government procurement and contracting to
grow minority businesses, collaborate with other
entrepreneurial support organizations to market
forecasted contracting and procurement opportunities, and then
EECAP, the EECAP procurement platform to connect
minority entrepreneurs and small business owners with
education training and networking as well as access to
government and private sector contracting and procurement opportunities.
So this recommendation is primarily in relation to government contracting and working with
minority entrepreneurs to support those businesses in our community.
And so enough data for an update to this at these efforts, I reached out to our procurement
office and they provided a few updates.
So, just to go through them here, they post applicable bid opportunities through the North Carolina Department of Administration's historically under-lies under-utilized businesses or hub site to inform those businesses of opportunities within the county.
Our vendor application form requests that these hub vendors to provide their classification
for future opportunities.
So we have a repository of those businesses that we can work with in the future and they
are listed in our system so that if we, so choose to contract with them later on in the
process, they're already built into our system, just like any other vendor, but they have
specific designation within the system.
We also, as you'll note, from a previous recommendation, participate in annual procurement
summits and with the Central Carolina Community Colleges Small Business Center to help
hub business owners navigate bid opportunities for the county and the CCCC offered a six-part
program last fall to assist those vendors and will be hosting the procurement summit again next
So we are an active participant in some of those programs that help provide information to those businesses so that we can contract with them in the future.
And then finally we inform vendors when they sign up to be a recognized vendor with chat and county to sign up for the e-notifications for the county website to receive notices of those current bid opportunities.
So that gives you a general overview.
I'm sure there's more and our finance team can speak to that, but we do definitely.
We have made some changes based off of these recommendations and are working toward
being a much better place to work with our for minority entrepreneurs to work with Shadow County.
So it's those are a few updates there.
Our next recommendation is to consider supporting the proposed mission driven innovation approach outlined in recommendation 3 by launching a chat and county equitable development fund, an investment vehicle that would provide startup and growth capital to support minority owned mission driven entrepreneurial ventures and small business enterprises.
This is not something that directly has been accomplished.
This recommendation does have, however, a outlet that we think would work pretty well for this.
So we had a Chattam County revolving loan fund, and we believed that this would accomplish the recommendation.
It was established in 2004 and updated in 2008, but has since late dormant for several years and we are currently working with the EDC to reinvigorate and modernize that program.
So it is still outstanding. We're working with them to continue work on this revolving loan funds stand-up once again.
What happened to it between 2008 and now, I might lean on county manager Brian Thompson to answer that.
From 2008 to now, I'm not sure for all the history behind it.
I know that there have been some of those funds that have been used to leverage loans and that some of those are probably still active and not necessarily from 2008.
But I do think, in the most recent years, it's not been as active, and one of the areas that we want to focus on is re-enjuvenating and rejuvenating and bringing more attention to this as a resource to our small business community.
Do we know the last year that alone was given the last time it was operational?
Don't have that right off hand unless you have once you've received any additional information.
On this itself is a focus area that we're wanting to bring more information to bear on the status of it.
What's active, have there been any defaults?
Has that fund been depleted at all as a result of that?
And what has work, what has it, and how can we move forward to bolster that resource?
Have we identified staff and folks that would be overseeing this program or?
We keep getting really lucky.
We're good.
We actually have a meeting.
I'm looking.
Oh, May 28th to have that conversation.
Thank you for being back.
And it has, it has just been historically underutilized.
And so I know that for those who have used it, it's been an asset,
but it is largely unknown.
And I think that there are a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners
that could take advantage of it where they, where, you know,
market it and support it and sort of out in the public sphere,
So that people knew to get into it and I wonder whether and I'm sure Rebecca's going to look at this kind of thing, but or you will have a conversation whether the model that self-help uses for some of their small business loans.
Whatever they use to market to get that out in front of the community is clearly a successful model.
and I know Chad and we kind of struggle with, you know, who are people listening to,
where are they getting their information, where are they hearing things?
So I think that is another big part of the challenge because it was housed in the EDC
it already feels a little removed from the ordinary, you know, man.
And so I'm excited about the potential.
And I'm really looking forward to whatever we get.
And as I mentioned, we believe that once that stood back up and is more available for use
with the community, that would definitely accomplish some of this recommendation in the report.
Just stay tuned on that one.
Is this coming out of the work that I know the town of Pittsburgh, Brian, when we have that meeting with Jonathan and looking at sort of entrepreneurial and supporting that work, and so it's kind of
Ten gentle, do you know what I'm speaking of your Britain?
Is it, uh, I believe they were formal with you, right? And now in CIDA.
I believe it's who they've been working with.
Yeah, you remember this?
Yeah.
And so this specifically hasn't, but I know Brian and I have had conversations about speaking with Pittsburgh Owen.
Stay tuned for the recommendation here at the end.
Perfect.
So this last recommendation for this piece of the update is the invest in impact investment training section.
So, this section of we...
We did look at doing this, but in the report there was a designation that we would provide training
to all staff for assisting entrepreneurial organizations. We didn't feel that that was a feasible,
it was basically recognized as operational, not feasible to provide that training. But we do and
will partner with entrepreneurial support organizations to provide training to staff that
work with those entrepreneurs, but because our outside of our regulatory authority, our work
with small businesses has been limited up until now, that's not something we provided yet,
but would be open to doing in the future. And what is impact investment training?
So, within this recommendation, it's basically a training that would go to staff to teach them
where to provide or how to provide small businesses, services, and those sorts of things.
And as I mentioned earlier, the recommendations fairly long.
So I can get you all a little bit more information there.
This is just an update, but we have not.
We recognize that the ability to train all of our staff on these things would be a large cost.
So if we would rather tailor it to those specific positions that do have day-to-day work
with small business, then those owners.
So I'll stop there for this section any questions on those five recommendations, and then
I know I told you to hold on to them, but happy to take on.
I have a broad question,
how are we tracking or how are we planning to track the impact of the work?
Because there's a little bit of a concern that I have that we are saying that we're already doing all the things that we should be doing.
And while I do believe that we are doing some of the things that we could and should be doing,
It would be impossible to say whether we're doing a really good job unless we know whether it's
making a meaningful difference in the community.
So, how are we tracking that and how what would what would look like success?
Yeah, so one of the things that we have, nothing specific up until now, but one thing we've talked
about is staff internally is to be to add it to the information hub.
is if you've noticed there's a plan section on the info hub that has a number of different
things and over the next few months we'll be adding pages for different plans that you all
will be reviewing and for consideration of adoption. So maybe adding a page there and explaining
the level of investment that is being provided by this body to nonprofits that engage in this work
and then also providing more regular updates for the assessment.
So that's one of the ideas that we've thrown around internally is a good way to provide some of that.
Those updates and keep the community involved and it also serves,
it would serve as a nice place for folks to go to be able to know what Chatham is doing in this area,
because up until now, this is the first update since that report was presented,
So that would provide a more regular opportunity for departments to add those things onto the sites so the public can be updated over time and you all as well
Would that be something that you all would be interested in seeing and would that do you think that would meet what you're looking for?
I think that would be helpful for us now right I mean we would I would want to to see that
But given the population of the Hispanic community inside of the city that we're seeing a number
of solar city, Hispanic owned businesses get access to these things, given some of the African-American
long term business owner, businesses that have been in China County for a while, I would
like to see how are they accessing it?
Are they getting an opportunity?
And without some sort of data point to look at,
I don't really know what those raw numbers look like now,
and I certainly wouldn't know what success it looks like
if, you know, to look back in a year or two,
or to look forward a year or two.
So that, and then I think for us,
that could be helpful in seeing whether that plays a role
in who goes into business in Chatham, right?
I mean, I think historically there are demographics that just don't really feel that there
was a shot, and if we can change that narrative and improve those outcomes, and be able
to see that in real time, I think that would be a benefit to us.
Yeah, and just to add on to that a little bit, as I mentioned earlier, the report has a lot
demographic data on those folks. So we can definitely look into seeing how we can track
those data points from when the report was accessed to now or over time through either
census reports, American Survey, American Community Survey data. We can see what we can do
and make it similar to how we've done some of the commissioner goals. So it tracks it along the
And we can we can even catch up from where we were because that historical data so we can see those trends over the past few years
Any further questions on this piece and then we'll go to the next section. Also,
so as I mentioned
Sydney, well, Chief the manager's office intern wasn't able to be here, but this was his section of the presentation
He has done a lot of research. He went through all 100 counties and
And did a very small synthesis for you all of what he had researched, what was most common to see on how peer communities interact with small businesses in some of the programs that they stood up.
So to give a start, we'll provide an overview of actions taken by other counties in North Carolina to support small businesses.
And then he focused on strategies to assist with the acquisition of capital, and providing resources beneficial to small businesses.
So the first one I believe it was noted when you all had originally discussed this, that there was some interest in looking at an advisory committee.
When sitting it done this research,
Mecklenburg County is the only county in North Carolina
that has this type of an advisory board.
So it provides recommendations,
relating to concerns and issues of small businesses
and entrepreneurs, and then when selecting members,
preferences given to people who have at least
one year of entrepreneurial experience.
This is a fairly uncommon committee
as one in 100 counties in North Carolina,
and our recommendation toward the end is having to do with this in a slightly different capacity.
Sorry.
Do we know whether any other counties have small business advisory groups that fall under something else,
as opposed to a stand-alone committee, right? Like a community college or their EDC or something else?
Yes, so we have noted several working groups and several different organizations, you'll see it in a minute, that have
departments specific to entrepreneurs or small businesses, but that's typically, you'll see them,
most of the time in municipalities, because they assist with either facade grants or downtown revitalization in those sorts of
ideas, counties typically don't have that as much, but he may be able to give more, but from
what we discussed, Mechlinberg was really the only county that had something specific to this,
but there are different models in ways that folks go about it. But just to give you all a little
of a previewed the working group is our recommendation, so I will give you an overview once
we get there.
The next item is Orange County has a small business investment grant program.
They provide small grants of up to $5,000 for businesses in operation for at least six months.
They also provide larger grants that range from $5,000 to $10,000 for businesses in operation
for at least one year.
They're grant funding comes from revenue generated from the quarter cents article 46 sales tax.
So we are still looking into and staff is still looking into the authority where they
derived this from.
We're sure that it's there.
We just haven't received it back from them.
But we wanted to put this out here as a
of what another county does in relation to small businesses.
The
next one, as we mentioned earlier, and it'll kind of be called back to that several counties
have revolving loan programs for small businesses, and said and just put an example from
McLeanberg of up to 75,000 of a 7% fixed interest rate, and the purpose is to help small
business owners with capital, creating jobs, and expansion.
And as I mentioned earlier, Chattam County previously had a revolving loan fund, we still
do, but it's laying dormant and then the manager's office is working with EDC2, reinvigorate
and modernize the program.
So I'm just an overview there.
And ours, has interest?
I don't think so.
But I'd have to go back and look to be certain, so I wouldn't be in the right place.
that's interesting that Maclimber has such a high interest rate.
I've wonder if it's my speculation would be that it's through a different bank or credit union.
What is this?
The largest risk for self-help.
Yeah.
The next section is a bent hosting.
So several counties have been known to host events for local businesses.
Mecklenburg has hosted events for local small business owners to meet one another.
These events are also used to inform business owners of available resources.
Guilford County House workshops for small business owners.
These include financial literacy resource events and networking.
He just gave a couple of examples, but this is fairly common.
Whether it be through service delivery departments like libraries or aging or those sorts of folks.
There's many different counties that do event hosting.
And then I believe this is his final one.
Several counties use service delivery departments
to promote available resources for small businesses.
And he put a couple of examples.
Almanz County uses their library website to promote
state and local resources for small businesses.
And then several counties have small business
and entrepreneurship departments.
As I mentioned earlier, they provide resources
and assistance with certifications and provide opportunities to participate in county contracting.
It's a little bit different and they work with their procurement.
I believe Dilford is one that has this type of department but typically in larger jurisdictions.
So those are the items that Sydney had provided that he saw in his research.
these were the major programs that we saw, but if you all have any questions on any of these,
happy to answer them.
So, were you at the Secretary of State visit at the Community College?
So, the Secretary of State website has some really excellent resources for small businesses
and entrepreneurs in particular, and I did wonder how we could ensure that folks in
Chatham County got access to them or got the information about them. And I worry
that just embedding it somewhere on our website doesn't really get it to people, right?
When you have to go look for something, especially if you're already overwhelmed in your,
I feel like if you're a solo entrepreneur or a solo practitioner at this point in time, you are overwhelmed.
If there is some way for it to be more front and center, and how do we use our library for those kinds of things?
I know the Small Business Center does a lot of offers a lot of training and opportunities, but maybe there is some room for us to sort of spread the information.
And so that you can find it in more than one space, depending on where people are showing up.
And we can have those discussions with our service delivery departments.
I believe in Carolyn, they need to correct me if I'm wrong, but our libraries.
I believe do have some information, but I'm not sure it's in the same way that some other...
definitely something we can look into.
I'm trying to, you know, obviously you've got Rebecca and others that have a lot of experience
in Serie II with small businesses, but as a small business owner myself for 15 years I can say
that I've put a lot of time waste of time pursuing opportunities in places like going to a hub
for, you know, vendor opportunities, things like that.
It just suck up the time to put in for some of these things. And the hope of getting something is very slim. So I think how to go about working with small businesses and ways that can be most impactful.
And it scares me to thought of putting all these resources up for them to pursue and then trying to have them navigate and figure out which one, you know, I just don't know where to go.
And I'm not saying we don't do it.
I'm not saying we only put a few up.
I'm just saying, how do we put things out there
in a way that can be most useful for small business owners?
And once I met with a member at this small business
association, probably up in or in Durham County,
drove up to meet with them.
And they had a bunch of great ideas,
but really it was not anything that was ultimately really useful.
So I think trying to ensure we're picking the brains,
maybe picking the brains of a lot of our local businesses
and entrepreneurs to be at the table with this.
So could be, you know, that sort of a committee
would be really helpful.
What works, you know, anyway?
Those are my thoughts in that area.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's a great segue for our next piece.
So staff was discussing a lot on this,
on how to best utilize, as you mentioned,
the partnerships that we have in the community, and folks that are much more involved in the small business environment than what the county typically is, other than in the regulatory lens.
So we decided to reach out to these interested list of partners here.
ourselves, the Small Business Center, WebSquared,
Chattam Chamber of Commerce, West Chattam Chamber of Commerce,
the EDC, and both the Town of Pittsburgh
and the Town of Sightler City,
and received some initial interest in the development
of a Small Business Working Group.
The county doesn't necessarily see itself
as the lead chair in the room in any way,
shape of form, but we reached out to all of these groups and received that initial interest
to begin the possibility of workshopping some type of working group with the idea of it being
a convening of the conveners, because one of the downsides that we saw from the Advisory
Committee lens is this is one of these are one off entrepreneurs that are being promoted
to these boards and committees, whereas this would be a working group of all of the organizations
that work with all of the small businesses, so they have a much larger voice, that's at least
from the staff view. You all obviously may feel differently, but in that we recommend that
you all direct staff to work with partners to explore the development of this type of working
group. We think it would be a huge benefit to small businesses and the work that they do.
So we'd love to hear your thoughts on this and if there are any questions that you all have.
Thank you for the work.
I think this kind of mirrors to how I would like to see, I guess, first steps.
I'm definitely in support of the recommendation that you've presented.
I don't know if you had any questions or comments, but I'm happy to make a motion.
I guess I'll make a motion to direct staff to work with partners to explore the development
of a small business working group.
Second.
Thank you, Commissioner.
All in favour?
All opposed?
No.
Go for it.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
And any further questions you all have before I move to the next presentation?
No.
So I do want to ask that we be our own worst critic and really look at, you know, not
are we doing enough, but is there more that we could be doing?
Because for so long we've been a participant in not doing enough, right?
Like we were just part of the landscape, which I'm pointing fingers, but it was a status quo
that existed.
And so if we're going to make meaningful impact, I think we need to be hold ourselves
up for a to examination to see whether there is room for us to be more, I don't want to
use the word aggressive, but for lack of a better word around our own expectations of
ourselves about come to us.
I think there's enthusiasm on the part of the board for this one, Brenton, and I think that
if we can grow businesses in the county, it's always a plus.
So yeah, I think that people here are pretty excited about this opportunity.
Thank you.
Thank you all.
And you are up next on the item 260238 received update on digital inclusion and vote to adopt updates
to the Chattam County Digital Inclusion Plan.
All right.
So let me, all right.
So I believe it has been a while since I have been in front of you all with an update
on digital inclusion and some of those types of matters, so, and I believe it was one of the first actions of Chair Rovers of which he joined in the board in 2024 to adopt the Chattam County digital inclusion plan.
So, we thought it would be a good idea to do three things today.
So, the first is to go do an overview of our broadband work in the past year since I brought it back in, brought it from, to you all.
And then, I have Crandon Institute here to do an overview of their grant program that was awarded by the Office of Digital Equity and Literacy
to Central Pine's Regional Council and then they were a subgrantee along with us in a different
capacity.
So they're going to do an overview of that program.
And then I also, as you mentioned, have our yearly recommended adjustments to the digital
inclusion plan that were provided by the digital inclusion coalition, and I'll go over all
of this as we did there.
And so, yes, as I mentioned, this kind of already did the introduction here, but you all adopted our chat and counting digital inclusion plan, which had three major prongs, and still has availability, access and adoption, and we'll go over all of those in a little bit.
But the first piece is availability and availability primarily deals with the expansion of broadband.
So just quickly do a level set here.
It's been a while, so some technology didn't know.
Fiber optic cable.
It's a technology that converts electrical signals carrying data to light,
and since the light through transparent glass fibers
about the diameter of the human hair.
If you see them on the road, it's the all of the orange rolls.
The best way I can describe it is their rolls of orange cabling.
And those can be max speeds of 5,000 megavits per second,
or even higher, and we'll get into what served versus unserved means
in just a second.
The second is copper in DSL.
this runs over traditional copper phone lines and speed dependent on technology in the distance.
DSL speeds range from 1.5 megabits per second to 80 megabits per second. Then we have
cable, cable modem service, enables cable operators to provide broadband using coax cables
in the same way that you would for a TV and then the max speed is about 1,000 megabits per
And those are our wired connections and there's several more, but these are the major ones here.
Our non-wired connections, the first is satellite.
It's a form of wireless broadband, connecting with the customer's home or business with satellites orbiting north.
And Max Feet is about 100 megabits per second.
And that honestly is a little bit old of a number.
As we all know, there's several different providers that offer higher than that.
And that's a legacy edition from this slide deck.
The second one here is fixed wireless.
It is wireless broadband connects a home or business using a radio link between equipment
at the customer's location and service providers' facility.
These are typically used in larger subdivisions where there's maybe a tower in the middle
love it and then it goes to those homes within the vicinity.
We have some very few though in Chatham, and then finally, 4G LTE home, it's a LTE home
Internet is a broadband Internet service delivery of 4G LTE wireless networks, and there
may be some more of those that have come out in the year since, because now we have 5G and
all sorts of other different technologies as well.
So, but the primary one we want to focus on here is fiber, since it is the predominant
technology that most experts see as the best to have in an area and then in some cases
satellite as well, and you'll notice that there's cable as well throughout different
communities and all of them work fairly well, fiber optics just allows the fastest speed.
Oh yeah, absolutely. Do you go over cost of those anywhere because I know there's a huge
cost, discrepancy with different forms of access, if I know, some are a lot cheaper than
others?
Yeah, I do not in this presentation. However, that is something that we have taken into account.
We've talked about different programs. There used to be a few programs that at the federal
level that surf folks that are no longer in existence, they didn't receive congressional approval
about a year or so ago, but that is definitely something there, but oftentimes it depends
on the location because it depends on the provider and what their academics look like, because
I've seen cases where DSL, you're receiving 10 megabits down or even sometimes less, is more expensive
than a fiber network, so it really just depends on the provider and what services they're offering.
And that's absolutely, that's a, that's a, that's a struggle. The, and there, as I mentioned,
there still are some programs, the Affordable Connectivity Program was one that used to exist,
and oftentimes, and folks should check with their providers because some of them are required
through grant programs and things like that to maintain that reduction in cost, and even
though there's no regulation to it now, they still say, if you meet these specific programs,
you are able to receive a discount of, I believe it's $25, is typically $25, because the
average is around 75 for internet cost a month.
So you'll receive a reduction from your ISP specifically.
So some different providers provide that as a service.
So just one as well, level set here on unserved and underserved.
So unserved locations are areas with speed less than 25 megabits per second download.
And three megabits per second upload.
And then underserved locations, our areas with speeds between 25 megabits per second, download
in 30 megabits per second, upload and 100 megabits download and 100 megabits upload.
So, though, below 25-3 is unserved and then in the middle there is underserved and then served is,
if you have internet speeds greater than 100 megabits per second by 100 megabits per second.
So, and that's an FCC definition, and the state has decided to also use that definition.
And so, with that, I'll go over some of the grant programs.
This presentation will primarily go through this piece of the presentation.
We'll go through the different grant programs that the county is working with state and federal resources on.
So the first is the Art Off Grant, the digital opportunity fund, and it will provide at $20.4 billion in funding over a 10 year period, which this started in 2019.
So we're getting there toward the end of the 10 year period to support the construction of broadband networks and rural communities across the country.
this program, we'll go over in a minute, we have one provider in chatam.
The second program is the great grant, and some of you may remember this from the American Rescue Plan Act Funds.
So it's a competitive grant program that provided funding to private sector broadband providers
to deploy last mile broadband infrastructure to unserved areas of North Carolina.
This program is codified in North Carolina law, so, and we have two of these programs within
Chatham.
The third is the cab grant, the completing access to broadband program.
It's a competitive bidding program that provides the opportunity for individual North Carolina
counties, the partner with NCDIT, to fund broadband deployment projects.
And under un-served and underserved areas of each participating county, as you can imagine, this is the program that we've worked most heavily with, in CDIT on and I believe, and without looking at my slide deck, I believe we have four of these grants within chat and county.
And then the last two, the first is bead, broadband equity access and deployment, it provides more federal funding to North Carolina and states across the nation to expand.
high-speed internet access for its residents and businesses and to note North Carolina's
bead final proposal and awards have been approved by the National Telecommunications and
Information Administration and TIA. So I will have more information about the numbers
that Chattam will see in this program, which is one of my new pieces here.
And then the final program is the stop gap solutions program, which will fund line extension projects to reach individual small pockets of households or businesses that have not reached through the great grant or cab grant and these basically will this program will serve those residences that are far off of lines to provide them the opportunity to receive coverage as well.
So, and it's areas that are typically not going to be served by these individual programs
and they try to find those locations and provide it to them when they could.
So, the first grant is art off, as I mentioned, the Royal Digital Opportunity Fund.
This program, and I hope you all can see it kind of well, the gray shaded areas, are areas
where this spectrum was awarded to provide broadband access and they are required to be finalized
by 2028. It's a 10 year program and so we're getting toward the end of that so we are seeing
them expand throughout the community now and they are projected to provide or contracted to
provide 3,400 and 45 locations in Chattam County broadband.
We don't receive direct information from the ISPs on when these are finalized because it's
kind of a mix in match because they'll come into an area using the program and then they'll
expand outwards.
So it's hard to get a full idea of where and when these programs specifically are expanding.
But I do know that we have had some spectrum work throughout the county, so they are coming in.
Yep.
So that's our first grant, and this one was awarded in 2019.
So it's been a while since they've been in the works for a while.
Our next program is the great-great program of which we have two in
Jadam. The first is AT&T. You can see it in the dark blue, and then you can
see bright speed in the lighter blue. And each one, so AT&T, has completed
their work. We got a notification of that. Households that are served
now are 542 and businesses 16.
The NCD IT allocation for this project was $1.9 million,
and then the Chattam allocation through revenue replacement
ARPA funds was $169,208.
And then for bright speed they are finalizing construction
for this project and the households that will serve is 1,862 in business is 52 and the
NCDIT allocation was $4 million and Chad and County provided a matching fund of $350,000.
And if you'll remember, this was prior to the state law change, where now cab,
grant CAD and grant programs or local governments are no longer required to provide a match.
So as we get into the CAD program, you'll notice that Chatham did not provide an allocation.
That was not because we didn't plan to.
It was planned, this board voted on it, but the state law change was prior to us sending
the money, so they told us to, it was reallocated.
and they're all if he has any additional information.
If you have any questions.
But we didn't get the 350,000 back.
No, actually.
Yeah, because we already expanded.
So the next one is CAP.
So this is CAP Grant Round 1.
It is in green there.
You'll see it's primarily Western and Central Chattam County.
It served 2,555 households, their under construction, and the NCDIT award was $4.5 million
to provide this construction and just to add into these, to add a little bit more context.
Providers did have to provide a matching allocation to NCDIT, just as it's to add on there.
So it's not just in CDIT,
ARPA funding, it is also includes that provider match.
But I do not have to provide a match on the numbers here.
So cab Grant round two.
That first one was round one.
We received notification that there was a second round that came out,
which you'll remember.
I came in front of you and requested $500,000 to add
to that project last year and we receive, you'll see it in orange, additional 879 households
and 127 businesses to be served by this grant, and then for any of the cab or great grants
they have a required completion for the end of 1226. That's when ARPA funding is to be expanded.
So that's a federal requirement and they're contracted to do so. So that's why you'll see a lot
of that Bible work going on right now is they're required to finalize those programs shortly.
So after this program, we received notification that Chattam County had been awarded
three additional cab grants in that round. And so these grants are new ones to you all,
because we didn't provide any allocation and we were scheduled to give you this update.
So this first one is Spectrum.
So as you'll know, the township of Terals in the North Central section of Chattam County
was one of our densest unserved areas.
This Spectruming grant ended up being awarded for that area along with that east of Jordan Lake.
area there that had they had both had we had struggled getting coverage for those areas but
the this grant will cover 525 households and 35 businesses with an NCDIT award of 2.4 million dollars
and they are under construction as I mentioned. This second cab grant in the cab grant round two is
for wind stream and you might know wind stream because and they have a different name
I'm blanking on it right now, but they have a different name that they operate under,
but this was wind stream connections that was awarded the grant, but it's for 418 households
and 59 businesses and they're currently under construction and it was a $2.4 million award
as well, and it is completion requirement of the end of 2026.
And so I had that wrong.
It was three cab Grant round two grants.
And so after those, we'll move into the projected
beat awards.
They've been approved, but NCDIT is still saying
that they are projected awards.
They're getting the all of those addresses this week.
they said, so I do have the numbers, but I don't have the specific addresses that will be awarded,
but there are four of these bead awards.
So the first is for bright speed and it's in green, and keep in mind all of these are fiber
technology, except for you'll see at the end here, there are two that are not.
This will serve 710 locations, and it's a federally awarded project.
The second grant is Spectrum, it is in Dark Blue, and it will serve 456 locations, and
it's also federally awarded, and these are all within the bead program.
And here's where we get to the final two bead awards, both of these are satellite technology.
So, but they will meet that served definition.
so it'll be more than 100 megabits per second, by 100 megabits per second.
So this one was awarded to Amazon for 622 locations, and it's betterly awarded than as you'll see,
it covers some of our most rural Chattam County areas, because it's satellite.
One qualifier for satellite coverage is tree canopy is typically get in the way,
So you might see some adjustments.
You'll see that it kind of maps to that pretty closely.
I think the cost can also be a lot greater with satellites
that which you're finding as well, Brenton.
It can be.
It just depends on, as I mentioned earlier,
which provider and what other requirements may be needed.
Some require you to purchase the satellite
or spend an upfront payment to them, to install,
or those sorts of things, which can have a greater up front cost.
Yeah, sure, awesome, okay, thank you.
And then the final one is a Starlink Award, and they will serve 21 locations.
It's a fairly small grant, but 21 fairly rural locations as well.
And then as I mentioned, the StopGap Solutions Program, we have about 20 locations in Chattam
that have already been awarded this, and about $17,000, and you'll see that, I hope you can
see the great dots there, but those are several locations that have been awarded, and this
is a fairly new development over the last month or so.
And then finally, for you all to see our grant totals, we have, for art off, there are 3,445 locations,
All broadband infrastructure office awards, 6,797 locations served and then for projected
bead awards, 1,810 locations served and once all of these programs are completed, there
will be projected 186 total unserved locations left in Chattam County.
And just to give some context to this, I have put in a broadband profile from broadband
profile from 2023 that noted unserved locations, 11,66 total locations, unserved.
As you'll note, the unserved areas are in that purple blue area and to compare, this map
shows the broadband profile from December of 2025, once the bead awards were announced.
They were still projected at the time, but you'll notice that there are no more blue and
blue hexagons and the only locations that are unserved are in red.
So, there are some north of the tail there in Monkier, just north of the U.S. one sign.
And then there are several scattered throughout the county.
But as you'll see, we've went from 11,66 to 186.
And they're still in development, but it's a good thing to see that those unserved locations
are falling drastically.
So this profile shows all of those different programs altogether.
You'll see red is unserved unfunded.
The gray served locations, both blues are federal and local awards respectively, along with
state awards in dark blue, and then the triangles are the provisional bead awards.
So that kind of gives you all an overview of those broadband grants and where the current
broadband environment sits in chat.
Did you all have any questions about that section?
I don't know the question, but that's really impressive that we've gotten that amount of coverage in the county and I do wonder, you know, how we will ever address those 186 locations because it does seem like we've gotten ahead of thrown everything at it and they're still there.
Yeah, and as you'll see when we get there, the digital inclusion coalition also came to that same question, so as I mentioned you all, we have some recommended updates from them.
They decided and I'll reiterate when we get there, but that the available.
Ability sections should not be touched because the longer that or the more or the less locations
that don't have the less locations that we have that still need to be served, the harder it's
going to be, as you mentioned. So we're leaving that untouched and we'll continue the work
to try and identify and work with the NCDIT to cover them. We're hopeful that the stop-get program
assist heavily in that, but we're still working with NCBIT.
I speak with Jeff Brooks at NCDIT often.
He actually offered to be here to speak with you all today, but I told him that if you
all had questions, I'd get back with him on that.
He has been liaisoning with the NCDIT with us in the manager's office all the time, and
he helps a lot with different broadband issues and those sorts of things.
So I wanted to give a plug for the IT and Jeff Brooks.
I want to say thank you for the presentation.
It was really helpful and very startling in a great way to hear that we've gone from
11,286 for getting access to people.
And I wanted to thank you personally and other staff that worked on this.
But I remember back when I first got elected, I believe it was you that noted that
the tech view. I think that's the name had offered to work with us for free to basically
create maps down to the household of who does not have internet so that we'd be prepared
for this. So thank you for all that you've done to not only put this together, but actually
actively work to move this forward. I appreciate that.
Yeah, and as you'll notice, the technology has gotten so much better, even just in the past couple of years and the mapping ability across the country has gotten a lot better.
So.
I know bright speech said that they're ditching DSL in the near future, and so people that aren't when they come knock and take an advantage of the fiber opportunity with them.
They're really going to miss out, so hopefully people are really jumping out and saying,
yeah, give me some fiber.
Yep, no.
And that's something we push folks to make sure that they contact their ISPs to see what
opportunities are out there, and if anybody has any questions on that, they're feel
for you to contact me, and I can speak with NCDIT and those folks and see what we can do,
or if there's any close grant programs, that's what it did.
And I don't need to bring up this specific situation, but I think, you know, we are witnessing
in our neighborhood houses that for some reason weren't included in the map that are on the same road.
And so I'm just bringing that up so that people know they can contact you,
or the county manager to find out ways that we can create more conversations
with how these contracts are being ruled out so they can get identified and hopefully added.
And just to add on to that, oftentimes if folks contact those ISPs, say your neighbor has it,
but you do not. Oftentimes they call that overbuilding. They're building to the grant locations,
but they can also, since they're a proprietary company, they could choose to serve another location.
So, there's often times, there's often opportunities for folks to be able to be connected, even just through their ISP.
So, that's a definitely an opportunity for folks to have.
Any other questions from board?
I've got a couple more pieces here.
Oh, you said.
All right.
So, with that, I am going to, we have the second piece of this is that in 2024, I believe the same
day you all adopted the digital inclusion plan. Central Pines regional council came and gave
a presentation on a program that they had been awarded by the Office of Digital Equity
and Literacy. And I want to call up Lyle Thieves from the, from Cranted Institute, they were
subcontracted for this award. And they are finalizing or getting ready to finalize the program.
And he's going to do an overview of who that program served, what it's about, and all of that good stuff.
Just one addition here.
We are also a subcontractor of this grant and a separate piece is that we have received and are working to provide the technology to our both RAND Memorial,
gold, gold, and both centers for active living, laptops that they can teach training classes
on. We received $30,000 within this grant to do that. We've received the devices and
they should be going out to the centers to start expanding their digital literacy opportunity
soon, but this is the big piece of the grant. So I'm going to let Lyle take it away.
Thank you, Brent. Thank you, commissioners for having us. It's really been an honor to be
So to be a sub-grantee for this project,
Kram has been doing this kind of work for a while,
but it's just been really great to work with Kram and his colleagues
in his office because they provided a lot of leadership
for us to be able to make this project successful.
And as he did mentioned, we are getting closer
wrapping it up, but it is still underway.
But to first explain a little bit about what we are,
if you are not familiar with Kram minutes,
to we're located in Durham just about half a hour down the road and what we've been doing since
our inception these kind of first couple of pillars. So we're talking about power and digital
inclusion of the assertive our economy, what we really mean is we are taking donations from the
community, we're taking it from individuals, from municipalities, from corporations, and then we are
taking those materials, we are using volunteers and staff to refurbish them and then get them back
of the community.
So being able to extend the life of things and extend to reduce the amount
of U-Waste but also be able to get these two people that can't normally afford them.
So that's where the increase of access to computer technology comes from. What we really
mean by that is since our inception we have been giving out a free desktop computer to kids
and grades K through 12. As an extension of that we offer low cost devices for adults, low
and also nonprofit agencies, and not only do we provide those low costs, but we have a robust
tech support system.
So we have 90 days of support in general.
Plus there are always a client of ours, and they can use our tech service and repair services
that are much more affordable than anything in the private sector.
But when it comes to the student computers, that's, we support that until they graduate high school.
So we're able to provide that.
So that's what we've been doing for a long time.
as grandparents institute, a little over 12 years ago, we started doing education programming.
So we had a variety of workshops, different tech topics, overviews of computers and windows
and things like that.
That eventually evolved into our computer basics program where we're providing and iteratively
working on curriculum for adult users, as well as serving youth and students and after school
programs and camps.
but where we come in and for this project is specifically serving that adult-facing community.
We have been doing this on-site at our location in Durham for many years, but we also have
a training training program where interested agencies, people that want our curriculum and
our devices can come to approach us and, you know, we've done that in a few different iterations
over the years, but in recent times with, you know, the challenges highlighted with COVID, a lot
organizations, councils of government, for instance, municipalities have come to us and we're able
to take that model that we have and expand it through a trained trainer model.
So to give an overview of our version of this project, as Brittany was saying, the central
pines, regional council was given a security grant and we were a sub-grantee and the project
itself was to serve 1,000 individuals with training and devices, so roughly divided between
Durham and Chatham counties, and I'll be speaking specifically about Chatham County's success
here today.
But our role in this project was that Cramden coordinated the program delivery, so we developed
the curriculum, again, iteratively over the years, slightly customized, excuse me.
For this project, we threw introductions, but maintaining partner relationships, coordinating
with different organizations, and then these organizations would then refer instructors
that we would come to our office, we would train them on the curriculum, and then support them,
work on scheduling, working with the different organizations, as well as delivering the
computers to the different sites. Speaking of the sites, a lot of these various agencies
and facilities were where we would host the sites, and the community-based organizations were
integral in recruiting participants and learners from their respective communities come
there. So I want to say again, we could not have done this, and we never could do the work
we do without these partnerships and these advocates that we have.
So our initial target in Shadow County was 500 residents, as of early this month when we
provided the information for this presentation, this was our current number, so it may have
increased slightly from now, but we have been able to expand that, it's been really great
for us.
I could say, in some part, for the efficiency of how we would deliver the program, but again,
that engagement enthusiasm from the partners and being able to reach out to the different
populations and communities that they're already serving and getting those people in the
classes. That's really how this was made possible. Out of the curriculum that we provided,
we had two main four-hour courses. We had a computer essentials for new users, which is designed
for those with little to no experience. So that was the majority of the program that we offered.
We'd also translate it into Spanish and do have a couple of bilingual instructors who are
delivering that material. In a slightly more targeted sense, we used a computer skills
for job seekers curriculum, which is designed for those that already have a little bit of experience
with computers, you know, maybe aren't at the very base of the level.
And I say it basic level, you know, sometimes folks have never used a mouse before, right?
So we need some, for the computer skills for job seekers, it's folks that have a little bit
more experience, so we can really tailor the workforce development side of that to those clients.
So, we did not offer those as often, but they were very targeted because we didn't want to be in a situation to provide this workforce to develop this workforce related curriculum and then have people at the very basic level because it's difficult to adjust that quality based on that sort of mix class experience.
So, talk a little bit about the populations that we served, many residents belong to one
or more of these target populations that were a part of the grant, so you can see some
of the larger numbers being language barrier, low-income, rural 60-plus years old, and you
can see by the map that we were able to distribute these classes throughout Chattam County.
We'll look a little more focused in the Cyber City and Pittsburgh areas, but through these
partnerships, and again, I want to say we had some partnerships with the libraries, with
the aging agencies, and then a couple of nonprofits, namely chat and literacy, who had a lot
of relationships and anchors in the community.
So we were able to go to some of these faith-based organizations, some of these smart-measness
disparities, and try to distribute its best as we could.
At of all the different host sites, we had 19 unique sites, and if you notice on the left-hand side, the majority of these offered more than one iteration.
So we were able to, yeah, it's great to have a site that you've already know works and you already, and so much to work we do is through word of mouth, so people tell their neighbor to tell their friend, we get more signups that way.
And this is by no means an exhaustive breakdown of some bar data, this is just sort of a snapshot.
But I want to talk about a little bit of these highlights here.
So you can see, in terms of gender, the majority of our participants did respond as identifies female.
And on the right hand side of the age range, almost half identified as 65 or over.
and a lot more than half are kind of more in that working age range of 18 to 64.
In terms of how people identify by race, you can see 60 percent identified as African-American,
closer to a quarter as white, and then some smaller subsections as well as those who prefer not to answer.
One thing that should be noted here that we didn't quite break out is that through kind of a quirk in the way census questions are asked
that the Spanish-speaking population will often skip the race question, but answer the yes or no question to belong to a Hispanic or Latino country of origin.
So to kind of give more context for that, out of the classes that we had, we provided 11 in Spanish language and a class average of about 14.
So we're talking about roughly 150 people out of that 650 five number as of this as of this data provided
These five topics here really are about how we measure we do an assessment beginning of class
Pre-survey based on confidence. We use a liquor scale of one through five to determine what people's confidence level is
We're not looking for mastery
we're not quizzing them, we're trying to see how confident they feel about certain topics.
So, the second item there is kind of an overall confidence question, whereas the other
four are specific, sort of, section of the two different programs offer.
What you should really see is the blue lines, they all hover around somewhere between 2.5 and 3 as
the initial response.
And by the end of the class, there are upwards of 3.9, 4.3. So we are seeing a significant movement in terms of really self-reporting confidence.
And then on this question, the computer proficiency, this is a question that we asked across the board, what is your overall confidence using the computer?
So the way we came to this answer right here is if anyone in the post-serving, so after the course is completed, if they answered a four or five for the general confidence level, that's how their mark is the yes.
So close to 70% of our respondents did report actual proficiency or confidence in that.
And while some of these numbers, I mean, we all look at quality and we need to go and report
these things, but there's really no substitute for some of the actual real effects on people.
So if I can, I'd like to just read a few comments from some of the actual written responses
that people have from class.
So one is, I'm grateful for this opportunity to improve my computer abilities.
feel more comfortable.
Keep up the good work as Paula, one of our instructors, highlighted,
electronics are here to stay, making them useful, safe, and beneficial are seriously
important goals. Thanks. This is good one. Thank you for teaching me how to use a computer
I never had one.
You did a great job, timing was perfect. We were made to feel comfortable
and welcome, even the less knowledgeable participants were not made to feel like they were in
with. Thank you. And another one, I thoroughly enjoyed the course and learned a lot from taking it.
I wouldn't have been able to afford one, afford a computer reader. Thank you so much.
And I could really keep going on. Some of the comments that I didn't bring up are the ones that asked
from more classes. They wouldn't have weren't more. So I'm happy to say that through sort of the
efficiency of what we've been doing and the enthusiasm of a lot of our partners, we have an
One-site model, what we call a digital navigation, where we can help people with their sort of
acute idea needs for dealing with computer issues, not tech support, but just like how do I,
fill out a job application, how do I work with my resume, how do I learn more?
So we have that on-site, we have five locations in Durham as a part of another project that
we are piloting, and we are actually bringing that over here to Chattam County to try to
offer that as a continuation as a supplement to the work that we are already doing here.
So more on that to come, but that is kind of like what we're doing with the end funds of this project.
So I'm happy to answer any questions, but I'll just again, I want to thank Britain's office.
Everyone that's been here for this.
And if anyone is in the Durham area and wants to stop by, we can provide tours.
I mean, notice this nice, but we're happy to show you around a little bit.
It's been written a great part of this project, so.
Thank you.
Any questions?
I would just an addition there, each of the participants got a free laptop after, but they received it.
Say that, I'm just kidding if he did so.
And can you remind us where can people donate laptops?
Yeah.
You can come as an individual, but as far as larger donations, we actually will come pick them up.
I don't think Shadow managed to far away could depend, but it depends on the nature of the design of donation.
But definitely reach out to us, so when it goes directly with the corporate and kind of business relationship.
Great, so they can reach out to you.
That's a done thing.
Perfect.
So I've got, thank you, Lyle, for again.
And so I've got one more thing for you all.
As I mentioned earlier, we are the digital inclusion coalition met in February and recommended a few items.
And we went through the process of getting information and everything from the coalition on how they wanted to update the plan since in the plan it notes a year requirement for review.
We completed that review and wanted to bring back to you all a couple of recommended updates.
Just as a reminder, our coalition members are managers office, libraries, diversion and advocacy, aging services, CCCC, the public schools,
Chattam County Public Schools, Innovate Chattam County Cooperative Extension, Chattam Literacy, and right here right now project.
So a bunch of different organizations with different functions that are coming together to work on digital inclusion items.
And so, I'm just going to go through these briefly,
and if you are all are amenable to these updates,
staff will take the motion and incorporate the recommended edits into the plan through an addendum.
So I don't have a red line version for you all right now, but we'll add an addendum at the end that just says what the changes are for the 2026.
So, just a quick overview of our current availability goals, create better broadband mapping across
Chatham County, coordinate increased connectivity for unserved areas, and promote improved
connectivity and stability of broadband connections. I won't go through all of our strategies.
You'll see my edits are the edits when we get there.
But for availability, I think I mentioned it earlier, but we are not recommending that the
digital inclusion coalition is not recommending any updates or changes due to the conversation
we had earlier where the fewer that we recognize that there is a growth in broadband availability
in chat room, but locations that remain without broadband access may face increased challenges
is once grant funding and state and federal
occupants are no longer available.
Because of this, the coalition emphasized
the continued need to focus on broadband availability
and to continue pursuing goals outlined in the section.
So they're not recommending any changes.
Obviously, if you all feel that any changes
should be made, please let me know.
And then we can make those changes as necessary.
For access, there's a few four goals in the sections, so increase equitable communications
for in the communities around affordability services, expand access to digital devices,
increase access to internet connectivity in public spaces, and then increase hotspot availability.
There are several recommended changes in the access section, so the first being strategy
1, advertise state and federal discount programs to assist in need residents to afford Internet
subscriptions, if these programs return in the future, adding. Additionally, advise residents
to discuss what their Internet Service providers, the availability of discount programs.
We kind of had that discussion earlier. The coalition wanted to make that change since those
programs have gone away, and just adding in if these programs return in the future.
So that's that change, the second change is and a change to work with partners, to identify
the survey homes with little or no computer access, that change that used to say chat
and county public schools, but there are many other partners other than just the schools
that we can work with to survey these households, so we wanted to make sure that everybody
was represented rather than just the schools.
And then you'll see a strategy 5.4.
Work with partners to facilitate an increased allocation
of hotspots in the county, with the objective of assisting residents
that would have difficulties otherwise accessing a broadband
or network connection.
And as you'll note, this goal was previously goal 7.
We're just removing that goal entirely and moving it
to goal 5 as we recognize that we didn't necessarily need to be as specific about who
loaned out the hotspots or provided them, and we could lean on partners again to assist us in
that. That don't have the same stipulations as a government entity like the public libraries would.
So those are access changes that are recommended and then finally for our adoption changes
first the few goals are increased digital literacy learning across the county,
create a digital inclusion steering committee, establish a workforce development program
and broadband related fields and then create events celebrating digital inclusion.
The main couple of changes in this section as well, effectively in strategy 8.1, communicate and expand the availability of existing digital literacy training and courses, including training on generative AI and data privacy.
So adding in some of those emerging technologies into the plan, so that we're explicitly saying that this is something that we would like to do,
that the public should be aware of due to some of those implications on privacy and also
Gen AI becoming new, becoming a more robust technology over the course of that this year.
And then the second change for goal 9, instead of a navigator core, we are the coalition
is recommending the creation of a digital inclusion working group.
As Lyle mentioned, we have a working group of partners for that program along with the coalition
itself.
So seeing how we can merge some of those two groups get all of the right folks in the room
to talk for digital inclusion initiatives, whether it be quarterly or still exploring what
may look like, but we thought it'd be a better idea rather than setting a standard, navigator
core, where we have specific positions and those sorts of things, expand it broader and
create a working group with all folks. That way, if an initiative comes up or an opportunity
comes up, we can capitalize on that with the working group. And so those were the changes that
we have for that the coalition recommended for this year.
If you all are amenable to them, I do have a motion, but I wanted to see if you all had
any questions before I kind of breeze their devs.
I like it.
I'm curious to link this back to the Digital Broadband Expansion programs that you have reviewed
for us.
What do you think was the benefit or the value of having a digital inclusion plan in able to get all of that?
Is there a relationship in your minds or is there not?
So there is a relationship.
I think having that directive from the elected body to really push forward on that, it would be
work we would do anyway due to infrastructure expansion within Shadow County, but just having
a concrete plan for increase of mapping services, increase of working with the community.
It gave us the, I believe it gave us the push to move faster and quicker on this.
So the, I think the plan helps to expedite working with those programs and has direct goals
that we are working through in order to do that, for instance, and we also through the plan
know the things that aren't as feasible, like we've worked through libraries to discuss
hotspots and those sorts of things. They're just not as feasible for libraries, due to some
operational impacts and those sorts of things. And it just gives us a good way to hold ourselves
accountable for these types of initiatives.
Thank you.
Absolutely.
Wow.
This is so impressive and so important and I'm really grateful for all the work that everyone
has done to try and pull this off to make this an opportunity for residents here in
Thank you.
The motion passes.
Okay.
Now we are at Item 262-5-8.
To go into closed session, pursuant to 1-4-3-3-1-8.11-8-3 to consult with an attorney
retained by the county in order to preserve the attorney-client privilege and to consider
and give instructions to an attorney concerning and handling of settlement of ECO-TIP
Ego tip West L.C.V. Chad, I'm county. Do I have a motion to go into closed session?
Simult in a second.
Second.
All in favour?
It's past.
I just wanted to make a quick announcement if you would like to speak at public comment or public hearing tonight.
You need to sign up first with me, my hands in the air.
Ladies and gentlemen, if anyone else wants to sign up for public hearing or public comment to share last call, thanks.
All right, it is 6 o'clock. And I will call to order the Chattam County Board of Commissioners meeting on May 18, 6 p.m.
A regular session tonight. And I would like for everyone to please pause for a moment of silence. Thank you.
Now can we please stand for the pledge of allegiance.
Why do we let you to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which
it stands, one nation under God, and the invisible with liberty and justice for all?
Thank you.
Are there any additions, deletions, or corrections to the regular session agenda?
Madam Chair, given the afternoon's earlier conversation, I want to come back to and
repropose the idea of having a brief overview from the county attorney on the updated rules
of procedure that we have adopted for ourselves, going through the basics of that and just
having a joint opportunity, though, learn from the county attorney and from each other
on some of the key points of conducting things under our rules.
Thank you, Commissioner Delaney, is there a second to the motion of adding a discussion
of rules and procedures by the county attorney to tonight's agenda.
Hearing none, the motion fails.
Is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda?
So, move.
Second.
All in favor.
All right.
Thank you.
The agenda has passed.
All right.
Next up is approval of the Consentant Agenda, is there a motion to approve tonight's
consent agenda?
Hello.
Second.
All in favour?
All right.
Great.
Thank you.
Consent Agenda has also been approved.
Next on the agenda is something I think everyone's going to like.
item 2600 to 34, we're going to screen the film and vote to adopt a resolution, recognizing
Jordan Wiley for his student film, the story of George Moses Korton and for representing
Chetam County at the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners, 100 strong production
student film festival.
Good evening. Jordan was going to be here,
But he's not yet, but hopefully he'll be here
by the time we finish screening this video.
I'm a sad little cast aside.
I'm on this fortune's rugged time.
With the world, my pain is direct forever.
First I dwell in slavery's night,
and all pleasure takes its flight far beyond my feet
and is so forever.
Man, I think George Moses Horton has impacted
Channel County in a lot of ways.
I mean, I think it gives us time, he gives us
legacy gives us time to sit back and reflect upon all the hard work of the
termination, the innovative spirit, the determination that he had to overcome.
He had a goal and a dream and a vision, and he worked to make those things come
to pass.
The first African American author of his day is tremendous, and so I feel like his impact
kind of stands today and we get to reference him and we're far back to all the things that
he accomplished as we move forward today in Chalamet County.
One thing that I think we can learn from George Mothers Point and story is I feel he had
a goal, he knew what he wanted his life to be, he knew where he wanted to go, and he is a
So, I almost feel like we have those challenges every day on a lesser standpoint.
I can't imagine like the things that he faced.
But just learning that when you have that goal in mind, you have that drive work for it,
get to know people, verbal relationships, use your gifts, and then good things will happen.
his family lived with the women for his family, and he lived with his mother and he had brother and three sisters, and they, the functional plane out there, as far as fertility, and so his master moved his family, and all the enslaved people to child counting where there was more fertility.
So, he would have been three years old when he moved to town in County.
It's hard to know whether they walked or lived in a wagon, but it would have been a long way to go.
And he arrived with the family in 1800.
On his own, when he was a little older, he got hold of a Methodist him and all I believe it was.
and he loved the rhymes, of course, they would have had some kind of church and he loved
the rhymes and the songs, and he made up poems himself as a young man and made them rhyme
and they sounded like Methodists, too.
So he had that kind of influence.
He did not have access to Bumstery, he did not have access to any kind of formal teaching and there was nobody to take him under their wing.
And Littersee was found on his not only gold, but he was in a place that was close enough.
let's use, but nine miles to Chapel Hill is the original farm where they lived and they would have gone all kinds of crops
probably something else can tell me more about that, but then he was about 20, he started to walk to Chapel Hill and so fruits and vegetables
at the farmers market that was specific to set up for UNC students. All of them,
and he became
somebody who wanted to show off a little bit, and he so he showed off his poems, and he
went them out or formed them aloud, and the students were really fascinated with him.
He
and so on, 75 if it was really long and good and, you know, had both names and so on.
So here's making pretty good money for that time, my, um, some scholars say up to $5 a week.
He loved the idea of giving his freedom and he started saving his money to purchase his freedom.
And he did an ally on campus, so faculty wife named Caroline Lee Hence, and she was fascinated by his talent,
and she was a writer, a fiction writer, and she helped him learn how to actually write down his work,
and coached him on his poetry, and helped him put together a book of poems that could be sold by a subscription,
All the hope of liberty, and the idea was for his minifuance on the U.S. campus to purchase,
and it advanced copies of the book, and save up money to buy his freedom.
He was able to arrange to have more free time and stay on campus in lighter years,
and in that case he really had to pay to make up for his time that he would have been working on the farm.
So, he had that was a really common exchange at the time of a particular talent, so everyone likes it, and his case of poet, and if you could make money, a person who was in charge of you, he would like to receive that money, perhaps instead of just an ordinary task of attending to cows.
So, he was able to keep some of my, that it was a fixed right to be away from the farm.
Being of myself in need of the inspiring strains of each and all, my heart to lift, my empty mind to feed and all of the world.
I want Ms. Valencia to whom I was principal here. She was really determined that the students here at George Moses Horton, formerly Horton Middle School.
She was determined that they walked in awareness of the history and the culture of this school.
She won the community to know and she won her students to know the important legacy that George Moses Horton had in his impact and so I think it was 2016
Was the first celebration of George Moses Horton day. She was able to get it down tight
Who is the author of
My first original George Moses Horton to come
I'm talking about why he chose to write the book
had some historical conversations, and that's a tradition that we've kept that now for eight years.
It can show students who come into Hartman's school, my way of his impact and all the things that he contributed.
But also in the making sure that students at the elementary level, students around the state understand the legacy and the impact of George Moses Horton,
the first black author, and just all the things that he contributed to our state and our nation.
Today of separation is at hand.
Imagination lives her blooming curtains,
like evenings mantle at the light of day,
through which the trimmling pinnacle we spy
on which we soon must stand with hopeful smiles,
or apprehending flowers
on the right, and left.
The story of George Moses Wharton created
by Ted and Canny's student filmmaker Jordan Wiley
and was recently featured
at the North Carolina Association of Canny Commissioners
a 100-strong production student film festival.
The film is an award-winning short documentary
exploring the life of the enslaved Tatum County
poet George Moses Horton.
He became the first black author published in the South.
The film utilizes reenactments to highlight
Horton's resilience, his secret literacy,
and his literary contributions.
And I believe that I saw Horton walk into the courtroom.
Are you here?
Do you mind if we get a photo with you?
That would be wonderful.
Thank you.
And again, brilliant work on that.
Let's give another hand.
One of our own commissioners, Commissioner Katie Canlin, has a strong interest in this topic as well.
So I know we'll be glad to see you.
While he's walking back to the seat, I will say that I Jordan had his prom the day that the award was given out.
And so I stood in his space and was very proud to see the quality of work.
amongst, there were college, there were lots of college students, we're in the competition,
and Jordan's work really did stand out. So, very proud of him.
Jennifer, I'm missing a resolution, or I just grab it out of here.
Now, that was the only resolution for tonight.
I have on here exploitation awareness month, is that
now?
But we're able to make a motion on that resolution.
I don't, yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't, I just have a different text on my sheet here.
my cheat sheet.
So what is the resolution that I read before?
So moved.
Second.
Great.
All in favor?
All in favor.
Thank you.
I think this is a straggler from last month.
This is a straggler for last month.
I apologize for that.
Thank you.
All right.
Next, we have public comment session.
Do we have anybody signed up for open public comment?
There are two people, two people.
I will read the following statement then.
We want to remind speakers that they will have three minutes to speak.
The green light illuminates for the first few minutes.
The yellow light illuminates along with one beep to let the speaker know.
They still have one minute remaining.
The red light illuminates.
I'm sorry.
So we didn't read the resolution.
We just watched the film.
Okay, so maybe it's not printed out. I can lend you my screen and I can see it there.
I'm going to do that.
Yeah, I don't have it because.
Thank you.
Okay, appreciate that.
All right.
Do we need to vote again?
No, I thought I was wrong.
I thought you'd already read it.
Sorry.
No, I didn't have it here.
It's just strange.
Okay, recognize in Jordan Wiley for his student film, the story of George Moses, Horton and for representing
Chattam County at the North Carolina Association County Commissioners, 100-tron production student film festival.
Whereas Jordan Wiley, a resident of Chattam County and a senior of Northwood High School, has distinguished himself as a young age, as a talented and dedicated student filmmaker.
And whereas Jordan created the film, the student film, the story of George Moses Horton
honoring the life and legacy of George Moses Horton, and enslaved poet from Chattam
County, whose literary contributions hold significant historical and cultural importance.
And whereas Jordan has demonstrated exceptional initiative, creativity, and discipline by
independently writing, directing, and editing his films, while also learning practical skills,
such as budgeting, collaboration and leadership, and whereas Jordan's work has been featured in and recognized by several film festivals, including the black theater festival and the Haiti film festival, reflecting his growing impact as a young filmmaker.
And whereas Jordan Wiley has selected to represent Chad and County at the North Carolina Association County Commissioners, 100 strong production student film festival, held on April 25th, 2026, in carrying North Carolina.
and whereas Jordan's participation in the NCACC student film festival exemplifies the
creativity, talent, and promise of Chattam County's youth, and brings positive recognition
to the county on a statewide platform.
Now therefore, be it resolved that the Chattam County Public Board of Commissioners here
by recognized in command, Jordan Wally, for his outstanding achievement in student filmmaking,
his dedication to the storytelling and historical preservation and his exemplary representation
of Chattam County at the 2026 NCACC 100 Strong Productions Student Film Festival.
And be it further resolved that the board congratulates Jordan Wiley on his accomplishments
to date and extends best wishes for his continued success and future endeavors
in the arts and filmmaking adopted this 18th day of May 2026.
So moved.
Thanks.
All in favor.
Thank you all.
Apologies for the confusion.
And I saw that maybe Jordan has his award and I didn't know if he wanted to show
it to us or say anything about his film.
And you don't have to, but if you'd like to.
Jordan, you'll have to walk up to the front and tap the front of that mic that
where the red light is.
So, funny story, we were walking in and then my mom sat right on the camera piece and there was like a little lens that was right here and it stopped off.
So, there is like a lens piece that's supposed to be on it.
But about the film, I filmed that probably about two years ago, I was commissioned by
the Arts Council to create a film about someone alive or dead, but has historic meaning
in Chattam County.
And I chose George Moses Horton because I went to Horton and he's just a really prominent
historic figure that I, who I could think of. So I put a lot of heart into the movie
and yeah, that's, that's, that's pretty much it.
When do you have been to your finish school?
I have about two more weeks. And then what do you do?
I'm going to Savannah School of Art and Design.
Oh, bravo.
So this career in filmmaking is just beginning.
That's a really good school.
Congratulations.
It's not easy to get in there.
I taught and went to the College of Design at NC State.
So I'm very familiar with their program.
Best of luck to you.
Thank you.
Thank you also much.
Nice work.
All right.
So just to confirm, I have a motion to adopt a
resolution, recognizing June 21st as vulnerable adult and elder abuse
or exploitation, I don't have that resolution.
And that one is a left over from the last one is left over from the last one.
Yes, that's what I thought, but I want to make sure, I want to do this again.
Okay, all right, so now we do a public comment and there are two people signed up.
So again, that light right there, the first light will go off, the second light, the yellow one will go off.
you have a minute left and then the red light illuminates when time is up.
Everybody has three minutes to speak.
And if you have comments with you,
you can hand off to Jennifer.
The clerk, that would be great.
And who's first on the list, Jennifer?
Stephanie Bayley.
Thank you.
Okay.
I'm not Stephanie.
My name is Gary Toul,
and I'm a resident of Fire Chapel.
And this is Stephanie.
And we're going to tag team on this.
So I'm going to go over some information and then she's going to follow up with some benefits
and what we're really requesting to be done.
So if I could, I could use my three minutes and Stephanie has her time to finish.
So good evening.
My name is Gary Pool.
I'm a resident of Briar Chapel, a plant community approximately 2400 homes and 5,000 residents
in North Chatham County.
I'm here tonight on behalf of our community to respectfully request that the Board
consider a golf club ordinance, a amendment, designating
briar chapel as an approved golf golf car community.
Golf carts have been a normal established part of daily life from
briar chapel for years.
Our own HOA celebrated that culture by hosting community golf court golf
car praise.
We are not here to introduce something new.
We are here to protect something that already exists.
and to bring it into a proper legal framework.
To give you a sense of scale,
Breyer Chapel has over 5,000 residents over 2,400 homes.
More residents than many incorporated towns in Chattam County.
Our streets are posted at 25 miles per hour or less
meeting the county's own speed threshold, exactly.
We have on-site schools, 900 acres of preserved open space,
and a community designed from ground up for low-speed, low-impact living.
Golf carts are not an anomaly here.
They are part of how this community functions.
We understand the board's focus on safety and fiscal responsibility.
Here's how this ordinance addresses both directly.
On safety, unregulated use is more dangerous than regulated use.
Right now, carts operate without required insurance, without registration, without a clear legal framework.
In order to fix this all that, it requires a valid driver's license, it requires liability insurance, it requires safety equipment, such as lights, mirrors, and signals.
It restricts operation to 25 miles per hour streets and daylight hours only.
A regulated, prior chapel, a golf cart program makes our streets safer, not less safe.
On budget, we're asking for an amendment to your existing ordinance, not a new program,
and to reduce the county's administrative burden further to reduce it.
The prior chapel community association has agreed to host the community, permitting,
and inspection day right in the neighborhood.
President has come to us, the Sheriff's Office, run the inspection, registration fees, offset
costs, this can be self-funded from day one.
And to continue.
Hi there.
My name is Stephanie Bailey.
Thank you so much for letting me speak to you guys today.
I have some neighbors also here represented from our chapel.
We're so glad to have this time to talk with you.
I'm going to share some benefits.
Top 10 benefits for our neighborhood to have this golf cart ordinance.
It reduces cart traffic on our neighborhood roads.
You heard, we got a lot of people over at our chapel.
It lowers emissions from replacing cart trips
with electric golf carts.
It's a safer school, drop-off, and pick-up situation
for Pollard, for Willow, Gmanosaurus,
for Chadden Girl Elementary, is very congested over there.
Golf was actually helped alleviate a lot of that
cart traffic.
Improved walkability and pedestrian safety.
Supports for seniors and mobility limited residents.
It's in alignment with prior chapel's green, sustainable identity.
We want to regulate, ensure, and inspect these carts that are on the road.
It's community cohesion and quality of life.
It's a self-funding registration model and it's a zero burden on county infrastructure
beyond the existing ordinance framework.
So tonight, the ask, I'm asking for three specific requests.
First, that the Board directs staff to begin the process of
mending the Chatham County golf ordinance to add
by our chapel as an approved community, as an approved community.
Restricted to borrow chapel neighborhood roads only.
I administered an coordination with the Sheriff's Office.
The second, I'm presenting a draft amendment to the Board's
consideration as a starting point for that process.
I believe you have electronic copies, and I have a paper copy as well.
And third, we respectfully request that staff are turned with a recommendation within two weeks so our community can move forward.
We have the community support, we have our HOA support, we have multiple PTAs of the schools in our neighborhood support.
We have our neighbors, some here tonight.
We're ready, we just need the legal framework to match the community that we already are.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Excuse me, Brian.
I know that we've had some commissioners and also you have shared with me that you've gotten
some emails over the last few weeks from folks in bar chapel on this.
I'm wondering because we have discussed it briefly before have we any movement on this
or there are any ordinances already that we've looked at has the HOA in bar chapel that
have this already or what's the status of this right now?
That is correct.
We received a number of emails, phone calls, regular mail.
I think you have to.
And so on the staff level, we have begun doing some initial review research,
in preparation for something to come before the board.
If that's something that the board would like to come before it,
in terms of what other counties have done,
what are some models out there, what works,
What are some lessons learned best practices and also coordination with our partners in the
Sheriff's Office to talk about the implications and if the Board so wishes, we can bring
something at a future meeting as a starter conversation for that for further direction.
If it pleases the Board at the future section of the agenda for a future, we're meetings
discussion. We can certainly have that conversation, but staff is prepared. It has been
I would be interested in hearing that and certainly
President Collins and the sheriff also has concerns if I hadn't even considered when I spoke with him most recently.
So, our other commissioner gone forward with getting a presentation from staff on this topic.
I feel as staff is already indicated to us that they've wanted to come back to us on the topic.
I think that's the yes we'd love to hear from staff on this topic.
Thank you.
As to the timing, could I ask about the request for two weeks?
I think the board's next regular meeting is not until mid June.
Is that a suitable timeline for a follow-up or initial report or is that too soon?
I think we can work toward that. If for some reason that does not look like it is feasible,
whether it's because we don't have the ability to pull everything together by then, or if the agenda calendar does not appear that it would be appropriate for the massive items that might be on that agenda,
will communicate that to the board.
Thank you.
Jennifer, are there any other members signed up?
Give him that.
That was it.
Thank you.
Okay.
Next we have some public hearings this evening before we begin the public hearings.
I want to remind everyone that this meeting is a place for respectful participation.
Please address the board, not individual members, or the audience, and refrain from yelling or personal attacks.
Speakers are asked to stay within the established time limits so that everyone has a fair opportunity to be heard.
We appreciate your cooperation in keeping this meeting orderly respectful and productive for all.
First up is item 260236, a public hearing for the recommended fiscal year 2026, 2027,
Chattam County Budget,
and County Manager Brian Thompson will present this item.
Good evening, board members.
I will begin this presentation by stating what I believe is the obvious, but I will
This presentation will not be as entertaining as Mr. Jordan Wiley's terrific film that
he put together, but important all the same.
So tonight we'll be talking about the recommended 2027 fiscal year budget.
This is a high-level overview.
If you do get a chance to review the budget, the larger budget document with a budget message
that narrative in all the additional graphs, and numbers, and individual departments, and
functional areas,
that could be additional information to supplement this presentation.
Going back to our budget retreat in January and consistently through the budget season so far,
we took note and direction from the board that this year is a year to maintain.
I'll ask to not bury the lead.
This recommended budget does not recommend any change in any increase to the property tax rate.
There are some fee adjustments, primarily within developmental services, and some expansions
where appropriate under the circumstances and, again, under that maintain posture.
Before we jump right in, we'll let you know that this is where we're working through the process tonight as the first two public hearings.
The second public hearing will be tomorrow evening in the town of Sallar City Hall.
We will then later this week begin our work sessions, beginning May 21st and 22nd.
And if necessary next week on 27th, as we receive comments from the public direction from you through that.
There's work sessions. We will receive that direction. We'll make whatever adjustments to the recommended budget.
We'll find that and bring back to you on June 15 for your consideration of adoption.
So that we meet the statutory obligation of adopting our annual operating budget by the end of fiscal which is June 30.
As you review the budget document, you'll see information such as this.
This is the budget at a glance, which includes, again,
included, included at the beginning of the budget.
Documentive provides at a glance, net cost of county functions,
a summary of the general fund, and the total for the solid waste
recycling enterprise fund.
And as we look at budget highlights, we will talk a bit
about revenues.
Here's a glimpse of our revenues.
You will find this in the summary in the general fund
summary revenue section of the budget document.
You'll see that the largest dollar increases our ad
below or property tax followed by the
appropriated fund balance sales and then sales tax.
The budget document will offer greater details in each of
these areas, but we're going to take a look at revenue
from a different lens and that is the top 10.
Here, in particular, the growth in sales tax and
multiple articles can be noted. A portion of that, or 30% of article 40, revenue is restricted
for the use of schools, such as capital and debt. And the article 46 revenue has been allocated
to the expenditure areas approved by the Board of Commissioners and the resolution of intent
that was passed prior to article 46 being implemented. There is also a significant increase in the
on balance appropriation, recommended for FY27, but we are utilizing some restricted fund balance
in this coming year and more on that in the next slide.
As we look at, some of those revenue highlights, in particular property tax, 1142
or $140.2 million that does see a year over year growth, but it is maintaining the property
tax rate as 60 cent per 100 valuation in restricted fund balance.
Moving on to utilities, we are putting away some funds from that restricted fund balance
into utilities to cover debt that we were not able to pay off before the merger with
with try river. So we're going to maintain that in the fun balance through the duration of the life of that debt.
Our permitting budget is expected some minor growth growth overall increase of about 2% or 94,000 dollars.
Exercise tax, we're based on trend demonstrating or showing some additional growth as a year over year number, sales tax,
anticipating some increased based on current collection trends and assuming
minimum growth and local collection articles and a little bit more growth in the statewide collections and then transfers in
is being reduced to due to ending of our American Rescue Plan at program revenues, which in an FY27 specifically December 31, 2026.
As we shift our attention to expenses, here's a high level overview through broad categories of expense types.
I just want to take a moment to point out a couple of them in particular such as the allocation slash programs that represents the single largest category increase.
This is driven primarily by recommended increases for
Chattam County Schools, CCCC, and continuing to continuing with the
Partnership for Children expanding access to early child learning
Contract, which is partly funded through ARPA.
We also have salaries in benefits.
These categories include a recommended 3% salary increase for
Chattam County staff as well as realizing the full year
cost of positions that were approved for a partial year in the current fiscal year.
And then for benefits, there are increases to health, dental insurance, as well as mandated
increases to employee retirement contributions, and then finally a limited number of expansion
positions are recommended.
And we will discuss those in just a few minutes.
But keep in mind when we're talking about expansions, and we're going to get into a lot more
of that conversation during the budget work session, expansion, recommendations were largely
limited to those expansions that were relatively low cost.
We might call them low hanging fruit that could advance some important priorities and make
a bigger impact proportionally to the funding itself.
And then other positions or expansion items that either were bringing additional revenue
to us as part of that, or offsetting cost as part of that position or program expansion.
So that's more or less the rubric that we used in that maintaining posture that we approached
this year's budget.
In operating expenses, this category is seeing a significant year over year increased primarily
driven by the increase in the county's EMS contract, which we will discuss in greater
detailed momentarily.
Here is a view of the recommended expenditure increase at the functional
area, level the largest increase area, include public safety, which includes the share of
softness and EMS and also cultural education and recreation function, which includes Chattam
County schools.
Yet another look at expenses and we are noting the column with increased
decrease, Chattam County Schools represents the largest increase at the department level,
so something of no, followed by the Sheriff's Office, and emergency operations, so much
like in the current year, this time last year, talked about education, public safety, an
important note, which Chattam County Schools funding, the increase decrease column that
number here is for the department or organization as a whole, and does not represent
But only the allocation directly being allocated to the schools, for instance, in FY27's
budget, for Chattam County Schools, has a significant decrease in the debt payment, which
has an overall impact of the total increase in decrease that you see here, so there is
a netting out effect.
Now, specifically, with Chattam County Schools, it was requested a total increase of 3.7,
roughly million dollars. The recommended budget funds just over three million dollars. Of course,
we do the math. It doesn't add up to all of that. You'll see that it comes to about 2.5 million.
That is because we currently have approximately 540,000 dollars of that. That's put in an
undapartmental account that we're recommending so that we can work with the schools that we're
continuing to work with them and strategizing around.
Shortfall issues and making sure that we're following a step story requirement for charter school payments in that respect.
Current expenses for the schools will include state salary adjustments for locally funded employees,
cost increases for the benefits for benefits for benefits and retirement property liability insurance increases utilities,
transportation and fuel calls, additional funding for masters pay supplement and increase in
unified supplement, or stipend supplement increase in required charter school transfers.
And again, 540 of that is not being shown in the allocation for the schools, as that's being held back,
as we move into 27 for the charter school transfer.
Moving on to additional expenses, emergency operations.
We are adding an additional ambulance unit, added in, we added one in mid-year.
Was planned on coming online with the new EMS base but due to growth and call volume.
We've moved that up earlier.
We also have additional district chief reserves as a supervisor that will provide additional
oversight to hire activities zones.
This position will be based in a QRV or a quick response vehicle, not an ambulance, but
will be able to respond and assist with calls.
Also, there are contractual, the contract also includes annual escalators that are
baked into that, so that you will be seeing in this recommended budget.
Also, Chetam County Sheriff's Office, the largest increase for the Sheriff's Office and
recommend to budget our salaries and benefits, mostly due to the annualizing of the current
year positions, including four deputies added in mid year for the full year cost next year,
3% salary increase, one expansion position, which is an evidence manager, recommended
for half of a year, and health, dental insurance, and mandated retirement increases.
Like I mentioned a second ago, one full-time position, there's also CPR training equipment
and camera system replacement and upgrade at the Animal Resource Center or ARC.
The transfer out of the general fund is the money that we take from the general fund and
put into the debt reserve to accommodate the payment for the out-years according to the
also includes the transfer to the pay-go capital reserve, which these are large projects that are not scheduled for issuing debt to make happen.
To the designated area, also to the designated areas for Article 46, and to the reevaluation fund. So that's all making up that transfers.
This increases due largely to the contribution to the debt and capital reserve, but we are also expecting additional Article 46 revenue.
So, the transfers to those focus areas of affordable housing, farm land preservation parks.
These are also included. And the debt is just what it says. This is the expense to pay our current debt.
The debt service is decreasing by about 5% due to the refunding that we recently went through closing out one debt issuance and decreasing interest payments.
I'll contribute to that in the budget document, there is a visual that gives you a better understanding of how that works, the revenues coming into the general fund and for what purposes and then what we're putting away for these different functions out of the general fund and showing those as expenditures.
measures.
We do have a number of
items here. First we've already mentioned the recommended
salary increase that 3% in the general phone calls about or just under $1.6 million.
There's total increase of about 1.3 million in benefits increases that includes health,
dental insurance, variable benefits such as FICA, 401K, retirement increases, increase
includes all current positions and recommended expansion positions.
We do have a number of expansion positions or new positions that are being recommended
at F-27, F-Y-27, again, they fall largely into the category of bringing revenue with them
or offsetting revenue or it was pretty low-hanging fruit, relatively speaking.
we have a part-time elections assistant,
Sheriff's Evidence Manager,
peer support specialist for diversion and advocacy,
deputy health director, family services,
CQI, nutrition, site coordinator for aging services,
and parks crew supervisor.
That's the general fund, quick look at the enterprise fund
that we have, which is solid waste and recycling,
The budget for this fund is primarily, is funded primarily by the solid waste fee, it includes
increases in salaries and benefits, contract services, maintenance of equipment and vehicles,
and increases in one time in capital expenditures for FY27 such as rolloff trucks, compactors,
and receivers, no expansion requests were made in this budget cycle for this fund.
We will certainly talk about this in more detail as I mentioned earlier a number of proposed
fee increases.
This chart is provided so that you can add a glance see the different areas where the recommendations
are coming from and whether it was support and a rationale behind them and estimated revenue.
I'll say that some of these fees have not been touched in a decade or better.
We are doing our best to on an annual basis look at our cost recovery model and making sure we're meeting those expectations.
We don't start with benchmarking, but as we do put these recommendations forward, we do conduct benchmarking of similar peer local government entities to make sure that we're not totally off base, but we do not use benchmarking to justify recommendations for fee adjustments.
quick word on fire districts of the 11 fire departments that provide services within
Chattam County five departments in six districts have requested tax increase from the
previous year.
More detail of course can be found in the larger budget document but as a quick overview
the Bell's NX slash North Chattam fire district includes an increase for additional
12 new full-time officers,
a circle city, which is here in Pittsburgh,
includes building a tax increase
recommendation for building renovations
and debt service for new apparatus.
Golston's tax increase request includes
the addition of a full-time employee.
Northview, this is a district that's
split between Chattam and Lee County,
with a majority of that being in Lee County.
This increase continues the rate parity
between all residents within the district, regardless of political boundaries, and is being requested
for utilities, cost, vehicles, buildings, and maintenance.
And lastly, Parkwood, this district, is served by way of a contract with the city of Durham,
as recommended increase is necessary in order to have sufficient funds to fund the contract.
For more information, if you're looking at the budget document about fire districts, you can review the fire district tax rate section of the budget message or the respective entries under the other funds section of the document.
So in quick summary, mentioned before, this budget maintains the property tax rate in uncertain financial times.
It focuses funding increases on education and public safety.
We still continue long-term planning practices around debt and capital growth and development.
There are a limited number of new positions, especially those without external funding sources,
and then minimal new programs that they also that do not have external funding sources.
Again, public hearings early this week, work sessions begin later this week,
And then roughly this time next month, we'll be bringing to you a refined budget that we'll have more input from you, of course, through our up to three day work session.
With that, as always, if you have any questions, please feel free to email or contact cis-manager butts who will work with our staff to pull together the appropriate level of information so that we can prepare for the most fruitful conversation leading into you later this week.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Questions from the board?
Frank, can you clarify it on the page about salary that 3% increase?
That's for existing and planned expansion positions.
It is not yet factoring in salaries for county manager, sheriff, and board members.
Is that right?
That's correct.
And is there any other category of individual that I missed in that separate ordinance that has to be addressed
It's been developed for any consideration of salary increase there.
Manager, Sheriff, board members,
Register of these.
So that's a two-be had conversation.
It is a can be had.
The way that we have them budgeted now is assuming the 3%
as we do all other employees that includes commissioners,
than the list of others that you had noted.
If there is a desire to have a conversation,
in this category as a collective or individually
then we certainly can have that and provide whatever kind
of implications that there may be much terribly
and work with that process and bring back something
that reflects what the Board's wishes may be.
I think to foreshadow on that topic and related,
I would love to see us kind of take what I think
is maybe a unique step forward in at least one way
is to tie Commissioner Salary to AMI.
That becomes the way that we talk about so many things in the area.
And in the interest of promoting interest in public service
and commitment to an ability to do this job well
without sacrificing other income and other opportunities,
I think it would be appropriate for us to try to tie,
to look at an increase for Commissioner Salary
that picks a particular AMI percentage
and pegs it to that, and they might have just it a particular time.
And this might be a salary that is, we wouldn't be changing our own salary this time around,
but maybe as part of the process, the board has that conversation and says,
hey, in a future year, when none of us are here, but it's all successors,
that's when that kind of change would happen.
That's the way Congress sets the salaries, and maybe that's a good model for us.
But we currently have a pay system where the chair earns more than the other commissioners.
I think that's appropriate and looking for a way to continue that with a 5% or 10% increase on
AMI would be helpful.
Consistent with that, I'd also like to think that we can consider a similar raise for
the other officials who we mentioned there that are not already calculated into the numbers
that you presented.
And a third one on this idea of salary and promoting excellence in public service positions,
especially senior public service positions, I'd love for us to be able to make the small
additional bookmark of about 25,000 to have available to supplement the salary of the clerk
and superior court.
That would elevate that position, salary, roughly almost close to the salary of the manager
of the ABC system that we have elevated under state law through the last number of years.
I think it would be important to be able to put that money aside, say that we're committed
to it.
And if there is support from court officials in the jurisdiction that we do that, my understanding
is that it's possible in other places and has been done, and I think it would be a
show of good faith to the way that we support the court system and its excellence, including
ours.
And then just a few other things that I will foreshadow for the conversations later this week
as we do, the budget work sessions starting on the 21st.
I think it's critically important that we be prepared that you and your team be prepared
for the UDO pieces, and the strategic planning, and the funding that's necessary to be able
to put the UDO in place if we get the legislative authority to go forward with that.
Or if we don't, to then do some significant reconsidered urban planning and make sure that
we're on a best posture to do what else the county wants to do.
So knowing that we're headed towards creating a creation of a map that resounds and tries
to achieve various planch atom goals, I think it would be important to make sure that this
budget has a couple of things.
One is funding either for urban planning expertise on staff or on contract to staff to be able
to drive and schedule and coordinate independently some of those efforts to make sure that
it can happen well.
And then part and parcel of that is to me the importance of having the $75,000 that were estimated
to be needed to conduct a phase two wastewater study that was recommended a number of years
ago for the Northeast corridor.
to be able to envision the amount of commercial space as a supplement to current state and the amount of affordable housing that would be needed
to give our residents of unincorporated areas the balance of tax space and resources and opportunity
that a healthy community needs. I think that kind of thing is going to be necessary
and with the right urban planning expertise on staff. I think that 75,000 could be very well spent
and how that going forward.
Thank you so much for the house up.
That is helpful.
Other comments from Commissioners?
I look forward to our work sessions.
Have a lot ahead of us.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Frank.
All right.
Jennifer, did we have anyone signed up for public comment on the budget?
Yeah, me.
No.
You're not.
Okay.
Thank you.
I will take the motion to close the public hearing on the budget.
So, on the second.
On the budget.
Okay, thank you.
Sorry, sorry.
Through that.
All right.
Item 260226, the quasi-judicial public hearing requested by
Marcus Properties LLC.
And the towers LLC for a special use permit wireless telecommunications tower
for $199 feet on parcel, $65, $6, $6, $9, $3, located at $4, $60,
mergeson road in Goldstone, Gold Township, and the planning staff
will be presenting on this item.
I need a slide like this.
Oh, thank you.
I'm here quite right.
All right.
The next item on the agenda is a public hearing
for a special use permit.
Please note, the board is required to act in a quasi-judicial
capacity as it receives evidence and makes a decision.
This means that the applicant is entitled to a full-evidentiary hearing.
During this hearing, the board will receive legally acceptable evidence to establish sufficient
facts to apply the ordinance.
Anyone who intends to testify in a quasi-judicial manner must be sworn in, including staff,
all individuals who will be speaking in this public hearing please stand to be sworn in.
Thank you.
Raise your right hand and reply yes after the following of has been read.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the evidence or testimony you are about to provide
is factual and truthful to the best of your knowledge?
I am sorry.
Thank you.
I apologize.
It's first time I've done one of those.
All right.
And now we will hear from the planning staff.
Thank you.
I have a little bit more here, Angela.
Hang on.
Maybe this.
I am now opening the quasi-judicial public hearing requested by Marcus Properties LLC and the
Towers LLC for especially use permit wireless telecommunications tower of 199 feet on
six, five, six, nine, three, located at four, six,
emergency and road, Goldstone, golf township, speaker.
Members will not be timed so that they have sufficient time to submit their evidence.
And thank you, Angela, if you can go ahead and present this.
Yes,
so this is a request for a new wireless telecommunication tower located in the Gulf Township,
down off of Merchston Road in Gulston.
This process works as a special use permit process,
so they have to address and meet all the fine findings
of that application.
They are not claiming any error in the ordinance,
so they can meet the fine number one.
Is this essential or desirable for the public convenience
or welfare?
Of course, we understand reliable access
to wireless services has become a public necessity
in most areas and the applicants are going to show you some propagation maps here, a moment
that shows areas that where you may drop sales service and that's what these toddlers
are here to do is try to bridge in some of those gaps.
They also address the comprehensive land use plan, the 2017 plan does, address the need to
expand cellular coverage to remedy connectivity deficiencies in Chattam County, again
national and the propagation maps.
This is a proposed 190 foot monopole tower with a four foot lightning rise to 199 feet.
They do not promote proposed it to be a lighted tower.
Once you go over 199 feet, there is a requirement that they will not have lights at this particular one.
It is a forested area.
We'll remain that way except for the lease area that they have to clear out for the
tower itself.
It will come in all for Merchstone Road with an appropriate access driveway and be located
within this lease area.
They did hold the community meeting.
There have been no concerns.
I'll have received a couple of calls from neighbors and they are excited about getting
a cell tower in that area of the county.
So with that, I will turn it over to the applicant.
I'm Tom Johnson, I'm an attorney with a law firm of Williams, Mollon at 301, Fayetteville
Street, sweet 1700 in Raleigh, here on behalf of the applicant, the towers,
and myself back to where it was.
Here we are.
I would ask upfront that our application and all associated documentation in the county's file,
be admitted into evidence and support of our application tonight.
So just ask that be admitted.
I do have with me a couple of witnesses.
I have Michael Berkeowitz, who's the appraiser to the impacts that did the impact study that's in the report.
And Matt McMillan, who actually did the site acquisition on this site,
so actually helped choose the site based upon the search ring that you should
that Angela showed earlier which is here.
So basically, this shows where Verizon and Verizon
will be the anchor tenant on this tower.
This search ring was given to the tower company
by Verizon to find a site because Verizon
recognized there was an issue at this location.
The propagation maps, which Angela talked about, are here.
Basically, this shows to the left the current coverage to the right the proposed coverage.
What these colors mean are the desire now is to get in building coverage so that you
have adequate coverage whether it be a residential or commercial building.
That type of coverage is the green on these maps.
The yellow is in vehicle coverage, so you can have some in vehicle coverage in the area.
If it gets into the yellow as it gets to all street coverage, you have to be outside and on the street to get the coverage.
And then the red is basically no effect of coverage.
As you can see right here, this is where the proposed side is.
The main goal is to cover 421 in that area.
There's a gap on 421 that we recognize that we had, that Verizon recognized they had.
And wanted to provide the adequate and building coverage in this area.
And what it does is it takes this area from Yala to green.
I have in this tower.
There's not a sense of scale on there.
Is there a way we can get an idea of how much area that covers?
Basically, I mean, that's how we're in it varies.
It varies on usage, that is the more you have a tower
used, the less your coverage is.
Basically, you're looking at trying to cover around
a three-mile area with a tower, more or less.
Again, it can vary.
I give you for instance, I came under the 64th this afternoon.
And obviously, it's peak time and peak use
in the coverage. Jordan Lake was not good. I was on a call and I was losing coverage.
That's what we're trying to cover is you cover the peaks and valleys, but you focus on
trying to cover the peaks. Just like you do, you have traffic studies come up here, you're
trying to cover your peak traffic. And this is what we're trying to cover the peak wireless
traffic. And to make sure we can cover that effectively without losing service. So that gives
you're rough idea of what we're talking about in this area.
I'm sorry, can I introduce?
So it looks from the map as though that section of 421 is covered for in vehicle as it stands.
Is that right?
It's for in vehicle, it's okay.
What we're trying to do is get stronger coverage for in building in this area.
So the green is what our target is now and as you can see it actually extends that
and starts covering, see some of these areas here that are actually orange at our own street coverage.
It gets some of those covered as well.
So does this area end building include in vehicle?
It includes in vehicle.
It's strong.
You're going to get a stronger signal.
Because the idea is in building coverage, stronger signal.
In vehicle coverage is a less strength in terms of signal.
Then you get the own street coverage where you may have experience that you've had to go outside to get a good signal.
That's the own street coverage, and then the red is just on the liable coverage.
So it was covering that portion of the street, but it's now going to be stronger and accessible from inside building.
Correct.
Sorry, I did clarify that earlier, but that's what that means.
So it'll be stronger and better and more reliable coverage.
This gives you some details on the tower.
So, approximately at 460 merchants in red and Goldstone,
designing designation is R1,
where allowed is a special use in the R1 district.
The tower to the top of steel.
It's a single pole tower.
It'll be 195 feet.
There's a four foot lightning rod on top,
which gets it to 199 feet.
The anchor attendant, as I said earlier,
will be Verizon wireless,
but there will be space for three additional carriers.
So, the primary carriers will have the ability to be on this tower.
In our experience, when a tower is constructed, the other carriers come to it because it's there and available for them to use.
This gives you not to the parcel plan and it gives a little better idea because you do actually see it's an aerial, so you see the trees.
I mean, this is a tree covered parcel here. We're doing a short distance.
It's off, Merchison Road which is parallel to 421 and coming in a short distance and clearing
an area just for the tower compound, a fifth-sting compound, but leaving the trees to
the greatest extent possible.
Compound has gravel in it and has the equipment in these days.
You just have equipment shelters, which are small houses.
Now they're just equipment cabinets like you see utility cabinets around anywhere.
That's what you see at these sites now.
And this, again, is the similar word angiologist should.
This is the whole lease area, which is actually larger than what we actually use for the
tower and the equipment itself.
So there will be some wooded area within the lease area that we will not touch, and it will
provide that necessary buffer to the surrounding area.
This gives you an idea about what the tower will look like.
It's a single-pull tower and it gives you an idea of the antennas and where there's locations
of the Verizon being at the top and there are three other locations for other carriers in the future.
As well as space in the compound and there will be a generator as well which will have noise dampening.
So we'll not create any noise issues.
generator has to be started periodically just to test it, but really won't be running unless there's a power outage which is windfokes.
We really need to rely on the wireless coverage.
We did actually photosimulations to let you know exactly what it would look like.
This is the overall map.
We went up and down merchants and red and included going on 421.
So these are the positions where we took the various pictures and then did simulations of what the tower was.
will look like.
This is basically right where the tower will be, as about 810 feet away from the tower.
You can see here, it's a single pole. It gives you perspective that you've got utility line poles right here.
I mean, there are already vertical structures in the area, but also you can see where the trees are covering.
A lot of what you want to see. Same here, this is a closer shot and you can see that the trees are there and they will help cover it.
Now, this is a little deceiving because there will be an access road coming into the site, but other than that, the trees will remain.
This again is about 1360 feet southeast of the site, looking back and you see it barely against the sky there.
And this is on 421, 21, 21, 21, 21, 21, 155 feet, east southeast of the site.
You can barely see it, but it sticks a little bit above the trees here above this truck in the picture.
Angela, whenever there's a little bit, you've got findings that you need to make.
Basically, that number one, this is a special use in this district that you're first finding.
Number two, the special use permit is for an essential or desirable service, wireless coverage,
and wireless services, and really become an essential function, just a regular part of our infrastructure.
They would use day in a day out.
The permit will not impair the integrity or character of the surrounding or joining areas,
and will not be detrimental to health safety welfare environment of the community.
We're doing it a well-forced parcel, as I said, we're meeting very little of the trees,
reducing that impact.
It won't be lighted, which was a question that came up with the neighborhood meeting,
and I assured the folks over there that it would not be lighted.
So, the impact is very small, especially with a single poll tower.
I do also have, we have an impact study that Mr. Merkelwitz prepared,
that showed that the tower will not create a substantial adverse impact
on the Joining Property values, I can have him come up and speak to that briefly, but that
report is in the file and that reaches that conclusion.
I'm mainly having here to be able to address any questions you may have of him, but the report
basically speaks for itself in terms of making that finding.
The permit is consistent with the objectives of the land use plan, your land use plan,
and in a great way, addresses the need for expanding, say, you learn wireless coverage in
community, which is what this is about.
So I am available to answer any questions I've gotten
Mr. Burkowitz.
You can speak to any questions you've got on his impact study
that found the conclusion that it would not create a substantial
adverse impact on property values.
And Mr. McMillan, Matt McMillan's here,
he did decide acquisition.
So if there are any site-specific questions,
he can speak to those.
He basically came in the area and found
the site is the best option.
I've been working with Verizon.
Thank you.
When commissioners like to hear from me or the other members about site selection and other topics.
I have a question out of that.
Sure.
Maybe too.
So I don't know what Monopoly is, except that it's one.
But is it the kind of poll that would collapse onto itself or...
Yeah, these towers are designed.
They're designed for the wind and ice and ice loading of this area of the state.
Based on his historical weather data.
So the building code requires that we build into that requirement, but there's an additional
percentage above that that these towers are constructed to just for additional safety.
If there were an event that would exceed those building code requirements, what would happen
is there is a part in the tower that's weaker than the west, not that it's weaker, it still
meets code, but it's weaker so that it'll bend, not just fall flat or anything like that.
So that's how that's dealt with.
I've been doing this over 30 years working in the towers and presenting towers.
You know, I've seen towers hit to get direct hits from a tornado and they still just
been.
You would think it would be otherwise, but they don't.
They just been.
Same with the experience during the major hurricanes over the years.
the towers during Hurricane Katrina category five and went to the new world.
The Towers would, you know, largely stayed, the ones that started tilting some or ones where there were flood waters washed out the foundation, some.
In that instance, that did happen, but they didn't fall. They just tilted a little bit.
As a result of the foundation being washed out, but they really didn't lose any significant towers even during that severe storm.
And then my other question was, are there buildings within that circumference?
They're no buildings within the compound around the town.
Within what would be the circumference if it did fall?
Yeah, they're nothing, they're buildings nearby.
That would be a risk.
And we have to show, when we have a falls-on letter in the file that shows how it will fall
and certify that engineer that it will not fall in an area that will create an issue
for any buildings.
But again, in this area, it's just woods.
There's no building here, Bob.
Go ahead.
I want you to tell the question, Gina.
So you talked about colocating on these towers.
Is it a possibility that law enforcement can colocate?
Sure.
I mean, we have a law enforcement colocate a lot.
I know there is a county tower outside the mile and a half
that we had to look at in terms of looking at this tower.
There's a county tower, public safety tower,
I think in that area, your gulps and up that one.
But yes, if we certainly have space available,
public safety wants to come and talk to us about,
make about having space available.
We can offer for free, but still, it's available for them.
Could you compare the height of the tower
to the trees that were shown in the surrounding area?
The trees look to be about 75 or 100 foot.
So we're talking about something larger than that,
but the angles of the pictures don't give that up here.
so that difference. Well I'm curious if I have that about right or if it's less than the best
one you can do let me say best one the gives you an idea of that is right here is this one we're not
seeing it yet we have to switch it on but it's all in perspective and the way it works
having done this as you get closer to the tower it's kind of more hidden because it's up in the
this is more hidden. As you come back a little bit, you start to see it more, as you come
back from the side. But then you reach at a point further out that the tower again disappears
among the trees. And so that's what these fetus simulations are intended to illustrate
just how that is. Yes, it will stick above the tree. If you're right there on Merchison Road
and you're standing right at the side, you're going to see it sticking up about the trees and
probably you know I would say I haven't measured the trees there so I don't know for
fact but your estimates probably about right so the rest of it will stick up for
sure that is a single poll which makes it less attrusive than some of the other
types of towers it could be used and it will be light and it will be it won't be light
light it okay and could you or one of your team speak to the property value
impacts that are expected up or down the types of properties that are around
I'm just a kind of, I'm sure. Thank you.
As Michael Barcawitz, I'll let him introduce himself and give him his address.
My name is Michael Barcawitz.
My address is 1100 Sundance Strive Concord North Carolina.
I've been a certified general prisoner for over 20 years.
What you want to do, first of the thing that I did with this because of your ordinance is,
I did what is called Identifying the Neighborhood.
The 421 quarter is obviously a major transportation quarter,
and that's called a radio growth pattern.
also you have sporadic industrial around there as well. So as I'm looking at that particular area
what's going to happen, to me it looks like that those are excellent opportunities for
additional industrial because of the highway connectivity and everything that's around it.
I think there's a, there's a, gosh, a mine or the Vulcan mark mariana. There's a quarry and
recycling plants, I'm very heavy industrial stuff, which would be more of an external influence
than this tower, you know, having an industrial recycling plant nearby is a little bit more
intrusive noise, odor, those types of things, these are silent.
What I also did is it's saying, so that would be determination of value.
To me, the way I look at that strip and it's, it's old commercial, there's a milk commercial
on 421, but as I drove by it, I was like, that section is, if something's going to grow,
they are.
It's going to be commercial or industrial or something as the population grows.
It was mature at that point.
As far as what I did provided my report, there's two ways to look at it from an adjustment.
It's the question is, as an appraiser, would I adjust these things downward?
And what I look at is a quantitative analysis, which I provide where you can isolate the
power versus not a tower which I provided in the report, as well as a qualitative analysis
given the surrounding land values, and really, the 421 corridor will be next to a
highway.
I've done studies where if your house is on a highway, it's going to sell for a little bit less
than it would be off the highway, and that makes sense given the ways traffic those types
of things.
But that's the analysis that I provided in this, based upon the location of where this
and the surrounding, and the character of the neighborhood, that it would not, it would not adversely impact property values.
And that covers all the surrounding property values, not just the heavy industrial that are closed by.
No, the whole corridor.
Because when you're looking at that, you have to say, oh, it's near the 421 corridor.
That's more of an external influence.
And from an appraisal or simply we use term called multi-colinearity,
which if you look at like the electrical poles,
I've had somebody's argue, I had an iron maybe, and they put a cell tower within the, you know,
round there, and to say that the tower, and not the iron maybe, is causing the problem,
naturally, and so multiple things can contribute to an adjustment, but to attribute to anyone,
and given the poles, the highway, the industrial, those are all three external factors that are much more invasive,
to hire an impact then this time.
And I heard Angela Plumber say that the contact
she or the staff have had has been positive generally
from residents who are eager to have additional,
so have them come to a bridge.
She did have anything.
But since leading to something that might be for you.
So what is there a close, large residential community
that might be affected differently
and value compared to the industrial corridor?
I have done multiple subdivisions and analyses.
And in fact, I've had one, I think the latest one I did was an harness bounty.
And it was a brand new subdivision.
You had one house, same exact square footage, same year build.
So, without the view of the tower, and the one width of the view of the tower, they sold within a week of each other to be exact same price.
Okay, so, in your report, you're essentially saying, you don't see an impact there, even for a large cluster of residents.
Okay, thank you.
to know if you're a bulletin.
And I can speak to, like, at the neighborhood meeting,
we had several people come, like I said,
they make concern was as if how we're going to be lighted,
which is not.
And then there was a council member for Goldstone there,
because we had it that library in Goldstone,
it was in favor of it.
I think the mayor pro-tom also contacted us
to come to the neighborhood meeting,
but he won't talk about fire, the fire department,
but he was generally favorable as well.
And I don't know who called Angela, so I don't know who called about that, but that's what I know in terms of what the community shared with us.
Thank you.
Are there any other questions that all?
Anything else you'd like to share?
Nothing.
I'd just ask for the approval of the specialties permit.
I know you will consider the later meeting that given this location and the need for the service and the overall points within your specialties permit.
we meet those requirements, and then we have within the packet, we went through every part
of the ordinance, and then address each requirement which we made.
So I would just ask you to consider this vaguely and approve it at your upcoming meeting.
Thank you.
All right, I'll close the hearing and refer this item to the planning board then.
Thank you very much.
Okay, next on the agenda is item 2600259, continue the legislative public hearing
rezoning requested by a fairing to property development LLC to rezone and parcels
to 867-868-869-842-2807-82095254, located off 724 Andrews Store Road, Parker,
here in Dundraud and Morris Road from R1 residential to CDC, Conditional District Compact Community,
being approximately 371.8 to 2 acres, Baldwin Township.
I think the first thing we need to do is
determine if
you're going to go first.
If it would please the board, we would like to hear from the applicant to see if they can address
any of the concerns we've already raised, and then hold our comments or anything we have
further after the applicant and or any public hearing public input.
Thank you.
All right.
So basically we would have to motion to deviate from rules to extend the time present and the attorney
for the application had asked for more than 15 minutes to present at this meeting.
If the Board of Commissioners would like to honor that request, we would need to vote
to deviate from the adopted rules of procedure with the board like to deviate from the
rules of procedure for this option.
If so, how much time would you like to provide for the applicant?
Yeah, I understand that applicant wants to respond to what they heard.
And I'm not enthusiastic about that,
but I feel like an additional 15 minutes is reasonable.
Considering that the public gets two minutes each
and they've already received there a lot of 15 minutes.
And that's what I feel most comfortable with.
Oh, that's nice.
Yeah.
I don't think that's going to be enough time to hear the things
we want to hear, or are we going to end up asking
a lot more questions than we need to.
And I would be inclined to say, could close a bit and half an hour,
25 minutes, half an hour, so that they can address the topics
that they can within that amount of time,
because we do have some amount of time
that we're comfortable with calling it.
But that 15 minutes, I think that original 15 minutes was short.
And I know that's our rule, but it was a truncated time frame.
And there are still things to be a lot open.
I don't think it would hurt for us in the public to hear as much as we can, rather than shift us to the planning board and have them receive this with so much open.
Okay, thank you. Commissioner Gomez for your thoughts.
I understand the 15-minute logic, but I also would be kind of curious to know what the applicant,
How much time do you estimate they would need?
And I'd just like to add, I think I say the 15 minutes, because I think actually a lot of the stuff that was presented by the public and our staff was things that I was informed that they were questioned about multiple times why their application was including some of these things.
So I just, I feel that they've had a lot of feedback and input, but I understand if
the board would like to hear more of their presentation.
No, I think, for me, it's more of making sure that we get the answers to the questions
left open that the last meeting.
How much time do you think you would need there?
I'm not sure.
Thank you so much.
Nick Robinson here on behalf of the applicant.
But I think that my initial thought and really trying to think hard about what are the buckets
of issues that y'all would want to hear more about based on the public screen was that
if you included our responses and reports from the traffic consultant and the Polpre Greek
Restoration Consultant and there are questions in response to their et cetera that will probably
take an hour.
But I think if we had, if we were given a half an hour to just run our stuff through, we could
that.
And of course, everybody be available for questions after that if that procedure works.
But we defer to the board. I mean, I really think there'll be a lot of helpful information
in this presentation tonight. There'll be helpful for you all.
I hope so. There's a lot of gaps and a lot of missing things. So hopefully you can resolve
some of those things, Nick. I'm inclined to agree with the 25 minute limit with the five
And then it, um, for rebuttal.
I think you can do that.
Oh, sure.
Yeah, that sounds great.
And I think to change the order up a little bit because I know our planning staff has a lot of questions and a lot of gaps in their understanding for where you are right now with this proposed development.
I'd like to go ahead and have you present and take questions and then planning staff can present along with any expert
that we have and attendants to answer for the questions on the part of it.
Board.
And then I think maybe have public comment in between planning staff and your folks.
That work?
For the record of our May, if the board wants to take a visual action to deviate in the way.
I said, I have been.
I need a motion.
Yes, yes. Thank you.
All right.
Is there a motion to deviate from the rules to extend the time?
25 minutes with a five-minute rebuttal?
Summ up.
I'll second.
So good.
All in favor.
Hi.
All right.
Motion carries.
Great.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
And Nick, just for my own sense.
So I don't get off track here.
Yes.
You're going to present with any of the experts you have.
You have 25 minutes.
And then we're going to have public comment.
And then after that, the planning staff will have the floor.
Okay.
Thank you.
And then we were butt.
Okay.
That's great.
I appreciate that.
Thanks so much to the Board.
I appreciate the consideration.
Good evening.
Madam Chair Board members.
My name's Nick Robinson.
And I'm here on behalf of Fairington Property Development LLC.
The applicant, very much appreciate this opportunity to clarify a few things and report
some updates and some progress.
But for I get to that, I just want to say that it's important to recognize that what
we've got here is a context, right?
And we recognize that the approval of this project is not a by-right project.
This is one where you have to decide that it's in the best interest to approve a project
like this in a compact community.
So we know that you have to be convinced and you have to believe that it's the right thing,
and that it's overall better for the community than whatever the alternative is.
And we believe this is better for the community than what the alternative is,
because it brings with it a affordable housing, much lower price points, smaller lots, more open space.
But it's also imperative to be clear-eyed, I think, about the alternative.
What is the alternative of this compact community proposal for this project?
And it's the buy-right option.
the version that legally has to be approved, and that will take the form of a conservation
subdivision or other straight subdivision that will likely have about 400 homes in it.
None of the homes will be affordable because the way you pay for affordable homes is to spread
the cost of the amount over higher density. The land plan will be, and those homes are going
to be much more expensive. You know, high six figures, seven figures. The land plan will be
similar and the traffic difference will be negligible. So that's the context. You just have to decide which of those two you think is best overall.
So immediately after the hearing last month we went to work trying to figure out what ways the project could be modified to meet or respond to the
concerns that were raised at the public hearing and those topics we're going to address tonight.
I thought felt it in two about four buckets or four categories, affordable housing and I know that Jamie Andrews is going to speak
in part on that, so I won't steal a lot of the thunder there, but we've made a lot of progress there.
Restoration of Pope Bury Creek, Adam McIntyre is here tonight. He's the company that will do the restoration to which we're committed.
And that addresses flooding concerns too. And then traffic.
Minal Stevenson is here as well. He's the traffic engineer to address those.
And then the last topic is Parks and Rec and Connectivity. So I just wanted to give you that roadmap.
So, those are the issues that will address, and in the meantime, as a result of the public
here, we did make a few changes to the concept plan for this project that I wanted to show
you.
I don't think they're on the screen at this moment.
There you go.
Great.
Thank you so much.
A few changes.
The affordable housing proposal, which is in this area.
If you recall originally, it was going to be limited to this section here and it would be
32 units that we would give lots for.
We've had some good conversations with two meetings
with in person and one virtual, with the affordable housing
staff and the county manager, and that proposal.
Nick, can you speak in the mic?
I'm so sorry, yeah, it's always over here to the right
to the left.
That proposal, we found out that the county basically
would prefer not to have lots delivered to it,
but to have raw land delivered to it,
so that the county could design its own affordable housing program.
So, when talking about that, we agreed that we would donate to the county, not only the northern portion of on the interstore road,
but also if the county was so inclined, the southern portion, which is where the commercial was going to go, if it were to be effective.
And Jamie can address the county response that we put, I think it was very positive.
We put together a term sheet that we've been working on, and Jamie will bring that to the floor.
The other thing is in the public input session, the prior chapel community association had some concerns about the density up here in the extent to which it might impose on the common areas that are in prior chapel.
And so we've redesigned this area here. We thought that was a worthwhile critique.
And one that we hadn't thought of. And so we redesigned this area to put its own amenity area up here for the benefit of the residents in that section.
It'll be public and available.
So that was one change to the site plan.
Another thing came up after the public hearing.
We received notice from the fire, Marshall,
that there were new rules adopted in Chadden County
that require more than one access if you have more
than 100 lots in a single place.
And this section down here, you
should have more than 100 lots in it.
But since it only has this one ingress and egress point,
we've reduced that down to below 100.
The Parkland donation, we had conversations with Parks and Rec staff,
and I can talk about that a little bit more later,
and then somebody asked us to make sure that this map shows
the trail connectivity, which it does throughout the project,
including to the affordable housing section,
and also to the existing,
by our chapel community park. You can see that trail right there. This is a close-up of the affordable housing
section that Jamie will be talking about later. Okay, so I want to turn it over now very quickly
to add them to talk about the Boatbury Creek Restoration and our commitment to that.
Thank you, guys. I'm going to have to blow through about 26 years of experience in five minutes, so
So all I've been committed to doing put very creek restoration, I've looked at this project 15 years ago, and I've been working with the original developer and then shared and so we're very much committed to doing this.
What we can't do is move forward with the mitigation to restoration component until the development gets settled out. So that's kind of wanting to hit on today.
So real quick we break this into two parks or there's a put very creek component in bribe chapel and there's a put very component from bribe chapel down to Morris Road.
If you look at Pokedbury Creek as a whole, it's actually in stable conditions for most part except for that section.
So our purpose in goal has been all along to restore two different sections of Pokedbury, which would complete Pokedbury's health condition, basically, essentially to the Hall River.
So we have grant funding committed to us for the Port Part and Breyer Chapel because we can't use mitigation funds for that.
And once that gets in place, then the funds will be put in place for restoring all the way to Morris Road.
One thing that I want to really want to hit on today is that is to understand what the stream restoration does from a flood, a resiliency standpoint.
So we've been doing these projects for, you know, at least 26 years in North Consons, I've been doing it.
So reconnecting streams to the floodplain, actually slow down floodwaters, that actually store floodwaters, and they provide the flood attenuation that this county really needs.
We see bigger storms coming, we're seeing more flooding issues on Andrew Stool Road and Morris Road, which act lights, where dams.
Water moves really quickly through impaired streams.
And the way to fix that is to reattach the streams to their flood plains, so it slows down water.
So I'm a wonderful picture of Briar Chapel portion.
Up here in the red section of Briar Chapel, everything's stable, it's the green section where things are really unstable and unhealthy.
So it's a perfect example. 15 years ago when I first visited the water surface elevation was at that red area.
So when you had a flood event, the water spread out over a 30 acre wetland area, stored that water before it moved downstream.
Now the base flows at that yellow area, those pipes are actually exposed because of erosion and unhealthy conditions.
So what we would do is restore that back to what it was, which would slow down floodwaters before they get to Andrew's store road.
As it relates to put very, put very creek, the things I want to hit on is there's
22,000 linear feet, there's over 7 tributaries, there's actually 10, but there's 7,
they're primarily focused on 8,000 of those 22,000 feet are severely unstable.
And they're pushing water really quickly to Andrew's store road and really quickly to Morris Road.
So our project, which will restore all 8,000 feet, put 40 acres of restored floodplain back in place,
Protect another sixty acres of floodplain, put binding in place to make sure the project stays in perpetuity,
and have a long-term management plan to make sure the project functions forever.
We can't move forward with the restoration project until the development settle.
So the agencies that approve my projects are saying, Adam, show me the footprint of the development.
So we know that your engineering project can actually remediate and deal with those issues that you're doing.
So that's the reason we can't move forward until this is done.
Just in conditions on the Pope Bear Creek, when you see trees, later like that, you know
it's an unhealthy system.
This channel should be two feet tall, two feet to two and a half feet deep, Jamie six foot
twos that kind of gives you an idea of how deep and messed up the tributaries on this mitigation
project are.
The one on the right, that channel should be about a foot and a half deep in this 12 feet
deep.
So what happens is these channels when it rains, they just, they act like pipes and they push
water down really quickly. So the flooding issues will continue to get worse unless this
restoration project is approved. Footprint of the easement that we're talking about doing
a slightly over 100 acres everything in a hundred year floodplain and even outside of that
has been added to the footprint. You see the tributaries and we're restoring all the unhealthy
systems up there. Real quick, don't get too caught up into these numbers but we've already
run preliminary numbers from about a year ago. We'll be at a reduced flood stage that
a major store road by foot, which doesn't sound like a lot, but if you measure a foot
depth, times the width of the floodplain to the depth of the floodplain, you're talking
about thousands of volumes of water volume that will be reduced by restoring these
channels coming into it. So our projects are used all over the state of North Carolina
all over the country for controlling and reducing flood issues.
Excuse me. How are you going to control the storms?
We can't control storms.
Right. I mean, we're looking at a climate change in storm.
So we're in some more stores coming, so as a matter of fact, the date is not published
set, but 87% of the channels in Asheville area that were stable and got through Pileen
were the restored channels, the ones that caused the most damage were ones that were incised
and unstable.
So by restoring these channels, we're restoring floodplain function where it's been lost,
and that's what slows the water down.
So remember, water volume, we can't control, storms are coming, five inch rate of it, still
the same amount of volume. What we came control is the velocity. So flooding is as
called, it's not just by volume, it's also called by velocity. So slowing these velocity
down by, instead of having channelized pipes that are just pushing water really quickly,
which is what put very quick is doing right now. We're restoring that and we're allowing
the floodplain to slow the water down before it gets to the public. 100-year floodplain needs
the function as a floodplain. Right now, the majority of that floodplain doesn't function as a
Is that answer a question?
Not fully but key.
Yeah, but we can't control storms coming, right?
So when if you have a five hundred year event,
I feel like you would do all the renovations
to repair all of this, and then we have a giant storm
and over time, another giant storm and another giant storm
and it's degraded for a reason, right?
So it's just going to happen all over again.
We're not back to where we are right now,
under a matter of time.
And most of the degradation has happened.
It actually happened from 100-year farming prior to
then we're adding development on top of it.
And we're not restoring these streams.
But I have project examples.
Like this is when it makes them more county.
Same type thing we're seeing on Poetberry,
where you're 10 to 12 foot deep.
We restore everything within that yellow.
You see high density development, high density development.
And here's the channel.
And this is immediately after construction.
But you see, once we allow that floodplain to be active again,
it treats the floodwaters and houses are safe
the Roversafe. So we've been doing this for many, many years.
I have a whole career based on it.
So I'll put that in your heart for you.
Thank you.
Thanks so much Adam. And I think the important thing from the developer standpoint is that there
were some issues raised during the public hearing.
Some question about because there had been a change of ownership from when you all originally approved
adding this land to the compact communities map. There's a concern about whether or not there was dedication to the
the conservation and to the restoration, and there is a 100% every element of this neighborhood
has been designed in conformity with and hand in hand with Adam and his group to make
sure that they fit hand and glove.
So I just wanted to make sure that that was clear after the public hearing.
There are a lot of concerns raised about traffic, so I want to ask Rhino to come up and address
those as well.
Thanks a lot.
We've got 12 minutes left.
We have one question in there.
I guess, if you give me four or five minutes, that's all right.
Okay.
Ronald Stevenson with DRNP.
I'm going to go through this kind of fast.
But the main thing I want to hit on here is,
there's a lot of, I think, concern about levels of service,
and levels of air, and traffic operations,
the traffic impacts, and I'm just going to walk through this to show you
It's not as bad as it.
May sound. So this is the level of service here and the level of service grades on the left, with the seconds of delay. The one thing I want everybody to kind of take away here is that for every letter grade, you can see it's roughly 5 to 10 seconds of delay. So the level of service F is like 50 seconds. It's not even a minute, but that's what I want to take away there is not hours of
delay or even minutes, it's less than a minute.
So level service F is does not mean that the road is unsafe.
It just means you wait longer.
Again, it's longer, wait times, 50 seconds, or more,
the wait time.
So I'm trying to make this so we can kind of understand a little bit.
This is a map on the map here,
is the area of Parker Hurn, Purned, and the Interstor.
And what you see here, I kind of started
intersection of Granite Mill, the top row that's in kind of the medium color orange is what
it the level of service to intersection today, and there's what it is when we build out. We can
finish the whole site. It goes from level service C to level service C in the morning, and it goes
from level service B to level service B in the afternoon. Here at Parker-Hunter and Andrew Store,
we go from level service C today to level service D in the morning. That is with some improvements
that we have to make there, but that delay increases by four seconds.
That's the main thing I want to take away there.
We go from B to B. Again, if we move, move down, move it down into your store row.
We go from B to B. A to B. This is the driveway that goes into section C.
Again, it's level service D. In the morning, level service D in the afternoon, up in
Bars Chapel at a high point row, we're seeing B. So that's the levels of service that
we're talking about there in Andrew Stool Road.
If we kind of move down, 15-51, Hamlet Chapel,
we've got a, I'll start with this one,
there's an F that appears there.
So level service F today in the morning,
it goes to level service D in the morning,
and this is with the DOT improvements
that are coming that are planned to make a script
in the next few years.
It does stay at an F in the afternoon
with the DOT improvements,
So that is one of the S that that's with the DOT improvements.
Again, on this side of the road, we go from F to B in the morning at F to B in the afternoon
in the future.
Again, move it up.
Parker Herndon, before we move on from there, what part of the DOT proposed improvements
right there?
Is that a stoplight?
Is there something different?
There's they are taking all of these intersections and making them into what they call
reduce conflict intersections where you cannot turn left from the side street, so it's going to
basically force anybody from the side street to turn right, go down and make a U-turn.
Okay, thank you.
And that moves traffic better on 15, 5, and 5, and 5, and 5, and 5, and 5, and 1.
So up at Parker Hurnton and Morris were A to B. Again, we actually increased by one second
of delay there, but it's enough to go from A to B and A to A there.
This is over at one of the sections I think that was maybe maybe a concern, there's level
service.
This is on Parker Herden, B and A at this driveway, this driveway here that lines up as
a four-legged traffic study shows F there, this graphic on the right is one thing I want
to point out here which is to keep in mind that the level service F is on our driveways.
It is not on Parker Herden, so Parker Herden Road does not have to stop, so there's no
seconds to delay for the traveling public on Parker Herden.
The only delay there is for any car coming out of the driveway.
That's it.
No delay for Parker Herden Road traffic.
And then down over a back of a 15-5-in-1, an entry store, again, this intersection here
is I've got graphics we can look at this in more detail if we if we need to but our side of the road here
answer stores for B to B C to B and then on this side there's an E and F there but this side over here
has almost no traffic on it it is not signalized the intersection is not signalized on this half of the road and
there's less than 10 cars on on that side of the road again down at the U turn we go B to C A to B and then
down at Morris and 1551, we go from B to B and B to B there.
So again, the levels of service are not as bad as it seems.
The levels of service, F here, it's a blow-up of Android Store road.
On the opposite side, you can see this is not signalized.
So this is un-sigilized movement here.
So that's why that's an E and an F in the morning only.
So is there any planned DOT upgrades of that intersection?
I don't they typically install signals winners and stuff traffic to warrant the signals, but again, as I mentioned, there's less than 10 cars over there
But that's on the east side, but I'll do the west side of the east side
Yeah west side of the signal, I don't even hear you can see we're going from B to B
Well, I know what it is now, right?
So you get the right turn only so everyone goes south first and they hit the U turn, which is often backed up all the way into the land of traffic now
sometimes with full buses in a row and then cars. So what happens with when DOT makes improvements
for this project? Anything or are there no improvements? They're going to read the
re-timing all the signals on here because when they add, when they're doing improvements kind of
downstream, this intersection, they're converting all these four leg intersections into this
kind of configuration here. So when they do that, they're going to retime all the signals along that
to work to make it flow better and kind of minimize some of the issues that you're saying there.
Thank you. So that intersection, we got a number of road improvements that are required to make.
And these improvements have been required of us and we will be making these improvements.
There's more work to come with DAT. This is not done. We have to do detailed designs and plans with DAT before they'll get us a permit.
And there may be questions and I'll answer those, maybe after presentations.
Great.
Thanks, Rhino.
So let me just keep on going.
We've got about four and a half minutes here.
Parks and Rec, one to say, you know, we had originally had talked about donating this section here as Parkland.
The Parks and Rec Department was uncomfortable because there's spray irrigation on it.
We met with Parks and Rec. We went through a lot of options there and they asked us at the end of the meeting, would you consider instead of that just donating the conservation area in here to the county because as you see in the comp plan the county has a goal for permanently protecting 20,000 acres of additional land by 2040 and they said they're not getting too far on that and this would be helpful and we said yes, met with everybody.
We quickly drew up this map to show that it would be the donating the floodplain to the county.
It would be donating 76 acres.
We submitted that to Parks and Rec last week after our meeting.
And we got the breaking news that noon today that they said that they were not interested in receiving that donation.
And I asked for the reasons why.
And I was given some reasons why.
which I'm sure they can describe in a little more detail.
We're still open to something creative.
And then the last thing, we do really all the area that's not going to be used for spray.
They don't want spray area.
But it could be conserved.
We're willing to donate to the county if it wants it.
If it doesn't, it's going to be conserved.
So the last thing I'd say is, on the park donation,
if that's where we wind up back at, there's no hurry on that.
We're more than happy to say the county can have five years to decide whether it actually wants to take that land as a park and a lot can change in five years
A spray can change it may be that there's no spray on that land when technology improves and that time goes by and you really do want that land
We're totally fine with that. We just throw that out there is something that
I think would be
Something to consider. The last thing I want to say is that
There were, you know, the five findings that you need to make, the first one is a no-brainer.
And I don't have that much time, but I want to make sure to make it clear that there have been some changing circumstances that justify approving this compact community here.
One of which was the map that amended the compact community's map to say based on its conformity with the complement that this is the right place for a compact community.
The next thing is the matter in which it will carry out the intent of the adopting plans.
And we have, you can see, this is the compact community's ordinance map, as amended, showing the entirety of the land within the zone that you all have said is appropriate for compact communities.
be hard to argue that it's not consistent with the content in that regard.
I just want to say there was a lot of conversation about it made it seem like we were
asking for a whole bunch of waivers and we weren't following the rules.
On the left is the waivers that we were requesting for this project.
On the right are the waivers that were requested by Vickers Village in 2021, which was approved
for five to nothing, all of the waivers are identical.
It's the exact same categories.
The only difference was, we did ask for an additional waiver in fairington preserve that would
say that if the commercial becomes non-viable, we would want to convert that to more affordable
townhomes, but I think when Jamie addresses the affordable housing aspect, hopefully that becomes
a non-issue.
So basically it's identical.
You may not agree with the waivers that are being requested, but you have approved them
for and we're not doing anything that's even remotely unusual in asking for these.
I wanted to say that the pedestrian trail, I think we're pretty close, the lawyers are
looking at a workout to get the pedestrian trail from this community over to Fairington
Place commercial.
I've got about 37 seconds left.
I would like to ask Thomas Welts to come up if he hears the developer and he has a very
thing that he would just want to say to you all, I'll use my last 30 seconds to a minute if
you can indulge us for that time. And then it'll be back up with Roboto if needed. Thank you
very much for your attention and appreciate the time.
I think I know I don't have a lot of time,
so I appreciate you allowing me to just come up here. I just want to say I'm part of the ownership
group. One of the main reasons are a few of the reasons that we've been so excited about this project,
to this field of field to deliver a lasting impact in this community.
Right, we don't just want to do a 400-unit conservation subdivision that just bill
homes.
We're super excited about being able to provide affordable housing, be able to provide workforce
housing, be able to conserve 80 plus acres of public, very creek, and restore that for
perpetuity.
And provide the trail system that can connect fire, chapel residents, all the way to
Fearington Place, and connect it apart.
So there's a lot of good about this project.
But we've been pursuing it for over two years, not just because it's a great project, but because it can provide lasting impact in the community.
So, thank you.
I had a question for you.
So, I believe there was six different environmental impact studies that failed.
Can you explain that in relation to what you just said?
Be happy to.
I think it's a misnomer to say that there were six different environmental impact assessments that failed.
in one of them failed, there were a request for additional information to be deemed complete,
and that happens regularly, with almost every impact assessment that is made.
There were a number of items that were revisions that were made because we made changes
requested by the staff for us to supplement, including about the conservation subdivisions.
So those were some of the changes.
And then when you get down to the end, the point of the environmental impact assessment
is that it be complete, and the peer review consultant that it is engaged by the county paid for by us
deems that environmental impact assessment to be complete, and that was the process.
Thank you.
All right,
Nick, just one thing from me as well, you know, you often come in telling us what we have to do,
and then we don't approve this one, and you'll put another one through that will have to prove.
And you don't buy yourself any favors when you do that.
Just letting you know.
We have an attorney that lets us know
when we really have no wiggle room on something
and it's hard as it can be sometimes.
We really do understand that
and we know that.
And it's a fending me when you do that.
So I would just please don't do that anymore.
I'm so sorry, I don't mean to offend
but I don't always know
how much you all know about what the next plan B is
and that's the only point in bringing that up.
So that you have a good way to weigh the two options.
This is a regular habit though, right?
But for this specific project, what does it actually mean
to go to plan to be?
That's all I meant to come in and get.
Gotcha.
If we have a plan B, we'll cross that when we get there, right?
Now we have a plan A, so I think it's helpful to them, thanks.
Just, but, you know, thank you.
All right, I have a my list from previously
that we're going to do public comment now.
Is that correct?
From the way we said this on before.
And there's 17 folks lined up, I'm any 17.
17.
OK, so I'm going to say this because this is the second time we're here.
And planning staff is going to go after public comments.
And I do appreciate you all coming tonight.
You have gotten a little additional information, some new information.
And hopefully you can count some of your comments towards that that can inform us, and also planning staff.
But I would say that if someone is already, which is going to be a long night, it's not the last thing.
Already said what you have said, that you would like to say, please come up and say, you know, I'm...
I'm here because my concerns have already been addressed by someone else. So I just ask you that please. Staff has been here all day and now in tonight too. So there's that.
Speakers will have two minutes to speak. The green light illuminates for the first minute. The yellow light illuminates along with one beep. To let the speaker know they have one minute left. The red light illuminates along with three beeps when your two minutes have expired.
I appreciate if speakers can provide a copy of your comments to the clerk over there on writing and please speak directly into the microphone.
Thank you, Jennifer.
I'm going to call you up three at a time.
So if you can come on up from your seat since it is two minutes, it will be faster than you know.
So, the first person is Sasha Washington, and Tony Mayan, and Joe, and I'm sorry Joe, Ellen Eel.
Hello. My name is Sasha Washington. For someone who has lived here for all 25 years of life,
here in C. Land that is well known by those who grew up in the area go from being farmland to the
that the government named Fairtimpers Earth brings
nothing but anger and disappointment.
These roads cannot afford to have more traffic or growth
imagine four-school, trying to release students,
and then coming in and out of a development
which sits right in the middle of it all.
It simply cannot happen.
Not to mention, a creek resting along the lines.
Live in off-cracker-hunden, our road,
has become NASCAR.
And nearly impossible to check mailboxes
or to turn into driveways.
Without fear, you'll get hit,
as traffic has increased throughout the years.
The number of regs should be vouched for, especially this past weekend.
You have these developers claiming they're going to put affordable housing for people to purchase,
but realistically, nothing is ever affordable.
No matter how much someone tries to persuade you,
with incomes that aren't even accurate for most people in North Carolina or in the state in general.
What's really going to happen is that everyone will be eventually pushed out.
I strongly hope that you all seriously take the time to think about this and understand that
The major concerns everyone has, and not to rush to build something so quickly.
Please save our trees.
Please, and thank you.
Tony Mayan.
Then, Joe Ellen Heal.
Good evening.
My name is Joe Ellen Hill, resigning at 9 Pokedbury Bend Drive, and the current president of the Board
of Directors for the Chapel, the Breyer Chapel, Neighborhood Association.
11.1 of the county CCOs requires the physical impact assessment, which includes impacts
on schools, police protection, EOMAS, libraries, and recreational facilities.
The addition of units currently planned in this community will strain our ability to adequately
receive such guaranteed services.
A transportation impact assessment is also required.
The report previously published was in adequate,
and it seems like tonight it really isn't much more realistic.
And the impact to Breyer Chapel community was not even addressed.
An accurate environmental impact assessment is also required.
We asked that the 11.2 impact mitigation process demands
follow-through with a strict adherence to deliverables rather than overused
of the payment in lieu option. 12.1 requires an identifiable and useful
town center. Units must be within walking distance of a
fairington wrecked facility. Community center school or neighborhood park.
Neither the county park nor barire travel amenities count.
Flat open spaces for activities are required along with small playgrounds and parks scattered throughout the community with them walking distance of most homes.
Residential units town center and community gathering points must be interconnected by roadways and a network of pedestrian paths.
We maintain that fairington preserve acreage should not become CC status as their plan is either inadequate or lacking in fulfilling requirements for this designation.
The disconnected layout also fails to fit a CC definition.
I've spent most of my life in Charlotte, and over the years I've witnessed the
developers being allowed to hastily construct neighborhoods that have severely impacted
the soul to grab it out.
Your two minutes as I go.
Thank you.
The next person is Carol Hoke in the Matt Brumberg.
Thank you very much.
I'm only going to take about a minute because I know that many other
the speakers will be touching down the things that I'm going to say.
I'm also director of the Rire Chapel Community Association.
At the prior hearing, we did hear serious considerations raised by both our board of
directors as well as the neighbors who are impacted by this proposal, including significant
cost implications related to amenities and the importance of strong environmental protections.
So we do ask you to consider a few things and one in particular would be how would the project
be sized in what onsite amenities, recreation areas, green space, and gathering spaces would be
provided to serve residents. If you're going to have an HFA for this community, it needs
a place to gather. We estimate, conservatively, that our residents and buyer chapel could
be subsidizing the cost for this extended community just the one adjacent to us by over
$200,000 a year, which would be over $1,000,000 over 5 years and 2.4 over 10 years.
It additionally uses of our infrastructure that we pay to maintain.
Thank you.
Hi there.
Thank you for your time tonight.
My name is Matt Bromba and I live at 268 Monty Thrive in Briar Chapel.
I also serve on the Board of the Briar Chapel Community Association and offer these comments
and those in that capacity as well as my as a concern citizen.
I'm here to expand on the concerns that I raised in my written response before the April 20th Board of Commissioners meeting,
which I have included, again, in my comments today.
My focus remains on a likely effect of the proposed
fairington preserve development on automobile traffic
and resulting safety risks for bar chapel residents,
particularly children.
In my earlier comments, I noted that the data
from a temporary speed sign recorded roughly 31,000
inbound vehicles on a great rich parkway over just a few weeks
that I invite your chapel.
I also explained that the proposed 300 unit phase
adjacent to Breyer-Chapples for a mineral loan could add two to 300 additional vehicle trips
for a degree of rich parkway alone. If later phases of Fierrington preserve them forward,
as well, traffic could increase beyond that estimate. The applicant's traffic impact analysis
dated November 24th, omits key Breyer-Chapples access points, including woodland growth,
lane, and granite mill, boulevard, even though these roads are likely routes for families
traveling to and from the four schools that are located within or adjacent to Breyer-Chapples.
travel community.
The analysis also states that it does not evaluate midday intersection traffic when school
related to commercial traffic are most likely occur.
Clearly, a more complete assessment is needed for the board to fully understand the project
impact on traffic and safety consequences.
Accordingly, I respectfully urge the Commission to consider reducing parenting and preserves
housing density below the level of the level allowed under a CCO designation to help limit
vehicle traffic in our community and improve pedestrian safety particularly for our children.
Thank you for consideration.
Anna Rishi.
My name is Anna Ressa.
I'm a civilic alum.
And I provided copies of just a survey of the subdivisions along Pokedbury Creek.
And I really want you to consider the downstream impact of not just this particular development which is considerable but also the three other new developments that are on the books.
And that's the retreat at Hall River,
a very crossing and by and by and bridge.
Right now, there are at least 2,865 dwellings
in 15 different subdivisions along Pokedbury Creek.
With these new developments for new subdivisions,
that's adding another 1,244 dwellings.
So given Adam McIntyre's presentation, which sounded great that they're able to restore
Pope Barry Creek, the damage that's been done over the last few years, having this development
go on and be built over a certain amount of time, is the restoration going to be worth it
to your point earlier, are we just going to find ourselves in the same situation, another
couple of years from now, or another couple of decades from now?
That's all I wanted to add, first night, thank you.
Jacqueline Watson, then Robert Hobart, then Amy Kaufflin,
Jacqueline Watson.
My name is Jacqueline Watson. My family built our home at 1789 Andrews Store Road, so we
live just in real close proximity of this project. I have a unique experience that we rented
in Barrage Chapel, so I've lived in that community and so I'm coming from a experience that
we're on Andrews Store Road now. I'm a mother for three of my four children are in two of those
It's why I feel I need to be here tonight.
Sorry, I'm nervous.
This project will directly impact me in the
neighbors in our community.
I mostly want to touch on as a parent.
One of my biggest concerns is the impact it has on
our community schools.
My daughter at the middle school is currently in a class of
30 students to one teacher.
And with the 600 proposed homes that's going to be put in,
it's going to place not only a strain on the roads, but most importantly, the schools and
the children are at the base of that.
And I don't want that to happen, and I'm very respectfully believe that this proposal is not
in our benefit for the local community.
It feels like the burden of the project will fall on the existing community while the primary
benefit goes to the developer.
Residents will absorb the increased traffic over credit schools in the loss of community
character long after this project is completed.
That's.
Okay.
I'm going to cut to the chase.
The worst part of this plan is the sections that are on the north side of Andrew
Store Road.
The affordable housing section.
The big town homes section.
The commercial section that now they say is going to be part of more affordable house.
this is a worst part. It's going to cause trouble with traffic.
There's the problem with the
Ingress egress into Breyer Chapel through Helppoint Road. And then there's this runoff
and the Poetberry Creek plus they go have to run sewer lines under I guess Andrew's store road to
to their so-called wastewater treatment plant that's in a low place above Pope Mary Creek.
I'm sure they can explain it a way. That's the biggest problem to me.
Now, I drive those roads.
It's too much traffic. If they want to put, and I'm all four
affordable housing, that's fine. Why don't they take their affordable housing and move
back into the section of Parker Herndon right and leave this land on the north side of Andrew
Store for keep that single family dwelling. That solves a lot of this problem. Think about it.
Good evening commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Amy Cofflin,
and I've lived in bar chapel for 13 years at 60 Traywood Lane.
I want to begin by acknowledging the CCO was created with good intentions.
Its goals were meaningful to protect green space, support walkable and bikeable communities,
ensures sustainable water and wastewater systems, safeguard chadams, water quality,
reduce energy use, improve air quality, provide a mix of housing types and create neighborhoods
with parks, trails and open space.
As at its core, the CCO is meant to deliver greater environmental economic and social benefits
than conventional development.
But it's intentions alone don't guarantee outcomes.
When we look at the implementation of the CCL and Rire Chapel,
we see a very different story.
Rire Chapel was marked as a model-green community,
promising preserved wetlands, protected forests, healthy streams,
and we...
Responsible stewardship of natural resources, yet the reality has been deeply troubling. We've seen
what lands disappeared during development. We've seen beaver dams, which naturally protect
water quality, treat as nuisance and destroyed, and beaver's drowned. We even had commitments
for native plants that were ignored. We've experienced sewer spills, gray water on trails
and parks, erosion, wastewater saturating forest, floors, killing trees, oversight has been
We've inherited St. Cole's hazardous debris left and preserved areas in 48 poorly built stormwater
ponds that the community is now financially responsible for. These are not small oversights
there, systematic failures, and that is why I'm speaking today because no matter what a developer
promises, there's little real oversight once approvals are granted. Without strong and forcible ongoing
accountability, the burnish shifts to residents, taxpayers, and the environment. Commissioners,
I urge you to scrutinize every proposal with lessons learned from Baruch Apple. Promises are
not protections marketing is not mitigation and with own accountability the residents of
Chatham County pays the price.
For all of those reasons please deny this reason only in my quest.
Thank you.
Um, shall we cover it and then hang in critters, critters, critters, critters,
critters, critters.
So I have to tap anything.
Uh, a good evening commissioners, my name is Shelley Colbert and I live in Baldwin Township
and I'm here to ask you to deny the Fiery and Tim Priser Resonation application.
The application does not meet the standards of the CPEO as CCO or Plan Chatham, and is not
even remotely comparable to Victor's village, as he's runously slided by the applicant
in its response.
The planning staff, especially with respect to scale, location, existing commercial opportunities,
traffic generation, environmental impacts, and significantly developer contributions for affordable
housing.
I would invite you to go back and take a look at what was actually in the 2021 application.
I did not post-bickers village, but I am opposing S.
This proposal is a misuse of rezoning by waiver manipulation and should be denied the essence
of the Wolflion adequate site plan, consists of five discrete subdivisions called together
to take advantage of a zoning alternative not available without waivers or decreased density.
The submission surprisingly suggests that the commercial area may not even be built at all.
Major subdivisions unable to meet the requirements of the CCO, a lot to be resubmitted on
other ordinances, and should not be allowed to feed multiple policy purposes of the CCO
and plan chat.
The application will result in unsafe and environmentally disastrous
conditions for future residents and existing communities. The ERAC report details the
wastewater flooding and a long list of significant unacceptable, negative environmental
and other public impacts.
It does not meet the required public needs for safety and recreation, and will result in severe
negative impacts to adjoining communities.
The application contains various technical areas, omissions, misstatements, misrepresentations,
and other deficiencies is documented by the Planning staff, Iraq, and the community members.
And I would invite you to take a look at my more detailed written comments that I submitted
to this board, approximately a month ago, and I stand by them.
Thank you.
I'm Anne Couturgus, and I live off of Parker Herndon Road.
In April, we decided a group of us to start a petition to inform our neighbors and community
about Fairington Preserve, and to give them an opportunity to voice their opposition to
this development.
The petition reads, to the Chatham County Commissioners, we, the undersigned, oppose zoning
approval for the development of Fairington Preserve, a proposed compact community that would
sit between Andrew's store, Parker-Hurndon, and Morris Rhodes. The proposed development is
neither compact nor community that meets the purposes of the Chatham County compact community
ordinance. It has five separate entrances on three separate roads. The five entrances
lead to five different parcels of land which separate each part of the community from the others
by roads and by Pope Mary Creek and its floodplain.
This proposed community is not anchored by a village center
and does not integrate community facilities into the plan.
If bill, it will roughly double the number of cars
that use and restore park or herndon and forest roads.
For all the above reasons, we urge you to deny
the compact communities owning requests by Farrington
preserve to move forward.
And include it in the material that I uploaded this afternoon to your website as a list of nearly
730 people who signed the petition.
Thank you.
Patty.
it's earlier. I used to live in Guilford County for many years and I've been
fighting the Chalam County Commissioner to come to Guilford County and see what
over-development really looks like. You have an opportunity here in advance to
thoughtfully plan the vision for Chalam County and that includes
considering the community where I used to live in Chalam County called the
Hall River State Park. Given the fact that so much development has been
planned without consideration where I came from and I see it happening here
And rapidly, over the past seven years since I've moved here, I really would like Chatham County to consider that they have a truly independent and comprehensive traffic and infrastructure analysis before approving this.
That they have greater scrutiny of environmental and floodplain impacts because the developers will stay anything to get what they want.
Clear, enforceable commitments related to buffers mitigation and infrastructure and community protections.
And the true consideration of the cumulative impact of continued high-density development in this part of the county.
Thank you.
After Stacey is Bitsy Gravis.
Oh, after.
Hi, excuse me, I have a call.
My name is Stacey Donnell and I live at 112-true Lane in Briar Chapel.
It's Baldwin Township.
So many people have brought up so many great comments and topics already.
I just want to reiterate a few.
First of all, fellow from Adam McIntyre.
I think he brought up mitigation banks
for the Popeberry Creek Restoration Area.
Back in 2018 or 19, when we first got a resident board,
our board looked into getting a mitigation bank funding
for that kind of restoration on Popeberry Creek
around the adjacent area of briar chapel.
And you know what they first researched it and said,
oh yes, you're eligible for that.
And then turned out that we were not.
So that I think maybe needs a little bit more scrutiny.
Finally, I didn't know I was going to talk about this.
But I live in briar chapel, we have 33, at least 33,
miles of public trails.
And we embrace that everybody wants to come to our trails.
It's public, they're beautiful.
But we also have a lot of amenities in the neighborhood that were mentioned that belong to
briar chapel.
Our doos are monthly doos go into maintaining and restoring those as they need as needed.
Well, actually, the President currently of the briar chapel pickable club, and we work
with tennis club and basketball players to keep our courts maintained, and we're expecting
a large expenditure to happen over the next year to resurface those courts and whatnot.
But as I look at the map for a fairing to preserve, I don't see a lot of amenities offered
in that community as it is, right?
They may find our trails, they may connect, that's wonderful.
But we don't want to become like a child and county public park, right, with that has some
houses.
We don't want people coming into our pocket parks and our pickable courts and our tennis courts
and they'll never get into the pool.
but the other things, the basketball courts and everything are kind of open and we're paying for that so
we don't want to, as somebody said, subsidize the use for people just coming into our neighborhood to use those.
Thank you very much.
Hello, my name is Betsy Krauss, I live in Mike and Trail, right in here, by our example.
I have handed out to you some documentation of research that's been done recently.
that's relevant to both flooding and the Pocary Creek flood
thing. The two points I want to point out here is the study done at UNC,
where they looked at flooding in eastern North Carolina. They found that a
large share of the fast, fast, flood exposure, 43% of all buildings that flooded at
At least once, occurred outside the regulatory floodplain outside the regulatory floodplain.
That's that blue line that they call the floodplain.
It's 43% of the houses impact buildings impacted.
We're outside that floodplain in their study.
That's important to understand.
Second, there's new data on how to do remediation
Without doing a complete reconstruction of the banks and everything of the creek that I think you should look to
basically what's called that leave it to the peaters and I want to thank you for your
thoughtfulness of planning department thoughtfulness
with all these changes in the
documentation you've done a great job
giving us red line copies and helping us stay at a breast of all these changes that are really
bewildering to the public and very challenging to keep up with.
I recognize they have to make changes because they didn't follow the CCO to begin with.
And I encourage the developers to be more conscientious about that and recognize that
and public has things that they find important too.
Thank you.
Raymond, chat them.
Being new?
Close enough.
Being.
My name is Raymond Chavitone, and I live
at 100 Donald Drive just off at Warren Street.
I'm the father of a one-year-old and a four-year-old,
and I'm here tonight to talk about
what good development could look like on this land.
I want to acknowledge the applicant
has clearly listened since April.
The Affordable Housing proposal, the Pope-Berry Creek Restoration Commitment and the 76-acre
conservation donation, or a present real progress.
But I'd ask the Board to be careful with the choice the applicant is presenting.
We've been told that this is a decision between 72 affordable homes and zero.
That's not the real choice.
The buy-right alternative the applicant describes isn't financially viable for them either.
The real choice is between the proposal and a better version of it tonight's hearing is the leverage for the better.
With this matter going to the planning board in the next 90 days, I'd ask the board to the staff to apply three tests to the formal recommendation that takes shape.
First, the test of permanence, the 72 unit affordable housing should be locked in writing, not left as a term sheet for the developer can revise.
Second, the test of safety, the traffic report tells us that this development will add only
one second delay at Morris Road, but what it does not tell us is how a child walks safely
along Morris Road once it carries this much new traffic.
There are no sidewalks, no bike lanes, no pedestrian crossings, and my boys will now grow up on that road.
Approval this project should require real pedestrian infrastructure on Morris Road, not just turn lanes for cars.
And third, the test of substance, the applicant points to a future connection to Firington Place to justify reducing required commercial space.
But Firington Place is owned by another party and has no development plans.
A pedestrian path to land that may never get development is not a commercial core.
The next 90 days are the moment to turn promises into binding conditions.
Make approval for the reward, a complete enforceable plan, not the path to one we hope materializes.
Thank you.
Carl Cactuser, and then Katie Ibrahim.
I'm Carl Cactuser, and I live off of Parker Harndon Road.
I'm just to bring your attention and reiterate, but my neighbor, Miss Washington, mentioned, was there were three accidents in the last two days in our meat vicinity.
on park or herndon road and then two out by the highway.
And I just am curious I have a question and that is,
at what point do the roads of the roads dealt with in this process?
It would be most proactive to go ahead and straighten out the blind turns.
I think it can make the roads a lot safer before anything got underway.
is that happen or who, how is that dealt with? Can anybody tell me? Because that particularly
park or hern and wrote the road that I come in and out of every day. There's a lot of blind
turns on that road. The traffic is very fast. It's, it's, it's, and I appreciate the law enforcement.
Attention and efforts, but it's just not enough. People go way too fast, and where our road comes out, where our driveway comes out, it's quite blind.
You can't answer that. You can't tell me when they're going to actually, when they would possibly strike.
No, we don't engage. You can imagine how long this meeting would be. Sorry.
Okay. Well, thank you very much.
Good evening, everyone. My name is Kate O'Brien. I live on Creek's edge in
Polk's Landing. It's a few miles upstream from the proposed development.
I want to
thank the Commissioner, staff members, and all the community members taking the
time to listen to the public comment on this important, or this issue of
great importance. I moved to Chattam County for the trees, the wildlife, the
files prior to BBC before prior chapel.
My family's one acre is now continuous with prior chapel and runs along Pokedbury Creek.
Those in opposition to the project have said that there will be increased traffic, risk
of flooding, pressures and existing infrastructure, amenities, water and sewage problems.
Yes, all that is true.
Prior speak, I've got a kind of shorter let's see.
I would like to focus on the impact on existing residents, both human and animal.
Rather than carve out a spot that matches the footprint of each building and leaves around
and far as understood, modern practices involve clear cutting large tracks, leveling the land,
tearing up roots, burning them.
People say that the wildlife can move elsewhere.
What about nesting birds, what about turtles and amphibians?
Can they move fast enough to get out of the way?
How many animals are crushed buried by large machines that cut and remove trees and level the earth?
As I recall the demolition and the building of our chapel,
what I remember are the machine sounds, the smell of strict wood and burning woods.
I remember seeing smoke filled skies, where dense trees previously provided a backdrop to the view from my yard.
I remember having two closed windows and block out to block out the noise and the smells.
I also remember the sad and significant feeling of something beautiful being destroyed.
The wildlife had no such luxury or a recourse, and the building went on for years.
Wirechapples now built, and some of my dear friends live there.
It provides housing, is that the end?
Thank you.
That's a great one, Madam Chair.
We can hear from staff.
Thank you.
Well, I have a lot to say.
I will say that the applicant has tried to offer opportunities for addressing concerns
that we addressed the last public hearing.
We've there have been many productive discussions over the last month to try to get some
of these answers resolved so that we would have information to bring to you in order
move this project forward.
It is with regret, I have a job to do and as my job to tell
you, the board and the citizens if I have an application that can meet the intent and
the spirit of any given ordinance that we're charged with administering an hour department.
I can tell you that with this one we now have three different site plans we've been presented
with. So I don't know which one is actually going to be the master plan for this
project.
We need clarification on this proposed trail easement or sewer easement or this
been coupled a couple of things to fair into place. We don't have anything about that.
One question I have is for the mitigation since that is rolled up a lot. If there was no
project at all.
Commitigation be done in the footbarer creek.
I don't understand, and maybe I might not be the smartest tool in the box, but I don't
understand why it has to wait for a development approval before mitigation a footbarer
creek can begin.
I don't, I've not been satisfied with that answer.
We do not have an agreement.
And I'll let Jamie speak to this in just a moment.
They have been some discussions made on something that they think they can do as far as a
and it ranges anywhere from 32 to 72 units, not we're going to get 72 units.
It's somewhere in there, but there is not an agreement that the county has been able to solidify at this point.
And that is a major component of the compact community ordinance.
Part of the site plan changes that we have been made aware of is about the affordable housing section.
If this goes forward, then they're going to have to ask for a 100% waiver of commercial for a compact community.
I mean, there would be none.
The comparison to Victor's village, I think, is unfair.
These are two completely different types of development.
Not just in size, but in numbers of dwelling, and it's being provided.
the location is different and I think that's an unfair comparison.
I'm not a traffic expert, but I know how to read the numbers and I'm not satisfied that
the numbers that we are being explained take away the concerns that everyone is having
on these intersections with the delays.
Andrew Store Road is already jam-packed with all the school activity as it is.
That one is a major concern, there are proposed widening improvements for that that cannot
happen because of wetlands.
So I've not been told what the solution to that is going to be either for a report
turns into FARC 100 Road.
Angela, on the traffic topics, can you speak to Mr. Kachargas's question about the sequencing
of when and how the DOT work is done, I think that was the nature of what he was asking.
Well, unfortunately, we were at the mercy of NCDOT. We don't, we can't tell them what to do.
We can't regulate their schedule and when they're going to have funds to do these things.
They say they can project it for say 2028, 2032, but they can't tell us for sure when that would happen.
And we have to, we're at their mercy on that.
Again, part of the site plan changes that we've noticed is, again, the change for
they added some more minute to area in the northern portion.
Next to our top of there's a different configuration there.
There would be a different configuration for the affordable housing.
We did get a thing from the farm marshal, where the subdivision regulations are going
to require two access points for ingesting current reform wrong, but I believe the regulation
and reads for subdivisions with a hundred or more lots require two access points.
This development has more than a hundred lots, but they're looking at just this pod section
that they reduced to 99 lots, so therefore they didn't need the second access row.
It's the fire marshal here tonight.
He is.
So we can talk to him about that.
Pops and Rex is also here.
they can explain to you why they do not accept the flood plane and all the unusable property
as part of their conservation towards this 20,000 acres that they keep referring to.
This land that we couldn't use and we quite frankly would want to be responsible for it.
Again, that includes part of the mitigation area as well.
I'm going to go ahead and ask Jamie to come up and tell you where they're at on the
photo.
I'm going to go down my list from there.
Can I have my screen up?
Doesn't look like my sides are here.
Let's take
a note where all
these are here, let's say.
These are slides.
This actually, I don't know what to do with these.
We
are revising on the slides, just a moment, pull up.
Can you just make sure to try to stand right over the microphone?
Yeah, quite tall and have a mass.
I just want to make sure that he can hear you.
Okay.
So the highlight of this presentation is the revision to the affordable housing element.
As it stands now, we have been talking about the donation by the applicant of about eight and a half acres comprising this portion of parcels here and this portion of parcels across the road.
The land would be donated more or less as it is right now to a developer nonprofit or developer nonprofits of our choice to be designed in the way they can do best.
The applicant has agreed to allocate up to 72 units, the minimum requirement in the
compact communities ordinance is 32 to comprised 5% of total units if 72 are possible,
which the applicant had designed for, that would comprise about 12% of the units as affordable
housing. We have been talking with the applicant to ensure that what is proposed to be donated
is quality and up to the standard we want in such a donation. They've agreed to make all of their site surveys and
due diligence materials available to us to review between now and over the next several months,
as well as to reimburse for quantity of due diligence services by our own staff contractors.
We have also been also reports and agreements such that the pedestrian trail access will extend across
understore road and have access to both parcels here and the water sewer lines will be extended
by the applicant out to the edge of these parcels so that our development partner does not
have to handle that type of thing. Any road adjustments needed such as turn lanes and things like
that will also be handled by the applicant according to the term sheet as we've been working on it.
In general, the goal here has been to provide the kind of flexibility that an affordable housing
focus developer can really provide in this type of work in a way that was more difficult
for market rate developers.
The opportunity for development in any kind of shape such a developer can make work allows
for maximization of resources and connection to funding sources that are available exclusively
for affordable housing development that provide this kind of opportunity for ownership for
So the folks between 1680% AMI, to be able to buy within the kind of community that would be built.
This also provides us the opportunity to manage the affordability in the long term in ways we see fit.
So this would likely be working either with a land trust model or with somebody who could dictate future sales in a way that keeps prices affordable in the longer term to make sure that what is added to our affordable housing stock, see as affordable on a desirable term.
In general, this exceeds minimum requirements for the affordable housing requirement of the CCO.
We think this is a lot more promising than the donation of lots.
That's what we were looking at this time last month. And the opportunity for not just this portion, but for both portions.
Yeah, that's an exciting opportunity to editorialize a little bit. But it does provide a good amount of flexibility to any applicant we would work with.
Is there a sense? I know you said that 70, some lots.
Is there a sense of if that land is viable to support that many lots?
Yeah, so based on what we've received from the applicant, I believe the maximum they had designed it for would have been 72 condos in this portion and additional 36 over here 36 town homes over here.
Once we're able to assess kind of a full scope of what's been received, we'll be able to make sure that that.
So the soil's in stock, sorry.
This is the oils.
We are basing that on environmental studies
that have already been completed,
but we will be getting access to that.
Ideally following this hearing.
To review further, we have written into the term sheet
as it stands right now, that if it turns out this doesn't work,
if we can't get at least 32 units in this,
and we don't feel comfortable handing it off to non-profit entity,
then we know that the affordable housing component is on Met,
and we'll have to find another way to do it.
So, if this donation does not end up being good, it's written and that we have another way to go, so we will.
We're certainly keeping that in mind.
Jamie, so this would be in place of the commercial.
Or this is where the commercial was out when John anticipated.
Yeah, there was the plan for the commercial to be in this area.
I believe the most recent version was that in consideration of the additional land and additional capacity for affordable units,
that the commercial portion of the application would be waived,
or the commercial apartments would be waived?
So given that these units would not be in proximity
to a pharmacy school, all these other things that make it
a viable candidate for grant funds for USDA,
type of affordable housing funding support.
How likely is it that we'd be able to get someone
who would do prominently affordable housing?
Yeah, so there's a variety of different tools
available for developing affordable housing types.
The one-year reference where it's,
you really have to measure walking distance to schools,
pharmacies, grocery stores, employment centers, other amenities
like that.
That is certainly one tool that is more targeted at rentals.
We're looking at home ownership like this.
We know one that we're targeting a higher portion of income,
so we're going between 60 and 80%.
This is where we get a lot of early mid-career teachers, folks working kind of in
longer term careers in customer service, professions like this, where we know that
frankly, car access is more likely.
Sorry, that what?
That car access is more likely for residents.
So I don't predict that type of amenity access being a deal breaker for this, for the kinds
of tools that would be applied here.
So, funding for permanently affordable housing would be available for a potential developed, or in some sort, because, I mean, there must be some incentive for the development of affordable housing developer.
Yeah, and typically the model we see is that units would be built more or less at cost, that there would be either a revolving construction loan that can be repaid as soon as the units are built, and then they're sold essentially without developer fees aside from what's needed to keep the organization afloat.
So once those savings are considered and once we're really using affordable focus, affordable housing focus development,
that kind of realizable savings are possible that create units of the price points we're looking at that we're looking for.
And there is there, these are apartments.
So part of the goal with the donation of Rawland is that it can be shaped in such a way that our design can do well
and we'll do appropriately.
The vision right now is town homes.
Under the CCO, at least 32 units have to be affordable.
So it'll be, you know, how many units can you fit
in the space between 32 and 72?
And we're kind of in discussion about how selecting
that does it need goes.
We know that there's certainly had full of opportunities there
and it may be such a process either.
We take a known partner and we say,
what could you do with this type of land?
Or it is, it could be a wider pitch to say,
we have this opportunity available, this is what we know we can get, what is it that you would
be able to do in this space as we select that doesn't even go forward?
And what about parking?
So is that built into this parcel?
Yeah, so parking and other necessary land uses would be included in the eventual site plan for
how this is developed, but that would be in coordination with the affordable housing developer
they would be managing that as they're managing the eventual planning and things like this.
This is an older version of the map, so the lines that you see right here aren't actually necessarily what will actually be developed.
This is just for graphics.
Yeah, and this gives me a little concern just because as we think about affordable housing and the need for robust investment or affordable housing, but that sort of
The current challenge of adding just that many more car-dependent households in a place where, you know, ideally, for me, a big part of the goal of the CCO is to have commercial and other things approximate to it, right?
And to me, that's the big failure of Brian Chappel.
You drive everywhere, you need to know.
And so, trying to get some sort of balance between this elevated need
that we have for affordability and reducing the amount of car trips.
Because I, I, I all, and I, I, I directionally challenged,
I will acknowledge that, but even the proximity to grocery stores, right, like the kind of things
where every time someone needs a single loaf of bread you can't walk, or the continuing
to build for that is an issue for me.
And I think about the 25 households in Brian Chappell that have to walk in, you know, so
you can complain that there are other places that
very developed, right, in the Northeast,
that the governor's community, but most of those households, aside from governor's club,
and walked to a grocery store, and walked with something,
the dentist, you know, that there's nothing to walk to
is what it looks like to me.
The, in the term, she does a stance,
it would be that the land is donated with a waiver
of the commercial requirements.
So that's, that is, the proposal of the schedule.
And so that would be true for all of that, right?
So for the entire, it's not just,
The affordable component that can't get to, that has to drive to everything.
It's the entire project.
Is there, what was the reason behind why that was converted to affordable housing?
And totally, I mean, because that was something that was already something we were maybe
giving up in this proposal was the commercial, and now it's definite giving up the commercial,
so we can have the affordable housing, and I agree with Commissioner Howard, I think the
even more important for the sake of the affordable housing, but I know you guys made that
swap and the discussions trying to land a better affordable housing proposal, right?
Yeah. And this is a version that is under discussion.
We believe made the assessment that what's
viable here especially with its access to 15501 in such that housing is more likely to
and stick around and be viable, then perhaps commercial might, as for why it's this
land specifically and perhaps more on why affordable housing here, instead of commercial
some of that I would defer back to the applicant, but that's my understanding as for how
it stands now, is that housing is assessed as being more viable in this location than perhaps
And do you mean for this project or is there some other calculation at play that housing is more viable in this location?
Yeah, I think if, and then this is me as a housing person, that is a economic development person.
And identical portion of land with proximity to 15501 may be much more viable for commercial than it would be here.
I
think given its location and its distance from that kind of high traffic corridor, this is assessed as what is possible.
Sorry, so by the same token with the commercial be more viable, if it were more within the community.
I mean, because this is the exact mistake where our chapel made.
Like to me, this sounds like a replay.
Brian Chappel should have had commercial in the heart of Brian Chappel, right, putting it on
15501, you know, defeated the entire purpose. For Brian, for a walkable community, you
can walk around circles, right? You can walk through your neighbors house, but walkability
in my mind means walking two places that you need to get to. And so when there was that
there was that initial opportunity and I don't know what decisions came to bear in Barrior Chapel that led that, you know, to that development,
to happening with all of the residential, and then this commercial lets down Boulder, Britain, walking places to get to the commercial.
So here, it seems like we have the opportunity, or there is the possibility of an opportunity to locate that commercial within proximity to at least six significant portion of the households.
Not necessarily the affordable, right? It's a why this parcel.
And maybe that is a question for the developer, but it does seem like if we're giving
up some percentage of affordable housing in an exchange for a walkable in less driving
community, a less green house gas emitting community, that feels like a reasonable trade
Maybe not for the affordable housing.
My role in the process to this point has been to make the affordable housing offer as strong
as possible to make sure that if this is what ends up going forward, what we're handing
to the developers, something we're comfortable with, the trade-offs as you're describing
them, I think, is a question of policy and as to the rationality developer, that's sorry,
That's a question after the burns, all
right.
Any other questions for Jamie?
I heard a brief follow for Nick, but not for Jamie.
Nick's going to have a final,
and a final, a final, a final, a final, a final, a final.
I just didn't want to interrupt the flow of the planning team,
but I just want to, I just want to interrupt.
Can you ask that during the rehearsal?
Because Nick's got another final after everything.
Thank you.
All right.
Who else do we need?
Jamie, thank you very much.
I appreciate your wing in it there.
Thank you.
So, I mean, it's clear, I mean, the gentleman's department, they are working as hard as they can to try to come to a good agreement for affordable housing.
That is a decision that you all have to make that, you know, is this something that
Outways everything else and it's going to be a good thing and all that, that's not hard decision to make.
I'm just trying to bring you the information as I have it.
It's something that Jamie and his team and the advocates continue to work on if you decide to go on with the process.
Just remember what the tradeoffs are in that.
Being that there would have to be a request for no commercial,
which is a big one.
So next I want to have far more to come up and explain the, you're not getting out of the sign.
The road access and what the regulation actually says and what they've proposed to you.
Grab this on.
Give it to the,
this will work.
So, well, we actually went through the original design.
Sorry about that.
When we went through the original design of this, I had actually contacted Drew and Angie
about if there was a possibility about going across to that other section.
So this connected this to this and they told me real quick that that would be a no because
of the stream.
So I was just trying to figure out an access point for them to get.
Since they were in the, basically this is more so of a concept plan was my understanding.
You guys had worked through the planning board and you guys had worked through to do.
New subdivision regulations from last meeting. And as soon as that passed, I verified with Emily, I just wanted to make sure that the stage that they were in, if they fell, under the new regulations, or if they were still legacy didn't.
And she advised me that since the stage that they were at, that the new subdivision regulations did apply. So I alerted their design team, and Angie sent me their updated that they had dropped it down.
low. So the biggest concern was from the fire department was this section here is what we would
call like a choke point. So if something, if that road section was compromised, there was
no other access. The rest of the subdivision down through there was inaccessible if that
road was compromised. So that's why I was looking for a secondary access. But they did drop
down below the 100 units, which by code, by North Carolina Fire Prevention Code, and the new
subdivision regulations, they're allowed to have up to 99 units after the 100th, then it
has to have a secondary access point for that.
And there's no concerns with lots of to the left then.
The additional lots.
It's really just focusing on that one central area.
Yes, ma'am.
So this right here, they do have two access points for those.
They actually have those, I guess it's more so
convenience because of the number of lots there.
But the other areas of their whole development,
we've checked, I think the tie-in to Breyer Chapel
has been brought up where that cold saccuses,
that's on their property, the reason the tie-in
realistically is there, is because of my requirement for it.
So, because they have to provide a secondary access point, and there is separation requirements,
they can get complicated, but if you took a rectangle, you measured the diagonal distance
across there, and then the access points have to be half of that distance.
So, if you had a thousand feet across, the two would have to be a five, a minimum five hundred
feet apart.
And they meet that, where they make that time.
That one meets it as well?
Yes, ma'am.
With this secondary access point up here,
they have this one and that one,
so they meet the separation distances.
So can I confirm that?
So it is less than 100 units in that area,
in that particular area, not.
Yes, ma'am.
So they had actually proposed 130, 130, 130,
to something like that. And when I alerted their design team that it needed to either have a
secondary access point, or be less than 100 units, they did drop down to the 100 units.
So I counted them again today and it's correct on their update concept plan shows 99 units.
So it is under the 100. So one access point is okay. Wow. I know that the there's some
as an incident reached out to me, asking about that, and trying to get consistency in
the county,
and there's a lot of subdivisions in the county currently that do not meet
that.
They would be legacy then, and they knew like the preserve is a very good example, they don't
need that. There's a lot, a lot within a hundred houses, and they preserve, but so that's
one of the reasons that we made some of the updates.
Thank you. Appreciate you being here tonight.
Thank you.
So further supports our concern is that we have so many different site plans.
We don't know which one is going to be the actual master plant.
If they removed lots from this area, they had they shifted them somewhere because they're
not reducing the number of overall lots.
So we need a new master plant that shows the actual counts that shows everything that we've
talked about tonight, which is going to lead me into Parks and Wrakes, so I have a Jacob
up and talk to you about their conversation about the conservation area.
So we met with Nick, I don't know what day it was this week, last week, and he wanted to
talk about the proposal of the land that was going to have the irrigation on it, and we
let him know that we were not interested in that.
And I think there must have been a little bit of a misunderstanding because when I asked about the upper
of it. I was asking about the entire upper piece, not the floodplain. So the reason we are
not interested in the floodplain is because we can't really do anything with that. Plus,
it's our understanding that that land is already going to be conservation. So if it's already
going to be conservation, then it's already going to meet some of the stuff that we're speaking
of about the 20,000 acres, it will already meet that. We were looking for land that we could
put trails on to do outdoor recreation, some passive stuff, like even birding, but if we take
this piece of it, we wouldn't be able to do that because of the putting trails in a floodplain
is really, really expensive plus with some of the trails that, like, I think we've got it
cleared up but we wanted to make sure that we would not be maintaining the trails that they
were putting in the paved trails because we don't have the capacity to do that. It would
have end up being the same similar situation as with the town of Kerry. So that's kind of where we
And while we were like, no, we're not interested in this because it's already got to go through the mitigation and it's already going to have to be a conservation piece at some point so there was no benefit for us in plus in the
Some of the general terms that they gave us was in lieu of giving us this piece of property.
We're not going to play as recorders action fees, which is a little over half million.
So that obviously wasn't in our benefit either, we were going to end up getting land that we
couldn't really do a ton with and we're also going to lose the opportunity for the
regress and its action fees to add trails to other areas in the portion of the county.
Thank you.
Okay, at this point in the last Jason, if he's got his follow up,
Good evening, commissioners. I think mostly what I have we're just some clarification for clarification.
So for the mitigation plan, it's been our understanding with prior discussions with the developer that the two
Medigation planning effort and the site design were two separate projects that were not codependent on each other, but it sounds like
As of the information tonight, there is some level of interdependency between the two projects.
So I wonder if there could be some explanation of how the mitigation plan would be different
if it was under a compact community development or if it was bi-ranked.
Like, how significant of a change is that, because we don't develop mitigation plans that
were not well versed in that on the county side.
on the TIA, so we did receive an updated site plan today,
so this
site plan, I think it was in the next presentation, so there have been some adjustments in this portion of the project, this does show the change with the affordable housing component being on both sides of Angie Store Road, and then the reduction of lots in this area.
It appears that the lot reduction from that this section is now been pushed into the section
on the west side of this water feature and then onto the opposite side of Parker
Hundland Road into this area.
So one question is whether or not the TIAA, which show anything different, I think Ronald
said it's a level of service F for the residents who would live in this section but with
increase in lots, what does that do as far as that level of service as far as the weight
times for folks sitting in this portion of the development and then what would that lead
to as far as whether or not DOT might be petitioned in the future for additional modification
to the intersection.
I'm going to Mr. Couturgus' question about what plans the DOT have and when things be
done.
So DOT has no plans for anything on these roads.
So any improvements would be dictated by DOT to the developer, which is what's included in the traffic impact analysis.
So the questions about curves, things like that, those are not going to be addressed by NCDOT.
They're not funded projects, they're not in their queue, they're not on their radar.
One additional question for Ronald is for the projects, or for the improvements on 15, 5, or 1.
I was looking at the TIA and for the intersection of Hamlet Chapel Road in 1551, if I'm understanding correctly the 2032 which is the build out, I guess, of the project.
There are two different scenarios, one, the build out with the DOT improvements, one without.
The one without shows queuing, if I'm reading it right, that would be, I'm assuming on Hamlet Chapel Road queuing of 1200 feet.
meaning cars would stack up for 1200 feet if I'm reading it right on that road but with the
funded project would drop to 125 feet. Project U6192 which is the super street or that's not
that's not the right word anymore but the project VOT is looking at on 15 by the one it's
a 170 million dollar project it isn't the step but it has only has preliminary funding for
engineering. So that means it's not a fully funded project. So I guess one question is,
if you're 6192, one can't be built by 2032, what are we looking at for the intersections
on 15th over one, where more is road, and your store road, and Hamlet's Chapel Road, what does
look like? And then whether or not it's even feasible that this project could be even built by
because it is a pre-significant project.
It's our understanding that with the preliminary engineering funding,
does not guarantee that it is a funded project.
It just means it's in the stip, and then every two years
is re-evaluated against all the other projects
in the district division in the state.
So that is all I have at this point.
Thank you.
It was really helpful.
And sorry, in Jason, on that step project, are we even internally within the planning org planning to, like, is there? Are we thinking about our portion of funding? Are we looking at where points are going to go? Are we working with partners to, like, jump in on that? Like, where are we even in that conversation?
I'm not sure I guess Tony would probably be the best person if I'm not putting her on the spot to address that I'm not sure and this project is the scope runs from Pittsburgh
I think from what do you know
Because this is like this is where like triangle West jurisdiction ends and then we move into their rural planning org and I don't know
Like the coordination is that happens across is happening on the other side
Yeah, it's a little convoluted just because you know the sand hills MPO recently
So we dedicate points to them and then they return to Central Pines RPO but they're working collaboration to dedicate points to it if that's something that we want
If that's not something we want for the project we forward then we would just tell them to make an amendment or to postpone it
And so I guess a part of my concern is we're not even having that conversation
Yeah, I would say so it's in the state and like Jason said it's pre-living engineering at the moment
that does
We need probably what is it 170 million maybe for construction. It's a quite a large project and
Supershades is you could still use that term, but nowadays they call them RCI's which they referred to which is a reduced conflict intersection
The most common is an arcut which is that you turn the right and then a you turn
But they've looked at other models nowadays. So it's up to NCDOT. We are in a
Lapse with our engineer. We don't currently have a division eight engineer because Brian Quichar sadly retired
And I think his position is still open at the moment.
So whoever fills that role will be the individual
that I work with the most to coordinate these projects.
So that was a question on my mind as well.
The TIA said that with the build out of that project,
specifically, but it's not at construction at all.
So by 2032, I mean, that's going to create
up on a quick.
Exactly.
So in terms of looking at it from a broader view of not
us vehicular traffic, but also pedestrian bike. In fixed route, we're looking at fast 2.0.
So I hope that they've referenced that. Those studies for fixed route transit.
And for a bike pad, we're working on an update for to that map. So if that's something that they want to have conversations with us.
Yeah, because to me, that would be helpful because that's part of what's missing in this planning, right?
I mean, if we are seriously thinking about multimodal transit and sort of making sure that the entire 15501 corridor is getting access to other forms of transit.
We can't keep building what we were building before.
We were having these conversations.
Exactly.
And with the population projection, it's just going to keep going up.
One thing I did want to mention while I was up here for y'all, for just context.
So level of service, at least for my perspective, you can be at level C and it be comfortable.
Because level C represents a economically flourishing community.
It means people are coming into the county, they're spending their money, they're doing
their activities here, or they just means people work in the county and they work outside.
So being in B and C is comfortable.
It represents that we are a growing community.
D and E means we need to start looking,
we need to be more proactive.
And that's, unfortunately,
and to do it, he's very reactive, rather than proactive.
So that's what our job is to do is to show them
what our vision is and our goals.
So that's kind of where we're at.
Is there any other?
Thank you.
That's helpful, because I did think it was important
that we know that A is not like, oh, you're shining.
Yeah, F is you're failing, it's a grading system for something that we need to be just sort of keeping our eye on and
Figuring out how do we want to move the chess pieces so that we can
Something not the best things given that right yeah, and level of service. Also is beyond delay time
It's also considered what is the number of vehicles on the road per your capacity
So it's considering congestion and other like I do so it's not just about delay
because we also have to consider carbon emissions, right?
And it's also, at specific times.
After, during peak and after an hour is correct, so.
Yeah, that's, thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
Thanks for being here tonight.
I'm going to do that.
So just to close up where I'm at.
I don't, if you all have any questions for a watershed protection, of course,
Taylor is here if you've got any questions about any of the trail,
that are being proposed in the floodway, which is going to be a huge issue.
People want to talk about that, you can start talking about it.
We'll say that Nick pointed out that several years ago, the board at the time, did approve
an expansion of the compact community node and the latest plan.
That does it guarantee that a compact community can actually be developed in an area.
We have these nodes all over the county, different ones, but it doesn't mean that the project that gets brought into us is going to be a good project.
I think you have some choices and Emily and Jason can maybe elaborate a little bit better than I can, but I think the choices that we would like to recommend tonight is either
One, hold the public hearing open and see if we can ever get any agreements on anything else that would make this a more acceptable compact community project.
You certainly have the right to close the public hearing and refer to the planning board and see if the planning board does anything with it or can get things done.
We also have a concern that because there have been so many changes and so many different versions of the site plan,
we don't have a actual master plan to work by going forward and it may become down to us having to re-notice and start over with a new application with new information.
Jason, can you
clarify that a new notice and process will be required if they're substantial changes to the application?
Typically that's looking at sort of different uses or more intensity, but it's to provide notice and make sure that everyone who would want to comment has the chance to comment if the project has changed.
Thank you.
And another question, so what is the mechanism for ensuring that the, what we, as a board
believe, is the version of this project that is moving to the planning board is that version?
It's going to boil down to what y'all are willing to approve and accept what what I mean is this going to be y'all's call
But if we were to refer this to the planning board tonight what would we be referring to the planning board?
What version we have right now, which is what?
Because we have any number of these versions any number of these options that have been presented on the other end of the side the entirety of this
That's good would go to the planning board. Yes
But I think Nick was a little snorkey to a comments back here.
I want to have this five-minute rebuttal, so I'll go ahead and let him do that.
Thank you, Angela.
Great.
Thank you.
Appreciate the opportunity to respond.
There's a lot in there.
One of the things I want to say about the concept plan that we have in front of you now, there
have been some changes to it.
One of the changes occurred because the ordinance was changed after we submitted.
We submitted this in January, the fire marshal changed, we did because the ordinance changed since then.
We have not changed the level of intensity, the number of units has not gone up, the uses have not changed.
This is nothing other than responding to honor feet to the things that are happening in the environment since we filed the application.
And so I think that's the fair way of looking at it and I think the easy way of looking at what is it that's being referred to the planning board
is the site plan that you see in front of you today, which is the one that incorporates all of the changes that we have
that we have sought to make over the course of the process.
Huge.
I don't know how to reduce the size of that.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, up there.
There we go.
It's on the bottom on my screen for some reason.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, so the site plan that we had at the top here, so this is the one that was submitted
that includes the change down here and I mentioned all these changes at the beginning of my talk
because of the change in the ordinances about the number of access points that was down there
and then it also mentioned change here which relates to the affordable housing proposal.
I'm not sure what to do about that.
We're in the process of having very good, strong, good faith discussions about how to do this
exactly.
And so we showed you the absolutely up to the minute update of where we are on that.
And we're happy to keep those conversations going with the county.
And I think they are too.
So I mean, I guess my recommendation there would be to forward it to the planning board
and let us keep working on it before we get to the planning board.
And I think the planning stuff has some options about when it gets to the planning board.
And if we held it, when you have it for that month, what can happen?
Jennifer wants me to speak into the microphones so she can get it properly.
So what happens in that month?
Usually what happens in that one month delay is when we have a really large project,
It gets staff time just to prepare the notes, get all the information that's been submitted.
Make sure we have everything in a nice tidy packet, prepare the notes, and then get everything ready for the following month for the planning board.
With several items that sounds like they're still open here, this would involve multiple departments.
Whether we could get that done in the extra month or not is unknown.
So we would have, well, the people who are here tonight, you've got watershed protection
parks for recreation, housing department, and the manager's office, because the manager's
office has got to be in the loop on all of the things we're discussing to see whether
or not that fits into the bigger picture from budgeting, things like that.
So if we continue this until next month and keep the public hearing open, then the process
would be, I mean, basically, we had public comment last month, public comment this month.
Nick gave a presentation last month, we had to make an exception, so he can make a presentation this month.
Outside of giving them more time to get all their ducks in a row, so that we've got something a little bit cleaner to the planning board,
which I think would be better.
We certainly don't want to send an incomplete package or something that's got a lot of questions that are unanswered yet
to the planning board in order to make a recommendation.
But then what do we do with how typically we handle a public hearing on something like this,
where already the time allotted to the applicant has been used up?
So I think that's going to be a question, probably, an internal discussion, since we have these
established rules, it sounds like that would probably end up being another waiver or our
DDAs from the adopted rules.
The question of whether or not we have to re-notice, I mean, we're talking about that today because
of the different changes.
Again, I don't know if lots have shifted from a portion of the development to another section
of the development that it joins residents who are outside of the project, we received a letter.
We don't know what their assumption is going into the prior public hearing.
They may not have shown up because they were satisfied with what they saw, so it begs the
question of if you've had that shift, do we need to re-notice that they're up the option
of looking at a revised site plan to see whether or not they might have comments, so I think
It does open that door up, particularly if we read notice, then we are reopening the hearing.
So I think we're back to square one, as far as everybody gets two minutes, applicants get
15 minutes, the five minutes of the battle.
I mean, at a minimum, I think we would reset to those standards.
But again, I don't know that I'm saying that we have to read notice, it's just I think that's
a legal consideration that we need to look into with some of the changes that we're
We were just finding out like today when we got the revised site planned.
So it seems like continuing to next month when bias and time for you all to determine if
it does need to be re-noticed.
Yes.
For sure, and it's not going to start a clock.
Once the hearing is closed, we've got a timer that we are operating under per the zoning
order.
And there's reason for that.
So there's predictability in the process.
The public knows what the process is going to look like moving forward, the applicant.
So there's a good reason for that, but again, it does start that clock.
I really, really, really want to send this to the planning board, but I also feel like, you know,
it would be a disservice to the planning board to send it on to them right now,
and certainly to staff to try and do all the work necessary to prepare this for the planning board.
What is the sense of other commissioners on this one?
It feels like a very, very unintentionally sloppy bun.
And I don't know what we are sending to the planning board,
which I find uncomfortable.
Yeah, I'm concerned that we don't know what we're sending them either.
So I'd be obliged to keep it open.
I also, well, on the other side, I feel like we might not even get answers or an agreement
from where with parts, or with a housing affordability.
So I think there's a lot of maybe, there may still be a lot of unanswered questions, and so
It's kind of an unfinished packet, but I feel like we're going to be at the same place.
Next month.
And so that would be kind of time wasted.
I think they've had enough time to provide the answers to us and to the public,
I guess what their idea is, and enough time to work with staff to come with agreements.
They've heard from parts and where they've heard from the Affordable Housing.
There seems to not be a real solid agreement on two moving forward.
Personally, just out of the nature, me anticipating the same situation in the month.
I'm comfortable passing it on to the planning board and if they answer the questions by there, so be it.
But I personally not really satisfied with this application.
Commissioner Delaney, do you have any preference on this one?
Can you, are we finished hearing from Nick? Or was it just an intermediary?
Yes, I was hearing from Nick.
Okay, so I had a question back to you that we never got to on the report all the time.
And it was initially going to be about the proposal and your comment earlier about an option
that 630 homes or somewhere down around 400.
I think we've largely plowed that field and it probably, my question probably just comes
down to whether a change along those lines would be a significant change if that's what
you decided to do if this meeting were held open but at a very high level is what you have
presented tonight and what the applicant wants to go to the planning board now tonight
would that change in any significant way or from the maps that you showed?
I mean, that's roughly a third fewer houses, would that reduce the spray fields by a third,
keep all the roadways the same, but increase the lot sizes?
Can you have that very high level, can you say what the difference would be?
Yeah, and I would want to ask Mark to buttress me here if I don't get this exactly right,
but I think in general the, well, that's being back.
I think in general, the land plan would be very similar for conservation subdivision as to this one.
The houses would be in the same rough location
and they would have the lot sizes would be approximately the same.
And so it really wouldn't change that much.
It would reduce the number of units and of course it would take away the ability to do the affordable housing.
So that's the main difference really.
Okay. Thank you for that. I don't think I need any more on that, but I do want to raise something because it's come up again.
I want you to know from me that the chairs comment earlier to you does not reflect my personal views about whether you serve yourself well by raising things at all or in a particular way.
That was not offered on my behalf. I think it's appropriate to say that it wasn't offered on the boards to have because it wasn't a vote of the board.
I would encourage you to disregard that comment, and I think that in a healthier, better position this board would never say such things to you or allow you to hear that you've got a smokey little comment when you're making this presentation.
We have again fallen well below our standards and our obligations, not just under our ethics code or our procedures, but for what we owe to anybody who comes here and needs to know that they will be respected no matter what they have to say.
So, I told you in a previous instance when you were also treated poorly here that I would
not let that moment go by again, so I'm not.
I would have raised it in the moment, each time, except the earlier today when I raised
similar concerns, I was threatened with arrest and removal from this meeting.
So that's how bad we are, and I'm sorry that you didn't get better from us.
Well, I would just say that for the record, I appreciate the comments, I would just say that for the record,
I do hold myself to a standard.
I do try to communicate effectively and peaceably, and Angie's probably right sometimes,
my emotions get the better of me, and I regret it when it happens.
I apologize for it, I do recognize that I have a position here where I want the board to trust me and respect me.
And so I always try to live up to that standard and I will continue to do that.
I may not be perfect, but I will try. Thank you.
Thank you, Nick, which is exactly why I was sitting up there and I wanted to apologize to you and to the board and to the citizens and to other staff.
I was unprofessional for me to make that comment and I do sincerely apologize.
We have a great relationship.
Okay, I don't.
I'm sorry.
It's been one night.
Thanks seem to have.
Madam Chair, in the spirit of those comments, I'd like to make a motion for the board to officially apologize to Mr. Robinson in the applicant.
Thank
you.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Join me.
I appreciate your thoughts on that.
Do we want the handle?
I just wanted to add that.
I think I agree with you that we may end up back here if we're looking for the wrong thing.
What I would be looking for is for us by the next meeting to have pulled together and maybe
this is something staff can be working on what this final iteration of the package that
that we will be handing to planning board looks like.
As opposed to, I'm not, I don't think we're seeking more information.
I don't think there are quite a lot of questions to be answered.
But more, where did we land in terms of what we are handing?
So it may be that we're handing the planning board to versions of what was discussed
around the open-spay or parts of Iraq concern,
or the affordable housing thing.
But right now, to me, it seems like we've
talked about a number of things.
And we didn't make decisions.
We didn't make any determinations.
We heard them.
And I'm just concerned that what is going to planning
look like what we think we heard or to planning
board looks like what we think this board heard.
Where we need to continue this, Nick, what would you bring to us next month?
That is a great question and when I was going to rise to seek to be recognized about.
Here's what I would recommend, and I would want to do this in cooperation with the staff, is to get...
Because we've really, really hard between these meetings, I know it might not seem like it's sometimes that we have worked very, very hard.
And what I would love is a list from the planning staff
with the things that they feel like are open.
And if we can get that list quickly,
then we will respond to every single one of those
on a timeline that the planning staff may want to tell us
if it's a week or 10 days, whatever, try to do that.
So they have enough time to review whatever we send them.
So that, when we come back next month, if it's continued,
At least as between us and planning staff, we'll know that we've tried as hard as we could to respond to everything that was open.
And I just don't want to, I mean, I spent hours going through last month's public hearing to try to see if I could write down all the things that came up that we needed to answer.
And I would love it if I had a list of the specific things, and we would do that. I can promise you, we would do that.
I don't know if that's helpful, but that's what I would deliver, is whatever they asked for us to give them a thorough answer on.
I mean, I think what we're looking for is a finalization of the materials, the final materials for everything that has been submitted that has been final along with anything that is gaps that hasn't yet been submitted that we're still waiting on potentially answers to questions that you have that we still don't have answers so that you feel
This is a complete package, and then I think what we could do is have it on the agenda next month
and have staff present. This is the complete package. So we have some understanding of what it is.
I imagine
You may have a couple of things you may want to point out. I really like to keep that to a minimum
because we've already put a lot of time from the applicant on this project.
taking up the people's time and our time and the people who have come out now as well
play a lot to talk and I'm seeing people go and gosh, not another meeting.
I understand.
I mean, if there was a list and we completed the list and the staff had time to review it
before we got here to say if they thought it was complete, then maybe we have an answer before
we even get here in the next time and we're just open for questions or whatever.
I didn't feel like tonight we needed to respond to the traffic stuff in particular
and the creak mitigation stuff because it was left wide open last time I feel like we've gotten
enough information in there for a prudent person to have enough information. But we'll respond
to any question, really, and we want y'all to feel like you have something that's complete
to pass along to the company for sure.
Thank you.
And then I do want to point out to you. I don't want it to sound as though I feel as though
we have to walk out of this meeting agreement.
That is not, which I think it's starting to veer that direction.
I just want us to be clear that what we, yes, what we are sending is the complete package.
Whether we like it, agree with it, whatever, you know, the planning board is getting to view the complete package.
No, no opinion when we're the other place that it feels like it's done.
We normally did halfway put together match that they have to try and make sense about to the fact I just I want that then to feel like okay
This is it now you guys review dot and make for a commendation
That's what I'd like them. I agree
Good classification. Well, I don't know what the planning staff thinks about my yes, I suggest it
So as we always do we're always looking at the schedule. So we're on the 18th right now
Your next meeting where this will be before you will be June 15
So we have a short turnaround time because of the way the calendar falls, our deadline
to get items to the clerk so that everything gets in the queue is June 1st, which means
we would have to have everything to have been submitted to staff when I say staff, it's
not just planning, so we've got watershed housing, all of our marshal, all these other departments
are going to have to weigh in of what ever submitted, best case, I think, you know, I'm going
to look to some of the other departments, maybe with a head nod, could we get our list
questions by the end of this week, which will be the 22nd.
So, it sounds like by the end of this week, we could, it sounds like we can get a list to
the applicants.
25th is Memorial Day, so I'm not sure that they may be lost on the applicant team.
May 29th is going to be dropped at that line for getting the responses back, which is next
Friday.
But we are not, I cannot guarantee that we're going to have time to review that, because
I can't speak for other department schedules and, um, what are you recommending?
I mean, I would say the best, I think we can do, into this week to get the list of questions
if we can get those sooner. Obviously we'll get them to them sooner. We would need responses
back by the 29th to get things in the queue for the June 15th meeting, but that does not guarantee
that staff can continue it further than that, or is that not a thing?
I'm going to continue
more than a month. I'm fine with us trying to get, I mean if we get a list of questions
together tomorrow, as soon as we can get those from all the staff, we'll get those to them.
It's not like we're going to sit on it, but I'm just going to give you the worst case in
area, but just to give us a little bit of room.
I will say if that step is not, you know,
you
all are deciding tonight that you're going to have, you're going to reschedule an
engine and this stuff is not, then you're still going to have to meet and open the
public hearing and accept comments, even though you may not have that information,
it might be a better thought to put it off until July. I know I'm like the bad guy
there, but just thinking about timing. Can we do that?
Yes, we can, and we were having similar thoughts over here as well as to put the applicant and staff all involved with enough time to coordinate that.
So we're not back here in a month with open questions and some time if it's agreeable to the board or what else.
July might be a better time to train.
So he did ask the question, we don't,
by the zoning ordinance, we don't hold public hearings in July,
but I think because this is an application in process,
I think that I don't think there's a problem
curing it to July.
That would just be if we were seeing,
if we were seeing an application on one particular
for that would theoretically be July,
we would not be able to schedule it,
but this would just be a continuation.
And we have, I mean, we can't forget that we're
deep in budget stuff and so these next 10 days are going to be hearing you.
That's sort of June 15th, is this?
Okay.
So what's the date on that, Jennifer, the July meeting?
Is it the 20th?
The 20th?
It was reschedule.
Ah.
I'm July.
Is it?
Yeah.
It was reschedule because of Nanko's, so it's a bit of a bit of a little bit of a little bit.
It's July 27th at 6 p.m.
Okay, that's going to be a shorter meeting.
So July 27th?
Yeah, but we're here.
All right.
If y'all could do a motion with the date and the time and the location when that meeting,
when that hearing will be continued.
I need a motion to continue this until July 27th meeting at 6 am in court.
So, move.
Second.
All in favor?
Aye.
Thank you.
I don't see any de-continues.
So, my contribution to the discussion is that I think it's unnecessary.
You can through this twice the applicant has stated tonight that they've given us the presentation.
They want the county to have.
So, I think it's unnecessary and we'll vote against it.
I would be too lazy when I would express my thought process earlier.
Gotcha.
Thank you.
All right.
So that was the three to two with Commissioner Delaney.
Thank you, Commissioner Gomez for us.
Loading now.
All right.
So this has been continued until the July.
All right.
Let's go ahead and have a ten minute recess.
Five minutes may be enough. We just wanted to give you an opportunity for the room, because we need that everybody would be leaving.
All right, nine fifty guys. That works for me. Thank you.
All right. We have one minute. We got to get back in our seats and finish doing our job for the day guys.
It's
finished this up.
No.
Yeah.
We're almost done.
OK.
All right.
Next we have under board priorities item 260252.
Vote to approve a three year memorandum of understanding between the Chattam County Public Health Department.
CCPHD and Chattam Hospital regarding temporary storage of health department vaccines.
During an approved time of need.
Mr. Gamma, as far as we'll request that the Board of Commissioners will recuse him.
I will ask for a full three-week queue, so I guess I'll make the motion to be recused
for the vote for Item 26-02-52 given that I'm on both the Board for the Board of Health
and on the Board of Trustees for UNC Health.
I think someone else should make the motion.
Okay.
And I second.
There you go.
All in favour?
All right.
So I'm voting for you, sir.
And I will make the motion to approve a three-year memorandum of understand between
ten of public health and ten of hospital regretting temporary storage, apartment vaccines
during a proof time of need.
Thanks a second.
All in favour?
All right.
All right,
next we have intergovernmental relations report, and that will be our Intergovernmental
Relations Manager Lindsey Ray for any update.
Hi everybody, I just wanted to let you know that the Constitutional Amendment on the
property tax levy limit is going to be in the House Rules Committee tomorrow morning,
so we'll see if it gets calendared last Tuesday at 8 a.m. Robert Reeves team called me and
request that a whole lot of information, because they thought it might be on the calendar
that day.
So it's good that it wasn't, but we do anticipate that that will be soon, and they
appreciate it all the information that we sent.
So hopefully that is helpful to them.
The local legislation, local bill for the UDO implementation, is in the state and local
government committee, but it has not been calendar yet, so we're watching that closely.
I'm a lip commissioner Robertson talk about it, but we had a great time at Farmland Preservation Advocacy Day last week at the General Assembly and every other group from the state that was lobbying was there.
I've never seen it like that before and the people that worked there said they've never seen it like that before, so I'm glad we got the time that we had there.
So that was a county advocacy day as the June 9th and 10th.
So if you have not registered, I think Tiani will help register, but if you've never
been, it's a really great opportunity, and that is all happening.
Thank you so much, Lindsay.
All right, then we have the clerks report, Jennifer.
So not that you need reminding Dean, but that's my job.
Tomorrow at 6 p.m.
Solish City, Town Hall, Budget, Public Hearing.
So far, we don't have any ones lined up for that public hearing.
Then on Thursday and Friday, we'll be at the Accenter,
at Nonningham for the Budget Berksessions.
Then a couple of events I wanted to just note for you
on Sunday, both of these are Memorial Day events
with the two different American Legion organizations
here in Chaudum County.
On Sunday is the Pittsburgh event at 12 p.m.
in the pop-up park in downtown Pittsburgh.
And then on Monday at 10 30 AM is the American Legion
event in Seller City, and it is at Bright Park at the Veterans Memorial there.
Awesome.
Thank you, Jennifer, and next we have the manager's report, Brian Thompson.
Thank you.
Aside from looking forward to later this week, we'll get together and discuss further
at the budget.
Again, any kind of questions or items you want to draw attention to in advance, it's up
all that'll be great, but we'll see there.
That's all that. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you. All right. Next up is future agenda discussion.
The commissioner may ask to add a matter to a future agenda.
The county manager will add that matter to a future agenda.
If two commissioners support adding the matter to a future agenda,
the county manager has the discretion to determine which future meeting
agenda the matter will be added to.
And does anyone have anything they would like to add to a future agenda?
Hi, I do. I'm pretty sure some work has been done around the whole
Embrige guest line being proposed and pondered on. Is this something we could potentially get some information on?
Maybe to get out there, especially for the public, to be aware about, at least that we're doing something.
And I know staff has done a little preliminary work on this, but just to request.
And on their same line, given that it was the same individual that brought it up to our attention.
But could we also get a conversation on septic and the impacts of these spray fields pertaining to the PFAS and to soil and potentially finding its way into
Wells, I think that was an earlier.
It was. That was both John Alderman. The first one was, and I think we had some maps from him,
the Chattam County had the vast majority of spray from outside areas coming into our county of
all the other counties in the state. It was pretty horrific. So, support both of those.
Thank you.
array and solid applied.
Yes, download.
Yeah, even.
So there were some serious things there.
Brian, did those two work?
They do on the image.
We continue to pull information together on that.
And we will send you, and as we get good information,
we'll send that on to you.
And so far as an agenda item, we get enough for a presentation that tends to make sense,
then we can kind of fill out what it is.
Maybe what a role has county government.
I think that would be the most important element to print the public hand.
That's a good clarification.
Yes, that those very accomplishable.
John Alderman brought up a distinction in that as well with regards to the type of pipeline.
This is serving right now, right?
One is serving the people and the other one is serving this industry.
you since I was trying to look at where, and I think we said at the time that would be a good
question for Jason, who wasn't here yet. So, it might be good. I think he had some handouts
to send that on to him.
Can you do any other sort of thing?
In any one of the land application, I'll check back with our folks and see where we have
on that already and put something together and make it available to you. That may
satisfied the interest it may be enough to satisfy your interest but you might see that
what is provided to you is worth a public facing conversation so that we'll be
putting that together with that in mind. I think kind of goes on the same
lines as to what can we do that. Again very good clarification. Thank you for
Thank
you.
Anything else?
All right.
Next up are Commissioner Report.
Just one. Just one. And, you know, something that someone said tonight sort of maybe think about it too that one of the commenters this evening mentioned, the number of students and her kids class and I thought, you know, it's difficult when the public doesn't understand that we don't have control over these things. And last Friday I was part of a group that came together by invitation to talk up to the public.
about education is everyone's business and I'm going to work with them to come back to the
county and talk with more people about the way North Carolina is funding public education.
How there is a place for us to be having a broader conversation across the community and across
multiple communities about the way North Carolina has consistently failed in its funding of public
education,
and some of the data points that they brought would really matter to business
partners, to industry, to community colleges, to the broader community, the college system,
universities, UNC was there, our EDC, the Chamber, you know, there were a number of local
participants in that space, but it's important that the conversation not keep falling on the
of commissioners and of, you know, the education, the boards of education and the superintendents
to be carrying this message as though it is ours. It is really a message that should resonate
across multiple industries and partners and members of our community that there should be a lot
more outrage about the way North Carolina has defunded public education. We are behind the poorest
states in the nation in terms of our funding, and in terms of our effort, comparing our state
budget to the amount of money that we are spending on education, we are woefully behind
in 50th place.
So, we'll also say,
John County Public Schools, the UNC, web squared,
others, but there
the world? Well, and the goal of this group, this public school form, is to empower others
to have these business men who are viewed in a different light than some of us, presenting
the case for going to the legislature and fighting for better funding of public schools
because whatever our state doesn't do in our federal government doesn't do falls on us,
as county commissioners and boards of edge local boards of education and our hands are very much tied.
So I'm going my my charge is to go into the community and and bring together more people that they can talk to and bring some of our, you know, our economic development partners, not just our EDC, but the investors, the channel county investors, the people who have an air at the general assembly and don't, you know, don't look like me quite frankly.
and art, you know, teachers and moms and people who aren't going to carry a lot of
heft with some members of our general assembly. So I take that charge very serious. I do
think it matters. Some people who you can hear from is a real thing. And there are some people
in our community who, if they knew, if they saw the data, if they understood exactly where
we're heading, in terms of our funding of public education, they would be as, as, and I know a
coming from school board and now being a county commissioner and I was still
stunned at the data. So that was I think a very sobering conversation but when I
will I will be bringing back to the community. I'd be very interested in seeing that
when Dr. Jackson presented to the group with leadership triangle that I did last
fall. The people were from across the sector all over the triangle and they were
shocked. Yeah. So I'd love to disembark about that. Thank you.
Thank you.
Can they show you a good response?
This past Wednesday, I attended the regional triangle research triangle regional partnership,
which is kind of against the big economic development, kind of umbrella and the region.
They presented pretty much the state of the region, pertaining to economic development.
The big things that they were emphasizing was the need for innovation, especially with
technology, especially when it relates to defense, I don't know if you remember, but they
always bring the Army or Secretary General in the Army, they've done it in the past couple
years have been.
So kind of revolves around that environment.
But going back to changing topics to education, my youngest sibling graduated from CCC
was also a participant of the chat and promise which goes to show the effects and the impacts
of our work and our investments for the improvement or the better opportunities for the general public.
So thank you, but also thank you to community for those investments and willingness to invest in education.
I was supposed to have a Board of Health meeting today, but it didn't make it up here.
But that's all I have.
Thank you.
Can we check out?
Well, I was able to attend the ribbon cutting for the George Polling Nature Trail at
and I always get confused with this park, North East Park, because we also have a one that
has a West in it.
And there was a great, so that however assembly made that possible by their donation of $50,000 to the
in honor of George Pauli who was an advocate for nature and our waterways and very
involved in the harvest. So there was a great group of people there and we
got to walk the trail. And also I didn't mention last time that I also was
really enjoyed the groundbreaking at Parker Ridge and it was an honor to meet the
remaining family members who were a part of the 10 siblings that donated that
the county and I was just really struck when I spoke with them, just congratulating them
as siblings to come together to donate that to the county and that I was told it was never
even a question. They never even had a discussion. They all just immediately wanted that.
So that was even more incredible to learn at that celebration. And I
think that is it from
I did want to thank staff and everyone that gave me my condolence card that mineral out to
hear from everyone about my family matters.
I've been going through with my dad passing.
Thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I'm sorry.
Thank you.
This is what we've my last regular meeting.
Our family closes on a new home and a weight county in the coming weeks.
and I don't want to give any impression that I am not living in Chattam County.
You know, once we close on that property and so I will plan to design at the, with the
adjourment of our work, our budget work session whenever that concludes.
So we start on Thursday and when that meeting adjourns, that will be the effective time
of my resignation, my goal once we set the closing date has been to make sure that the
who have been part of it for this period, but I won't be able to be there for when we vote on it.
The only other thing I want to raise is kind of the extraordinary set of things that happened earlier
this afternoon. I took some time in between the two sessions to speak with our council
about the set of issues there. Legal, procedural, the expectations that we all have of each other,
and a couple of things that I'll comment on before inviting Emily to offer anything that she
want and certainly no obligation to do that. But I think we put her in an extraordinarily poor
and uncomfortable position. We have an agreement among ourselves and with all the senior staff
members to have no surprises about things to give the attorney in particular ample opportunity
to know what legal issues or significant things might be coming up. I took the opportunity to do that
personally with her on Thursday and made clear that as I have promised to all of you since back in January, any conversation I have with the attorney, I'm not going to seek any protected privilege on and it is fully shareable to all of you because I think we ought to be able to work our way into these kinds of conversations about what the law is, how it operates, how it guides us if it doesn't require us to do things and what the interplay is with our rules of procedure and with our ethics code.
I think we failed in a number of significant ways today that, you know, up until, you know,
the last couple of weeks I would have said that we were on an improvement path.
And I don't know that I see that anymore, unfortunately.
So I'm leaving with a bit of a sour taste on my mouth for the way that things have gone here.
I take away from the conversation with Emily and I took the opportunity to look at our expectations of the county attorney.
One is to provide unbiased legal advice and, unfortunately, during that conversation earlier
today, there was such hot and heavy commentary back and forth requests of various legal
things from the chair and from me that Michael Leeuve questions didn't get answered, only
the chair's got answered. So that's not unbiased legal advice. That's only creating the opportunity
for some legal questions to be presented and addressed so that we can make good joint decisions.
So, we miss an opportunity to succeed there until at her provide perspectives from multiple different vantage points.
One is to, on the be prepared perspective, when a proposal that is as wild and out of the blue as a suggestion to a rest and remove a sitting elected official from a discussion for raising ethics and procedural issues is absolutely appalling to me.
I took the opportunity to ask her what she knew of that coming into the meeting.
The opportunity under law, the opportunity under procedures, and the recommendations by the school of government, etc.
And I won't put words in anybody's mouth, but my understanding is that that was a first heard scenario.
There was absolutely no preparation for that.
That is an extraordinary thing in and of itself.
And it should not happen in an attorney client relationship from my perspective.
And so I think we let her down on that.
If I's on legal issues, even if we don't ask, this is one that we've discussed before
with previous counsel, we've discussed them on ourselves in public sessions.
There are certain things that can only be discussed in public session.
It cannot be discussed in close session.
And one of those topics was something that I, they came into conversation after Chair Robertson
mentioned it today.
We have to be able to rely on the attorney in attorney to help us find a way to understand whether
losses anything at all on the topic and whether it requires us to do certain things or whether it
guides us in certain ways and then to be able to take questions back and forth from everybody.
And we didn't give her the opportunity in the space from my perspective to step neutrally as
has an informed and qualified attorney to come into that space and serve all of us equally.
We need to be able to do that so that attorney can help, for example, say, hey, this is a challenge.
I can tell why don't we take a recess and figure out where we are, where we're going with it,
clarify where things are.
Instead of a rush to, I don't like what's happening here, and I'm going to try to arrest the
guy who I don't like.
So, I am deeply disappointed that this board has missed every opportunity over three and a
half years to continue to try to be a more liberal democratic legislative body.
We rightly criticize legislative bodies that do the very same things that have happened
here over the last couple of years, and if we liberal Democrats can't do it better than
I have deep concerns for liberal democracy.
If there's anything that you would like to raise or comment on or ask me about, I'm happy
to make that part of my contribution during Commissioner Reports, but I have no expectation
of that.
No, I don't think there's anything I need to add to the conversation.
Thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner Delaney.
A couple of updates tonight.
I did attend the Farmland Preservation State Legislative Event.
And that was really fabulous.
It was the first time that I've been with Lindsey
to Raleigh, to pop around our state legislature building.
And it was really a big honor to be there for farmland preservation.
So we went to a big meeting with a lot of folks across the state across the state.
I mean, they were from everywhere.
and met and had good conversations with folks.
They had a nice spread of coffee and Danish and Jews.
And everything put out for us that day.
And then we all took our separate modes of transportation
to get down to the state legislature building.
And it was a great day socializing with everybody.
We did get into leader Reeves office.
And he was not in, but we left some notes and Andrew spoke.
And it was a good day.
And unfortunately, we tried to meet up with Natalie Murdoch,
but she was going to try and fit a sentence.
She was dashing between one event and another,
so we waited.
But it was a really great collegial moment
and everybody enjoyed just being there, ready to do really
good work.
So I look forward to going later in June, again,
to try and work with y'all.
I hope to accommodate some of those things.
I did attend a community event discussing the proposed
and bridge gas pipeline, and I was really glad I was there
because Emily sat.
And with Hall River had an attorney there who was telling them everybody all of these different things and said y'all should go to your county commissioners and tell them that you want to, you know, have this, you know, whatever stopped and what you want them to do about it. And so I stood up and I said, what can we do about it? And his response was, well, you'll have to talk to your county attorney about that. I can't advise you. Okay, then. Thank you so much. That was helpful. And I also attended the George Pauline-Natured Trail Ribbon Cutting.
and hike the trail with the group of folks and that felt really good for somebody that did
great things for Haw River and the county. I attended the NC Association of Educators,
May 1st Rally was really proud to be there with so many of the teachers in our area
and I also have in my bullets a reminder for our public hearing tomorrow at 6pm but that's
been done several times, so that's all I have, and do I have a motion to adjourn?
It's a little tricky.
Awesome, all in favor?
All right.