[0:00] of America and to the republic for which
it stands. One nation under God,
[0:05] indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all. All right. Thank you. Tonight,
[0:10] our invocation will be given by Miss
Carol Edwards and she is with the
[0:15] Dilling County Fellowship of Christian
Athletes. Miss Carol, thank you so much
[0:18] for being here tonight. Thank you for
having me. Let's pray. Gracious heavenly
[0:22] father, Lord, we thank you for the city
of Dylan. And we thank you, Lord, for
[0:26] the men and women who you have called,
Lord, to serve this city uh to serve
[0:31] you. Uh Lord, we just pray right now
that your wisdom would be in this room
[0:35] tonight. Lord, that the unseen guests in
this room, but very present guests would
[0:41] be your Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we
pray for the city of Dylan. We thank you
[0:46] Lord for the past success of the city of
Dylan but Lord we look forward to the
[0:50] future and what you have planned God for
our city. So Lord I just pray right now
[0:55] that you would have your way in this
place. Heavenly Father I pray that you
[0:59] would help us Lord to love one another
and to serve one another in this room
[1:03] tonight and help us Lord to face one
another with the face of Christ. We ask
[1:08] you God to bless our city, protect those
who serve our city, and we ask these
[1:14] things in the mighty name of Jesus.
Amen. Amen. Miss Carol, thank you very
[1:18] much. And in case you don't know, she
works with all the schools in the
[1:22] county, and she does a super job with
the kids. Thank you for everything.
[1:26] Thank you.
All right. First thing is the approval
[1:31] of the agenda. Do we have a motion to
approve the agenda? Do we have a second?
[1:36] Second.
discussion. All in favor? All
[1:41] opposed? Approval of the minutes regular
council meeting April the 14th, 2025. Do
[1:47] we have a motion? Motion.
Discussion. All in favor?
[1:54] Opposed? All right, moving right into
the mayor's report. Want to welcome
[1:59] everyone tonight. Little rainy weather
out there. appreciate everybody braving
[2:04] braving the rain and coming out to join
us. Uh it's been a really really busy
[2:10] month in April and the first part of
May. There's been a lot happening around
[2:14] around the city of Dylan since our last
meeting. Of course, the most notable
[2:18] thing was to celebrate Maine and and
Lisa, I think every year it gets bigger
[2:24] and bigger and and I think you actually
had to turn some people away this year.
[2:29] Wait till next year is all I have to
say. wait till next year. But it it was
[2:32] a great day. We started out that morning
with the Huntington bike ride and fun
[2:37] run and then of course u Councilwoman
Smith and I were out there at the stage
[2:42] and she led us in the pledge of
allegiance and we got started and uh
[2:45] Pastor Johnny Corbett started us out in
a nice little prayer and and it was a
[2:50] great day and and I asked Lisa about how
many people came. I guess you you you
[2:55] estimated by somehow 3,000 or something
did that. But I think what's important
[2:59] too is to realize how many people
actually took to put that on. Exactly.
[3:03] I've never calculated it before and I
estimate around 775 people to to just
[3:09] put it on with the vendors and their
help and everybody else. So we might
[3:13] have had 3,000. We had 775 just out
there working it. It was it was an
[3:18] incredible day. There was a lot of good
food, a lot of a lot of good
[3:22] entertainment and and people stayed
late. The police department, they worked
[3:27] all day. They were vigilant. Public
works, they were up and down the streets
[3:31] picking up stuff. The recreation
department, they were out there with
[3:34] bingo at the theater. Douglas, uh, you
know, everything went great. The fire
[3:39] department was out there all day. They
got put down there by the train tracks.
[3:43] Kind of loud down there. A lot of kids
down on that end. And of course, the
[3:46] Methodist men cooked there that
afternoon. and we really appreciate
[3:49] that. But it like like Lisa said, it was
it was a great day. It took a lot of
[3:55] effort and a lot of people participated
and and it it is a very classy event and
[4:01] it shows well for the city of Dylan and
and I really appreciate how everyone
[4:06] everyone was involved and and Burke,
please please tell all the guys how much
[4:10] we do appreciate it and acknowledge
their efforts. They they got up early.
[4:14] They must have gotten there at five or
six o'clock that morning and I guess
[4:17] some of them were still there at 12:00
that night. So, thank you very much.
[4:22] Following that, we followed up with
another little bit of entertainment down
[4:26] at the fountain for our first first
Friday event. And and with that, we had
[4:32] a local artist, Terry Powers and Pepper
Creek. And and you know, they did a
[4:37] great job and it was a huge crowd. The
weather was great. and Lisa, thank you
[4:41] for for both of those events and heading
those up. This month, we also had a
[4:46] groundbreaking and we broke ground at
the long anticipated market pavilion
[4:52] over on the buffet lot or behind the
visitor center behind the police
[4:55] station. And I'm so excited about that,
Bert. It looks like it's going to be a a
[5:01] great venue. And as we try to revitalize
downtown and we look to bring foot
[5:06] traffic, this this is going to bring
foot traffic down there. So, we had a
[5:11] nice groundbreaking, of course, uh,
Representative Hayes was there and said
[5:15] a few words, and I think Stephanie with
DCA, she was there, said a few words,
[5:19] and you know, it just it it takes a lot
of people to bring the funds together to
[5:24] make these projects work. And I really
want to thank you, Burke, for all that
[5:28] you're doing with this. that hopefully
this project will be finished by
[5:32] Thanksgiving. That's that's what they're
saying. We were also able to dedicate
[5:38] our fifth and final mural of the season
or of this series, I must say, I might
[5:42] say this series. And of course, that is
the train mural over there on the
[5:46] Madison lot. I think um right in front
of Kings and and that is one of the the
[5:53] nicest
historic murals. and and if you get a
[5:57] minute, just go by there and stop and
take a look at it because it is really
[6:01] nice and we had a great crowd came out
for the dedication. I was really
[6:05] surprised to see all those people and uh
you know we we talked a little bit about
[6:09] murals and then Councilman David
actually got up and gave us the history
[6:14] of that mural and and it comes from a
picture in Councilman David's office and
[6:20] many
of those those the pe knows the names of
[6:25] all the people in that picture and many
of their descendants still live in
[6:29] Dylan. Of course, it had Mr. Dylan and
your grandfather in that picture as
[6:33] well, right?
Ta Dylan T JW him and his father. Him
[6:39] and his son. But anyway, it was great a
great day and of course um great time.
[6:44] If you don't want to know that history,
please please ask Councilman David. But
[6:47] but thank you for that. This month we
also had a couple scholarship gaylas or
[6:52] events. The Hara Manning scholarship
over at Bry's, the Rosa D. King
[6:57] scholarship over at the wellness center
and council woman there was about 300
[7:01] people in
there. It was it was a big event.
[7:06] This month was also nurses month. So,
you know, we got to go over to the
[7:11] hospital and and
celebrate the nurses and and of course,
[7:17] we appreciate everything that Mloud
Dylan does for this community and the
[7:21] city of Dylan and they couldn't do what
they do without the dedication of of
[7:25] those nurses in the hospital there. They
it really really great to have that that
[7:31] facility here and all those nurses. So,
I did want to take a minute to thank
[7:35] them. Also, I was able to represent the
city of Dylan at the PD Denim Day over
[7:40] in Marian. And if you don't know what
Denim Day is, that's that's uh I guess
[7:45] it kind of commemorates domestic
violence and kind of brings it to the
[7:49] forefront. And there was a big crowd
over there for that. So, that was that
[7:52] was also a really good good event to to
attend. And also speaking of Marian, we
[7:58] were also able to go over to the airport
for the Marian airport open house. And
[8:05] everybody always says, "Why you go to
the Marion airport open house?" Well,
[8:08] that is the airport that we're supposed
to use. You know, we're not supposed to.
[8:12] We do use that airport a lot when
someone comes to town and visits and
[8:16] flies. That probably is the closest
airport for them to come into. And um so
[8:21] we do we do push them over there if they
ask. So, um, that was that was a great
[8:27] event. And lastly, we had the National
Day of Prayer across the street over
[8:31] here, and it was a really good attended
event. There were lots of lots of people
[8:35] came out, lots of good prayers for the
community. And I do want to thank all
[8:40] the ministers in our community. They do
a lot of job, a lot of work, praying,
[8:45] not only for the city of Dylan, but the
surrounding community. And I do want to
[8:49] thank them for their faithfulness
faithfulness to our community and to our
[8:54] citizens. And with that, that's all I
have. Mr. Rogers. Okay. Thank you,
[9:01] Mayor. Uh, first thing I have tonight is
I want to introduce y'all to someone. I
[9:06] promoted one of our workers to be the
public works supervisor. His name is
[9:11] James Jacobs. I'm going get up. Speak
speak about James for a minute. This is
[9:17] James. Um, most of you know James, some
of you do not, but James has been a
[9:23] dedicated employee of the city of Dylan
for 20 years. He's worked in each
[9:28] department in public, public works. He's
worked in sanitation and storm water,
[9:33] streets. Uh, I'm very confident and
proud of James. I think he's going to do
[9:37] a great job. I think he'll, you know,
fit right in where I left off. He and I
[9:41] coordinate a lot together. I'm going to
help him any kind of way that I can, but
[9:45] I think he's an asset to the city of
Dylan and he's going to be, you know,
[9:49] very good for what we need him to do.
But this is James Jackets. If y'all need
[9:53] anything, get the man to call.
Thank you, James.
[10:00] Congratulations.
[10:04] We can get you his number.
[10:09] But he he'll be a good one. You might
want to go stop
[10:15] Next thing I want to discuss tonight is
the budget. If all of you can get your
[10:21] packet out, this is proposed budget for
2025 to
[10:25] 2026. I don't know if any of you's had a
chance to look at it. Uh I gave you a
[10:30] few brief highlights in the the last
council meeting.
[10:36] Uh what you see in front of you is a
balanced budget for water and sewer and
[10:41] the general
fund. So let's see are the reported
[10:46] numbers here year to date for 2025 is
that is that through 10 months? That's
[10:52] through 10 months. So if I look at that
and I um extrapolate that out to 12
[11:00] months, right? It looks like we're
uh a significant amount over budget. Is
[11:06] that correct?
Yeah, because we didn't budget 100% of
[11:12] our revenues. You talking about for last
year? I'm talking about where we at now,
[11:16] year to date, you know, where we are and
um you know, if I if I read this
[11:23] correctly,
uh the
[11:27] our the 2.2 2 million6. Which page you
looking at? I'm one one of eight. One of
[11:34] eight. Okay. All right. And is that
37,000?
[11:40] Huh? Yeah. It shows like you got 26,000
left in this budget year. So you're
[11:46] looking at revenue, huh? You're looking
at the revenue.
[11:50] Okay. Revenue side. Okay. My bad. Yes, I
am.
[11:55] Um because the Okay, so we're in good
shape there. So we're 10% over budget in
[12:01] revenue now. Okay. Um and you're
[Music]
[12:07] anticipating Okay, good. So you're
anticipating that to be with the under
[12:14] your recommendation that
we So that's really kind of an
[12:19] underestimation of what we're going to
do this year. Okay. All right. All
[12:23] right. We don't budget 100%. We try to
at least page. Yeah. But you know when
[12:31] when I translated this,
we're pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. So,
[12:38] I didn't even look at, you know, be able
to get a balanced budget and do what
[12:42] we're trying to propose in in the
general fund is a 3 mill tax increase
[12:47] that's involved in this budget, right?
And a 5% sanitation
[12:52] increase. And
that will offset a 12% insurance premium
[12:59] increase and also which
is the 70 80,000. Yes, sir. But the good
[13:06] thing about it is we only have to budget
half of that money for this year because
[13:09] it'll start in January. So we'll finish
out the rest of this budget with our
[13:13] current rate. When January starts, we'll
pick up the new premium rate.
[13:18] So it ended up being about 35 or 40,000
that we had to use additional funds
[13:25] for. So the next thing is is this budget
also includes a $1,200 pay increase for
[13:33] every
employee. And for most employees, hourly
[13:37] employees, that's like a 3% raise. Some
of them a little more than 3%, some
[13:42] maybe a tad bit less, but for the
average employee that's a 3% raise
[13:47] across the board. Basically CPI.
Basically CPI. And the good thing about
[13:52] this, there's no um money taken out of
depreciation to balance this budget. You
[13:59] know, we're still funding the
depreciation. So, we were able to
[14:02] balance it with no loans or, you know,
depreciation money used.
[14:08] So, but there is no capital expenditures
in the general fund, which you know, we
[14:13] all talked the department heads and
myself and everybody, we in pretty good
[14:16] shape with capital expenditures in the
general fund. And a lot of that's due
[14:20] the state earmarks we've received in the
past as far as buying equipment and
[14:25] police guards and and equipment at
public works. So, we felt like we could,
[14:29] you know, go another year without having
to, you know, budget anything. But, we
[14:33] do have some capital coming in. We have
a new fire truck that will arrive in the
[14:38] next few weeks. Am I right, Keith? Yes.
First of June. First week of June should
[14:42] have it. So, we do have a new fire truck
coming. We did purchase a new police car
[14:47] last month with some money, you know,
state money. And we also have a new
[14:51] street sweeper that's, you know, $300
off this $300,000 piece of equipment
[14:55] will be coming in in the next couple
months also. So, we're going to, you
[14:59] know, stay pretty decent shape equipment
wise and vehicle wise and all that in
[15:04] the general
fund. But that's my recommendation as
[15:08] far as general fund is concerned. Unless
you guys see anything different, you
[15:13] know, a 3 mill tax increase is generate
$66,000, which I, you know, told you
[15:19] guys about in the last meeting. And for
your information and I know you know
[15:24] people you represent and all will ask
and from our standpoint nobody wants to
[15:30] raise taxes. I understand that but we're
in a time now that you you got to do
[15:35] everything you can to generate revenue
and inflation is especially in project
[15:40] wise and things like that. We had a bid
opening for wastewater treatment plant
[15:44] upgrades this past Thursday. I'm just
telling you how much inflation is that
[15:49] we were projecting it to be $8 million.
When the bid came in, it's $17
[15:54] million. And that's that's what we're
facing on our end trying to figure out
[15:58] how to fund these things. And there's
only a little bit of money we can raise
[16:02] and a 3 mil tax increase is, you know,
we we don't want to have to raise taxes,
[16:07] but we have to do what's best for the
city. Keep you lose that opportunity
[16:11] every year. Keep us in good. Like you
can catch up. You got to do what we can
[16:16] to give us a good operating.
And what I was going to tell you is like
[16:21] a $100,000 home,
it's a $12 increase in taxes. $200,000
[16:28] home be
$24 more. So that's that's a basis of,
[16:34] you know, probably the average home
prices in dealing with people home. It's
[16:37] a 12 12 to $25 increase. Of course, the
more your house costs go up a little
[16:44] bit.
sanitation at 3%. What's a 5% sanitation
[16:49] increase? So that's going to take the
roll cart to
[16:53] [Music]
$3749 something like that. Yeah. And it
[16:59] was how much? It's going from 3568 to
37.4 is that one. So it's like a $1.7
[17:07] 79 increase.
So we tried to, you know, we did do a
[17:12] 10% sanitation rate last year. So we
tried to, you know, we realized that,
[17:16] you know, things are tough for everybody
and we're trying to, you know, keep it
[17:19] at a minimal increase for
everybody. I think the budget looks
[17:27] good from that stand. Any got any
questions you'd like to ask on the
[17:33] general
front? I know that's fast and
[17:40] still got time to look at it till next
month. We'll try to do first
[17:43] reading this month and and do the second
reading next month. Unless you guys have
[17:49] any questions or any changes or anything
you think you see
[17:57] different water and sewer. Yeah, I'm
going to water and sewer now.
[18:02] So what
we're ordering
[18:08] store going back to general fund right
quick. So with that budget that'll be a
[18:13] budget of general general fund of
[18:20] 7,532,588. Water and sewer total budget
proposed is $4,78,774.
[18:30] general
fund. The two capital expenditures were
[18:34] requested in general fund. One's a
vehicle, one general fund. I mean, I'm
[18:40] sorry. I'm sorry. My fault. Water and
sewer is a 3% increase on sales. Going
[18:46] back to what you said, last year we did
a five. I tried to cut it back to a
[18:50] three. I think that the profit margin in
general fund is where we like it to be
[18:56] around 20% 15 to 20%. So, we still got
financially sound there, but we still
[19:02] got to maintain that that margin for
projects like I
[19:07] was matching grants. The projects are
millions of dollars. You got to keep
[19:12] this money here to keep it viable and
able to match these grants and, you
[19:16] know, and do repairs and all we need to
do. But it's
[19:20] a talking about water and sewer. Yeah,
water and sewer.
[19:24] The base cost Janet can tell you what
the base cost rates will be. Okay. The
[19:28] base cost right now is
[19:33] is $561 cent for water in town. It's
going to go to 5.78 which is 17. Um per
[19:42] gallon it's going up to 7 cents per
gallon. Outside base cost will be $1.15
[19:50] and 19 cent per thousand. And um that's
your water and sewer rates on the F
[19:55] 5,000 which is an average of 5,000 um
right now it's
[20:01] $8741 it'll go to
$9083 for 5,000 gallons of water and
[20:06] that's water store and
sanitation with the 3%.
[20:16] That answer question
[20:22] garbage. Yeah.
What about storm drains? That's not in
[20:26] that. No, that's another I didn't do
anything with storm water fees at this
[20:31] time. You
know, I wanted to have that discussion.
[20:35] If you we pay it's $4 now for a
resident, $5 for business. We haven't
[20:41] been up since we implemented the storm
water fee.
[20:46] You know, if we go up a dollar, it
generates 30 some more thousand miles a
[20:50] year. I think I figured it maybe 32,000
a year. If we go up a dollar on
[20:56] residential and dollar on commercial, I
didn't really put that in because I
[20:59] hadn't discussed with you guys about
that. I didn't know how you felt about
[21:03] it.
If we can balance it without it, I would
[21:07] try to read that off.
[21:11] Now the the these rates you're talking
about they're prime this is all
[21:16] residential or residential and no it's
all it's residential and commercial now
[21:20] the produce rate will go up also
did you have that number? Yes, it it'll
[21:26] go up. It'll go up the same percentage
rate up everybody. Yeah,
[21:34] it'll go up to 479. 479.
That'll be an increase.
[21:40] That's 3%.
[21:44] They're our biggest store users, so
they'll generally play more.
[21:51] I think it's a, you know, for way
inflation is I think we're being
[21:57] responsible for the city and, you know,
doing what we have to do to keep us
[22:02] moving
[22:05] forward. Going back to storm water, you
know, that's your guys opinion. Storm
[22:11] water operates on its own account. You
know, we have a fund balance of 330 some
[22:16] thousand in storm water. Now, we do use
that money for matches and for equipment
[22:21] repairs and and two employees. Um, I I
think we'll be fine if we remain where
[22:27] we are.
And if you had some
[22:33] granted, you know, we have matching
money general fund. We don't have to
[22:38] accumulate money there in order. It's
not like sewage has to be separated. So
[22:44] I you know I don't I didn't put it in
there but I I don't want to sit here and
[22:47] nickel and dime you know as
citizens but you know something to
[22:54] entertain but if you guys are
comfortable with leaving it as is I am
[22:57] also
we take in about 134,000 a year in
[23:05] but like I say that influence that funds
two employees and you know equipment
[23:10] repairs and sometimes we have to do
training work things
[23:16] We leave that as is. That's what y'all
want. That
[23:21] the what's it called? The big truck. The
backer truck. Backer truck. Yes, sir.
[23:28] So, where are you in that? How old is
that? That's That's going to be a
[23:32] discussion for too much longer. It's a
2012, but remember, we bought it used,
[23:38] right? But that's a $500,000 piece of
equipment.
[23:42] So, we just got it at a shop. It's been
in shop for about two months. So, it's
[23:46] just it's specialized piece of
equipment. It's hard to get it worked on
[23:50] just anywhere. Then you have to wait in
line in the parts and but it's finally
[23:54] got it back. So, you know, it's it's
ageable. I mean, it's 10, 12 years old,
[24:00] 13, whatever it is. But, I think as long
as we take care of it, it should last a
[24:04] few more years.
[24:08] Where are we going on the storm water
project?
[24:12] Storm water project. Uh we have a
pre-construction meeting on June the
[24:17] 10th. So once they we have
pre-construction
[24:21] meeting and it'll be a notice to proceed
and contractor should be starting
[24:26] closely by there. That's been another
challenge going on in my office with
[24:31] Janet also is obtaining 42 easements.
43. Well, well, we did combine a lot of
[24:37] a lot of easements and trying to get
folks to sign easements on their
[24:40] property and some of them live out of
town and, you know, this and that and
[24:44] it's, you know, it's pretty difficult,
you know, time consuming, a lot of
[24:48] talking and emailing and mailing letters
and trying to get people to understand.
[24:55] You decided how much of it we ought to
be able to get done.
[25:00] Well, the office of resilience is trying
to obtain us some more money before we
[25:04] can do the whole thing, but it's it's
it's an appropriation through Congress
[25:08] some kind of way that they're trying to
get this extra money. As of now, we're
[25:11] doing two two phases down by the city
shop and the Lucius Road, which is about
[25:17] I think it was somewhere around
$9 million or something like that that
[25:22] we're able to do now. So if we could get
the rest of the funding, it' be like a
[25:26] $12 million project. So we have a $9
million project. What kind of
[25:30] abbreviation of water is that going to
give us down? I can't answer that. They
[25:35] designed it
to hydraulic engineers and all, you
[25:41] know,
[25:50] satisfac where it comes out at the end.
Wasn't the first thing though? Was
[25:56] it Where is it that they had that pipe
that those larger pipes are going to a
[26:01] smaller pipe? Yeah, there's a couple of
those around town that have been
[26:05] identified. One's over here on Hampton
Street and there's another one. Uh think
[26:11] where the other one was.
Two phases or was that not a part of
[26:16] Hampton? I think that's in a different
phase.
[26:22] Now the one crossing of the railroad
track through Hampton, we're not
[26:26] changing that. Not that
on down where the shop is where let's
[26:32] let's get back to this budget then we'll
go back to
[26:37] that. But anyway, I think you know
budget is balanced for water and sewer
[26:42] and general fund. Um there is some
capital expenditures in the water and
[26:46] sewer department of a vehicle, a tractor
and cutter, spray field, a commercial
[26:54] moore, and a equipment shelter. Total of
$180,000 capital
[27:00] outlet. So everything's budgeted. Like I
said, it's in balance. Um think it looks
[27:08] good. unless you guys have any
questions. Anything you see that needs
[27:10] to be
changed, but you know, Janet and I,
[27:14] especially Janet's worked very hard on
getting this his number together and I
[27:18] think it's well put together and I'm
comfortable with it and Janet is
[27:23] also y'all have any more questions.
We'll have
[27:28] Yep. Like I said, you'll have this. You
can look at it when you have more time.
[27:32] We have another month before we do the
second reading if you got any questions
[27:36] then. If you have any questions between
then and now and the next meeting, give
[27:40] me a call. That way we can talk about it
because we'll have to we have to have a
[27:46] public hearing in our next meeting to uh
finalize the budget. But tonight we'll
[27:51] do a first reading on it and we can
still order it if we need
[27:56] to. That's all I have far as the budget
in case you guys have anything else. Now
[28:03] the money for the uh sewer for the
school. We got this fun. Yeah, that's
[28:08] our done.
That project it's closed
[28:15] out. Okay. The last thing I have real
quick is some of you guys went to the
[28:20] municipal association annual meeting
last year. Um this will be taking place
[28:25] again around the same time, July 16th
through the 20th at Hilton's Head.
[28:32] Uh, if you want to go, you need to get
with Tina and let her know our
[28:35] reservation times coming up. I think May
the 30th. We You need to know by May the
[28:40] 30th, I think. Is that right? June.
June. June 30th. June. Okay. 1st of
[28:46] June. We'll get with Tina. If you would
like to go, let her know as soon as you
[28:51] can. I know some of you went last year.
If you new folks want to go, it may be
[28:56] beneficial to you guys to see how
government works.
[29:01] Yeah, I don't know. You guys that went
will it be beneficial for him to go if
[29:05] you want to go again? Tim says yes. So,
like I say, you got a few weeks to think
[29:09] about it and
uh give Miss Tina and
[29:14] she'll get y'all signed up. But other
than that, that's all I have and I'm
[29:18] going turn it over to finance director.
[Applause]
[29:25] Thank you.
General fund. Our total of all cash
[29:30] accounts
[29:34] 4,96,892. We brought in
$32,463 more in 25 than we did in 24. We
[29:42] spent
[29:45] $139,261 more in 24 than we did in
25 there. And those grant funds are in
[29:55] that. And of course, I pay general fund
back