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Okay, welcome to tonight's meeting. This is the May 15, 2023 regular meeting of the Haywood County Board of Commissioners. This is the day after Mother's Day, and I just want to say I thank God for my mother and the Lord gave me a great mother. So I hope everybody had a great one Mother's Day yesterday.

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So our first order of business will be our pledge of allegiance. And after that, I'm going to ask our pastor Josh Frazier to come forward for the invocation. So if everyone please stand for the pledge.

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Let us pray.

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God in heaven, we thank you for this day.

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We're able to come together and to hear the different things that are being proposed today,

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to be accepted and to help our local society where we live at.

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I think about the commandments that you've given to us that are written here on the core house walls,

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and how each one of those are meant to bring to us as fellow men the things,

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the rules, the basic order that helps us in our life.

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I ask and I pray that we would have wisdom and guidance and all that we say and do and think not only here, but even outside of these walls.

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Thank you for the blessing that it is to live here in Heywood, North Carolina.

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I pray that everything that we do, we would utilize the tools and the resources that have been given to us to make this a better place.

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We pray all this in your name. Amen.

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Thank you, Pastor Josh.

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Okay, our next order of business will be our public hearing, but we do not have any tonight and then our next order of business will be a public comment session.

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I need to see if you would just limit your comments to three minutes and Amy will let you know when your time's up.

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So I have one person signed up to speak Van Walker come forward.

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I'm Van Walker, Blake, Gene Lusk, and I'm up here to ask for about the sixth time in a row

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a number of questions, which obviously none of y'all to care to answer for Haywood County

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citizens. These are things that y'all have done. You've voted on. You seem to think it was

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a good idea at the time, but tell us what's happened since then. I challenge each of you.

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Mr. Bush, Mr. Long, Mr. Inslee, Mr. Rodgers, Mr. Rainey, to take the time out to answer

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the questions.

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Can you do that?

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Do you have enough honesty or nerve to face your fellow citizens to answer these really

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simple questions of which three in the middle of the long, Mr. Inslee, Mr. Rodgers voted

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for.

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you must have had a good reason. Let's for you give an $800,000 to the Asheville

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Chamber or Buncombe County Chambers at Otters France's Asheville Buncombe County Chambers

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that okay with you. I hope so. I'll continue to ask these questions until one of

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you got with Wonders has enough nerve to answer them. I don't like calling names but

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But after six times of being out there, which I don't enjoy by the way, why don't you answer

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the questions?

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Chris Longont, you've been there since 1804, your family has.

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Can you come up with nerve to answer that question?

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Mr. Inslee, you run this thing like a dictator's ship, were you not allowed your sheepled to

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answer the questions?

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800,000 dollars to those Marxists leftist in Asheville.

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God, to be conned by those people, there has to be some degree of potent ignorance.

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To be conned by those leftists, I want each one of you to answer.

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Now, what's Mr. Innsley holding your head anything?

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Do you not have a nerve crossing?

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I'd left to be up there.

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I crossed in a New York minute.

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I know Mr. Long is his puppy dog, so he won't cross him.

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aren't you smiling Mr. Long? You know President Reagan said the nine most

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terrifying words in English language is I'm from the government and I'm here to

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help. Is this the help y'all giving us 800 that and a growing by 150,000

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years you give the hash field? My gosh it's a con. It's if y'all haven't figured that

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It is a con, and I told you how the con worked.

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Orlando did seven counties around him.

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Change millions from those good old boys and local losers to support Orlando. And Asheville,

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all people is conjoined. It's embarrassing. So, I'm going to ask each one of you personally.

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I don't know, I only get a, I'm going to get three minutes, although I'm here and play more taxes

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than most people do. Why don't we receive $18,000 and growing annually? Well, you've had some

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need an ordinance. I know Mr. Remy doesn't, excuse me, Mr. Remy doesn't want long because

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it would ruin his low bearing or homeless shelter plans. So he didn't want one. We investigate

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the pods for the jail. They're custom made, they will work in any configuration. So investigate

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them. They'll cheaper, they'll save us tax payer money. I don't, if someone is, I've heard rumors

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that some people are getting are on the take.

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I don't believe it, but I'm continuing to hear more and more rumors.

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So, hopefully, one of y'all have a nerve to answer these questions about the jails,

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the need lords, and keep smiling, Tommy.

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Your time is coming, buddy.

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And the $800,000 you're given to Ashton.

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Okay.

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Anyone else here to address the board?

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One up, Dale.

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Thank you for letting me talk.

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I'm Dale Glant from Clyde. I'd like to go up here and see what's going on in the county,

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but some of this junk is getting older and more out. If I didn't love, he would county

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like some people. Some of us people have moved to Buncombe County where they'd be happy.

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They shouldn't be able to displace you, and I personally don't care if they like me or not.

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I hope they don't.

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Psych.

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Thank you, Dale.

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Would anyone else care to address the board?

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I want to close the public comment session.

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We'll move to constituent concerns.

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And I'll see is it.

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I think it's Terry's turn.

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Terry.

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You have any constituent concerns?

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Do you want to come in?

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No.

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Not that, ma'am.

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Let's see.

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Jennifer.

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I have had a few, but I think everything's been addressed so far.

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Okay, great.

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Okay, I will mention that most Hayward County offices, including the White O'Clan field,

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material recovery facility and convenient centers, will be closed on Monday, May 29th,

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and observance of Memorial Day, and then the regular hours will resume on Tuesday, May 30th.

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And then also, I want to mention, and I'll probably mention this again when we get adjourned,

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but we will, I'm gonna announce a special meeting

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to conduct the public hearing on Tuesday, May 30th at 5.30

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to receive public comment on the proposed budget

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for physical year 2024.

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A public notice hearing will be advertised in the mountaineer

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on May 21th.

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That hearing will be conducted in this room,

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the historic courtroom of the historic courthouse

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at 2.15 North Main Street, Wayne'sville.

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Okay, so I'll move on to,

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if there's any other constituent concerns.

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I'll move on to administrative and agency reports.

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And the first will be a presentation

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of the Haywood County flood print proposal

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by the NC State University Coastal Dynamics Design Lab,

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Coastal Dynamics Design Lab, FASLA, PLA, NC State Professor

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and University Faculty, Scholar and Director, Andy Fox.

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Thank you for having me, commissioners, conducting.

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So as you mentioned, I'm with NC State University and through our lab, the Coastal Dynamics

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Design Lab, we typically work in Eastern North Carolina, but given the issues that were encountered

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following Hurricane Tropical Storm Fred, we're bringing some of the expertise that I'll share

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with you tonight to bear working with a lot of the other activities that are going

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on within the county.

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So we just had a meeting before this session to be able to walk through a lot of the other

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projects that are happening so that we can do it in a coordinated fashion.

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The lab, we know.

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I know it's a mouthful with the Coastal Dynamics. We call it the CDDL. We lead, we put together teams that can provide community technical assistance around very specific issues. So oftentimes we're not just looking at flooding, but economic development opportunities, recreational opportunities, and trying to basically create betterment out of issues that have come from flooding. So finding opportunity in disaster

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in many regards. The flood print is a term, think about a blue print for floods, or think about

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a fingerprint, the way that water works on the land is different everywhere, and so we conduct a

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lot of technical due diligence and research into the ways that water moves, and really trying to

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make sure that a healthy relationship between waterways and communities can take place, so we're

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and of arming ourselves against the water bodies.

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And again, we're trying to focus on protecting public safety,

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property, but at the same time also thinking about the environmental aspects

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of all the water bodies, all the water bodies,

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and what they provide to our communities.

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The Haywood County flood print is being funded through the North Carolina Office

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of recovery and resiliency or in-core and the prime sponsor is US housing and urban development.

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And so this is community development block grant through Fred. So it's a no cost to the county,

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no cost to any of the communities in the county. This is part of our land grant mission with the

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university is to be able to come out and serve North Carolina communities. We'll be working closely

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with the county, the town of Canton and ourselves, and then we'll be putting together a group

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of technical advisors that have different elements of technical know-how based on the issues

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that we encounter, but also place-based, you know, what makes every place special trying

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to understand what the resident experience was and is desired to be following these flooding

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events and we'll be running on an 18-month timeline so just started in May 1 through

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October 31st of 2024 so we consider that to be a pretty healthy timeline to work on

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the issues with a range of different elements that we'll bring.

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I won't go through each of the items but we do a number of things within our scope.

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We strategically write our work to not be a plan on a shelf.

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We actually write all our documentation to be cut and pasteable into grant opportunities

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so that we can find and attract those resources, in this case, into Haywood County to be able

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to cover the costs of different mitigation strategies so that so you can use all you

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dollars for other opportunities and not necessarily for just on those recovery elements.

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In this diagram, there's all the pink is basically community engagement, so we engage

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with the community throughout the process.

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So we're not working from Raleigh, and then just coming up here and delivering a report

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will be here often throughout the 18-month process to be ground-true thing and working with

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local staff and residents through the issues.

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This is an example of this kind of schematic level of work that comes out of our documentation

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where we're looking at a series of different mitigation strategies, sometimes it's with

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voluntary buyouts, in terms of the buyout program or acquisition program that I'm sure you've

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all heard of and encountered finding good community uses for those properties in which

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those homeowners choose to opt into that program so that doesn't become nuisance use on

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those properties but also developing main street opportunities that help to drive economic

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development, this particular plans in a small town of Pollock'sville and Jones County.

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and right now we're redoing the Main Street and we're giving them a waterfront

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park and doing a whole lot of other things that might not look like it's

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dealing with flood but it all has effect on the town character when we're

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elevating buildings to make sure that that Main Street still feels like a great

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Main Street. I'm a landscape architect and environmental planner by training we

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have architects on the team engineers hydraulic modellers and other built

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environment specialists. As I said we develop our documentation to craft into a

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series of grant funded opportunities.

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So, in many communities, we might have seven, eight, nine different grants, and we'll also help to write those grants. And in some cases, we help to administer them based on the capacity needs of staff and the communities. This is kind of a tally of four of the communities in which we've worked. So, again, all in eastern North Carolina, Lumberton, Whiteville, Princeville, and Polluxville. And so far since 2017, the follow-on to our planning work has brought over $12 million into these communities.

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At no cost to the communities so we've never taken one penny in our work

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We go out and we we attract those resources in through grant applications, and that's what we hope to do

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here

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And then just really quickly at a high level in

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Whiteville

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Mr. Francis had opportunity to travel down to Whiteville and talk to city leadership there about our work

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And trying to learn more about what we do and how we do it

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We take a county-wide assessment, we look at watersheds, try to understand who was impacted

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and how dramatically that each individual homeowner was impacted so that that goes into

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our thinking.

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We model those waters, so in this particular graphic, the darker the color, the greater

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the flooding depth.

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And so this particular analysis is looking at railroad tracks and road crossings, undersized

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culverts, undersized bridges, so trying to understand the infrastructure that might be playing

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apart in the flooding that folks are experiencing.

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Then we look at clusters of homes and businesses and properties that are impacted related

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to those flood waters, and this helps us kind of objectively decide where to work.

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So who are we serving, where are we working?

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And then we find what we call hotspots, you know, where are those clusters who has been

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most impacted, where are the resources needed the most?

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In this case, it was a tributary of Saul Swamp called Molly's Branch, in which we worked

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all the way up through this neighborhood, working with residents, getting their feedback, understanding

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the benefits to them, looking at the frequency of flooding and running models to understand

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what solutions might have what impact, and then what are the trade-offs of those investments?

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And then, again, working with community the entire time to get feedback, so trying to really

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understand how is this going to impact those who have to live with it? We know that we don't live

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here. We're not the ones vulnerable to the risk in this case. I was commenting earlier where we get

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to return to the relative safety of Raleigh, and it's really working through an understanding

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how it impacts neighbors.

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We've worked with a lot of different partners, and in this case this project was working

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with the school district as well, so they were an active partner in which some of these

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investments are going to the school district to create flood mitigation, but also outdoor

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learning, new playground, ball field opportunities, working the whole solution to try to get everyone

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that touches it.

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Some of the benefit, I mentioned that we look at different scenarios, different flooding,

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We run some of the economics on it, it's called benefit cost analysis, BCAs, it's what

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you have to score out at is what's the return of investment for the grantors, so we're

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able to do that with our work.

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And then finding the right kind of funding to be able to build those types of projects,

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and then kind of stitching them together, a series of small projects to add up to something

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much bigger that has that cumulative impact of recovery and mitigation, but also long-term

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benefits back to the community of recreation, just open space with the development pressures

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that a lot of communities feel trying to make sure that it's the right fit.

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And then we visualize it to be able to kind of tell the story graphically, most people want

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to see a picture, not necessarily all the data points, and so we're able to do that as

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well working with all the different partners.

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As for the architectural side of things,

217
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building elevations, we know that there have been,

218
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especially in Canton, significant impacts from Fred.

219
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And we're able to look at the building profiles,

220
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what would have to happen for those building owners

221
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to be able to get flood insurance.

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And work through that on a case-by-case building,

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by building property by property level.

224
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And so, thank you for your time today.

225
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Again, I wanted to provide you that overview.

226
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We will definitely be back in front of you.

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It's a big part of our process is to provide you updates,

228
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but also at the end with our work,

229
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what makes all the difference in the world is.

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To work collaboratively along the way, get feedback to make sure we're doing the right things for you so that we can build consensus through the process so that the report can be adopted. Because once it's codified, then that really sets it in motion to be able to use it as an official county document to be able to pursue these grants that can help, again, attract the resources to actually implement the projects. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.

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David has my contact information and again we'll be here for the next 18 months and hopefully

232
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longer to be able to work on these issues.

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I know when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, the devastation that occurred there,

234
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General Russell Honorary was put in charge of that whole situation given the presidential

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order.

236
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I was privileged to hear him speak concerning that Hurricane Katrina after math, and concerning

237
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kind of what to work you do, and I see in your presentation the railroad line there in

238
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Whiteville, and he lingered very long time talking about, we're not very smart in places

239
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like New Orleans when they build a railroad and elevate it, and it basically creates

240
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a man made dam which prohibits the natural flow of water and if you're on the wrong side

241
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of that you're going to be flooded because it can't get out and I noticed you had some

242
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mitigation proposals there about increasing the culvert size, cleaning culverts out and things

243
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that nature. But I guess his solution was to put culverts, put drainage passageways under these

244
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these berms under these railroad lines and actually highways, does your work in tail

245
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doing any of that?

246
00:21:57,740 --> 00:21:58,360
It does.

247
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We have hydraulic modelers, so that's not my skillset, but we have engineers at NC State that

248
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can run computational models to be able to study various impacts of elevating bridges,

249
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removing roadways all together, putting in larger culverts, and so they run a series of

250
00:22:16,540 --> 00:22:21,440
models to try to understand where is that tipping point

251
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between investment and the flood risk reduction.

252
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And so those are the findings that we'll bring back

253
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and be able to talk through what is reasonable,

254
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what is desired, what is feasible,

255
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and based on that level of reduction.

256
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Because not everything, of course, is possible.

257
00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:44,960
You can't cut folks off in terms of their transportation

258
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:51,040
networks and then it's trying to build the partnerships and the groups to be able to work on those

259
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:57,480
issues working with NC DOT and others in terms of what are the possibilities. Railroads are

260
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a whole different challenge when it comes to that but still at least you're armed with information

261
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to be able to have a conversation about what kind of difference it makes for the roads and the rail

262
00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:12,200
lines that cross through communities.

263
00:23:12,620 --> 00:23:18,240
Well, his solution was to make sure that floodway remains open and to put culverts or passageways

264
00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:23,440
underneath the rail line so that water can go out because it backs up and floods everybody

265
00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:25,440
behind it, ordinarily wouldn't be flooded.

266
00:23:25,660 --> 00:23:30,080
So to keep that floodway open and keep in the water running downhill, especially in these

267
00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:31,320
mountains, it's pretty creative.

268
00:23:31,660 --> 00:23:37,860
Yeah, and a lot of the models that those roadways and railways were engineered on, those models

269
00:23:37,860 --> 00:23:41,520
don't take into account these very large rain events and so it's also

270
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understanding that we're getting more intense rains more often in many

271
00:23:47,620 --> 00:23:54,280
places and that maybe the design model from 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years

272
00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:59,200
ago, is no longer the standard as well. So having those conversations about where

273
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:01,660
we are now and what are things going to look like in the future.

274
00:24:06,520 --> 00:24:10,320
What kind of impact is it going to have like we're evergreen or

275
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packed if every grain shut down and you're doing this work you're going to

276
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:18,040
do is working Canton. What kind of impacts that going to have on it being in

277
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:22,760
that floodway and stuff down there. That's a great question. We're at the very

278
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:29,280
beginning. May 1 was the beginning of our our project period. So working with

279
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:37,860
the town of Canton officials, and trying to understand the longer term impacts of the evergreen announcement.

280
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When we first started discussing this project, that news was not known to anybody.

281
00:24:47,120 --> 00:24:58,080
So we're going to be working through that, and trying to follow the lead of all the community leadership in Canton, in terms of what their long term visions are.

282
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for that air.

283
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:29,340
And then how we can think about, again, helping to improve that, that condition in some way is that flood storage, is it open space, is it new industry? I think there's a lot of different scenarios that might be run, and we'll take our guidance from the town of Canton. With this agreement, there's actually both the county and the town have signed the MOU to be formally a part of this project.

284
00:25:29,340 --> 00:25:32,000
So we're very excited by that, it's daunting.

285
00:25:32,940 --> 00:25:37,260
But we're very excited to be working also specifically

286
00:25:37,260 --> 00:25:38,860
with the town of Canton in this process.

287
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:42,180
If they choose just to leave that set in there,

288
00:25:42,460 --> 00:25:44,440
like you're talking about, will that have a big impact

289
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:45,940
on what y'all are doing around it?

290
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:51,620
Yes, in that it's a lot of developed area.

291
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:54,240
And there's a lot of real estate there

292
00:25:55,220 --> 00:25:58,520
that maybe could be worked with in certain ways,

293
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:07,900
But it all depends on what the future holds for that site and certainly the waste water treatment and other critical infrastructure to the town has to be thought about very carefully.

294
00:26:10,610 --> 00:26:28,450
Okay, so one thing I was wondering, are you just focusing on Canton and Crusoe or because Clyde had a devastating flood in 04 and the reason it wasn't as devastating this time is because that had been mitigated somewhat.

295
00:26:28,450 --> 00:26:36,870
Yes sir. But we have a lot of flood properties that the county owns in Clyde. It could be made into something maybe better.

296
00:26:38,170 --> 00:26:40,250
Are you looking at that possibly?

297
00:26:40,550 --> 00:26:44,250
You were going to take that county level kind of scan.

298
00:26:44,610 --> 00:26:45,170
Okay good.

299
00:26:45,750 --> 00:26:48,830
And try to see if that's one of the hotspots.

300
00:26:49,010 --> 00:26:56,470
Right now we know we came up in February and met with all kinds of town and county staff

301
00:26:56,470 --> 00:27:01,870
and did a tour and got to see all the heavily impacted areas.

302
00:27:02,510 --> 00:27:10,810
From that, it was clear that there were places in the town of Canton, but also in the county.

303
00:27:11,570 --> 00:27:17,450
So non jurisdictional county, that those folks need help too, just because you're not in the town doesn't mean don't need help.

304
00:27:17,770 --> 00:27:24,890
So that's why we started there, but it certainly does not exclude Clyde from being part of the initial look.

305
00:27:24,890 --> 00:27:30,150
I think because Clyde's the center of the county, it's the heart of the county.

306
00:27:30,850 --> 00:27:38,790
And anything we can do to help that community thrive more because they lost a lot of their tax base when that happened.

307
00:27:39,130 --> 00:27:45,370
But if we can have, some ideas on how to help that community would be good.

308
00:27:45,890 --> 00:27:54,550
And I do know it was brought up in a meeting about a road in Clyde that constantly

309
00:27:54,550 --> 00:27:59,790
floods and people can't get out. I think Stompson co-road. So there are some issues still in

310
00:27:59,790 --> 00:28:03,770
cloud that we probably need to be trying to, you know, we need to try to mitigate, if you will.

311
00:28:04,370 --> 00:28:08,790
And I just, you know, keep out on your radar, if you would. I think it's important.

312
00:28:09,230 --> 00:28:13,910
Well, for sure. And this is the kind of feedback that we need. Again, not knowing the areas.

313
00:28:15,090 --> 00:28:20,070
Yeah. Okay. It's lot by lot and it's street by street. That's where we start. So we kind of work

314
00:28:20,070 --> 00:28:23,170
between that very detailed and then the very broad.

315
00:28:23,790 --> 00:28:25,690
And certainly there's all kinds of exciting work

316
00:28:25,690 --> 00:28:30,290
that's happening with Heywood Waterways and other entities

317
00:28:30,290 --> 00:28:33,890
that are already kind of moving down that path rapidly

318
00:28:33,890 --> 00:28:35,450
in terms of the larger scale.

319
00:28:35,730 --> 00:28:37,970
And so that's what we were talking about today

320
00:28:37,970 --> 00:28:39,690
is where can we fill in the gaps?

321
00:28:39,910 --> 00:28:41,470
Where can our work support it instead

322
00:28:41,470 --> 00:28:43,670
of trying to retool it or recreate it?

323
00:28:44,050 --> 00:28:46,770
We really want to know we can fit into a larger solution

324
00:28:46,770 --> 00:28:47,930
of what's already moving here.

325
00:28:50,810 --> 00:28:56,170
You mentioned early in your presentation individuals that would have an option to sail.

326
00:28:56,870 --> 00:29:01,190
Can you discuss a little bit how that works and where the value determination comes from?

327
00:29:02,030 --> 00:29:16,070
I can't, I don't manage the program, definitely a great question is that it's a voluntary program that homeowners can apply to to then basically work on that valuation.

328
00:29:16,790 --> 00:29:26,510
the traditional bioprograms are often pre-disaster dollar amounts, but in

329
00:29:26,510 --> 00:29:30,890
core they have their own program that they're running which is actually current

330
00:29:30,890 --> 00:29:37,470
market value. So there are different options. North Carolina is really on the

331
00:29:37,470 --> 00:29:42,470
leading edge of so much of these issues because of all the threats that are

332
00:29:42,470 --> 00:29:53,490
faced, so I think that that is a really important point that our work will often times imagine

333
00:29:53,490 --> 00:29:59,970
very large things that impact individuals and then it creates a conversation.

334
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:09,340
What is your experience, what is your risk? Are you interested in moving or elevating or just

335
00:30:09,340 --> 00:30:17,140
rebuilding like it is? So we don't come in kind of carrying a mandate to have people move.

336
00:30:17,620 --> 00:30:23,320
It's really a discussion and then talking about the risks through detailed analysis so

337
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:27,920
that every individual is armed with information related

338
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,300
to their issues so they can make the best decision

339
00:30:30,300 --> 00:30:31,320
for them and their families.

340
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:34,260
And oftentimes, that's a challenge when you're talking

341
00:30:34,260 --> 00:30:37,100
about communities where a lot of folks have been impacted.

342
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:38,940
It can be hard to get to that level.

343
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:41,460
And so we can't do it everywhere.

344
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:44,940
But within these hotspot areas, it allows us to kind

345
00:30:44,940 --> 00:30:48,000
of scale it, at least within our lab's capacity,

346
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:50,960
to be able to look at those things on a lot by lot,

347
00:30:52,200 --> 00:31:00,440
Yeah, because one side of the block, you might elevate, need to elevate one foot to be where you need to be, which kind of creates a nice place for a porch.

348
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:05,540
Other end of the block, it might be eight feet. And do you want to live in a house that's eight feet there?

349
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:14,660
Those are the conversations about insurance. Can you afford, can you agent this place? What are the dollars and cents of it, too?

350
00:31:14,900 --> 00:31:18,680
So hard discussions, but ones that need to be had.

351
00:31:26,230 --> 00:31:29,110
Thank you, and we look forward to the next presentation.

352
00:31:29,470 --> 00:31:30,630
Thank you very much.

353
00:31:30,770 --> 00:31:32,910
Thank you for allowing us to come and be a part of your community.

354
00:31:33,210 --> 00:31:34,230
Yeah, and thanks for coming up.

355
00:31:34,770 --> 00:31:36,690
Thanks for leaving Raleigh and coming west.

356
00:31:37,070 --> 00:31:38,330
I wish I could stay longer.

357
00:31:39,830 --> 00:31:41,730
Yeah, especially since summer's getting here.

358
00:31:41,910 --> 00:31:43,010
You don't want to be in Raleigh in the summer.

359
00:31:43,690 --> 00:31:44,030
Agreed.

360
00:31:44,250 --> 00:31:45,930
All right, great.

361
00:31:46,130 --> 00:31:46,430
Thank you.

362
00:31:51,180 --> 00:31:56,240
The next item under administrative agency reports and presentations

363
00:31:56,240 --> 00:32:01,860
will be the presentation of the manager's recommended budget for fiscal year 2023-2024.

364
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:04,720
And we have our county manager, Brian, more ahead.

365
00:32:05,260 --> 00:32:05,780
Welcome, Brian.

366
00:32:19,310 --> 00:32:21,050
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, commissioners.

367
00:32:22,850 --> 00:32:28,390
I'm happy to present the recommended budget for FY 24 to the night.

368
00:32:28,730 --> 00:32:32,970
It's prepared along the guidelines established by the local government budget and

369
00:32:32,970 --> 00:32:33,990
fiscal control act.

370
00:32:34,170 --> 00:32:38,370
It's balanced and will spend a few minutes coming through it.

371
00:32:38,370 --> 00:32:47,370
I would like this to be more conversational, so if you have any questions, just please stop me and I'll answer them or just let me know.

372
00:32:52,750 --> 00:33:05,130
First off, to talk about property tax, that's the bulk of our revenue, and you can see from current year adopted FY23, we have about $52.1 million in property tax.

373
00:33:05,130 --> 00:33:14,090
I'm sorry, you should have a handout of this in front of you, smaller, some notes pages if you need that.

374
00:33:16,130 --> 00:33:26,030
FY24, keeping the tax rate at 53.5 cents would generate about 53.6 million or an increase of 1.45 million.

375
00:33:27,370 --> 00:33:31,330
But I'm recommending a tax increase of 1.5 cents.

376
00:33:31,330 --> 00:33:42,090
And we'll get to that, but typically the things that are driving this are all related to expanding the school resource officer program,

377
00:33:42,350 --> 00:33:46,810
making sure that all of our schools are covered with an SRO.

378
00:33:47,710 --> 00:33:56,250
But we'll spend some time talking about revenues and we get to the expenditures, I'll take a deeper dive into the school resource officer program.

379
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:06,860
With natural growth, we have about that 1.453 million increase.

380
00:34:07,340 --> 00:34:10,020
Real property is our largest component of that.

381
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:26,860
It's increasing $727,000, vehicle tax increasing about $222,000, personal property, $440,000 in corporate or utility or SBA depends on how you want to talk about it.

382
00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:28,040
It's $44,000.

383
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:30,080
That's at the natural growth.

384
00:34:34,660 --> 00:34:41,660
With the tax increase of 1.5 cents, real property is actually increasing 1.95 million motor vehicle tax,

385
00:34:42,180 --> 00:34:51,420
340,000 personal property, 543,000, and corporate utility tax is increasing 94,000.

386
00:34:55,390 --> 00:34:59,230
Sales tax is also a major revenue from

387
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:26,380
The current year of 21.9 million, we expected growth to 24 million, $26,765, a pretty large increase. But the current year, FY23, estimates are very conservative. So we looked at our end of year expected and increased next year's sales tax in that three to three and a half percent range.

388
00:35:26,380 --> 00:35:33,360
This gives you a little bit more feel for how the sales tax is divided up.

389
00:35:33,900 --> 00:35:39,320
Remember there are a local designation for Haywood Community College.

390
00:35:40,780 --> 00:35:43,200
That's the blue bar.

391
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:48,480
The orange bar is actually those designations for sales tax by the State Statute.

392
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:57,300
And then the green bar is, are the funds that you have available to fund projects at your discretion.

393
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:06,080
So when you see that, the county's portion of 15.88 is increasing by 1.38 million.

394
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:17,620
Community college is up $467,000, and I'm sorry, the school system's up 467 and the community college is up 261,000.

395
00:36:20,660 --> 00:36:26,460
Other taxes in licensing or licenses is showing a decrease.

396
00:36:27,370 --> 00:36:35,180
The adopted FY23 of 4.149 million actually includes the TDA tax.

397
00:36:35,900 --> 00:36:41,780
And because TDA or the occupancy tax however you want to talk about it is designated by state statute.

398
00:36:42,340 --> 00:36:44,720
We talked to the auditors about pulling that out.

399
00:36:44,940 --> 00:36:48,180
And so going forward, it will not be in the general fund.

400
00:36:48,180 --> 00:36:52,900
we're going to put it in a special revenue fund, and I think because those are designated

401
00:36:52,900 --> 00:36:58,020
funds that are actually outside of the control of this board, I think having those in a special

402
00:36:58,020 --> 00:37:05,860
revenue fund makes sense. It looks like a huge drop, but when you control for that, it's an actual

403
00:37:05,860 --> 00:37:16,260
increase of about $38,000 for next year. The TDA tax is $1.9 million of the 4.149 of current year.

404
00:37:18,180 --> 00:37:19,360
Any questions on that?

405
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:31,940
Pilled payment and lieu of taxes in our beer and wine, we put together, it's staying flat, of $592,000.

406
00:37:32,240 --> 00:37:38,260
You can see the actuals for the last two years are in the range, so we're comfortable leaving that flat for next year.

407
00:37:39,860 --> 00:37:44,860
Restricting intergovernmental is a lot of different accounts, but

408
00:37:44,860 --> 00:37:50,160
But basically the majority of it is related to health and human services, funds that come

409
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:52,820
in for either DSS or health department functions.

410
00:37:53,460 --> 00:37:56,400
It's a decrease of $195,000.

411
00:37:56,400 --> 00:38:00,880
Actually, there were some increases in this category, but we've got two major decreases.

412
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:05,580
The dental clinic revenue is down $391,000.

413
00:38:05,720 --> 00:38:08,720
We aren't seeing the number of patients that we had planned this year.

414
00:38:09,260 --> 00:38:13,140
But on the other side of that, the expenditures aren't quite as much either.

415
00:38:13,140 --> 00:38:21,060
And for next year, we actually see a decrease in boarding home payments related to foster care.

416
00:38:21,220 --> 00:38:23,760
It's a decrease of $103,000.

417
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:30,700
So if we weren't for those two, those total $495,000 together, we wouldn't have a decrease.

418
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:35,000
But those two are major decreases that we're having to absorb elsewhere.

419
00:38:39,850 --> 00:38:40,830
Permits and fees.

420
00:38:40,830 --> 00:38:51,350
This is up $325,000, and it's basically all for development services or inspection fees.

421
00:38:51,730 --> 00:39:00,410
Later on the engine, you'll have a fee schedule, so we've went ahead and put those fees in for

422
00:39:00,410 --> 00:39:04,770
next year, reflecting an increase of $325,000 for inspections.

423
00:39:04,770 --> 00:39:08,070
We did have a slight drop in pistol permits.

424
00:39:08,510 --> 00:39:12,630
You may have heard a few weeks ago the General Assembly did away with that pistol permit fee.

425
00:39:13,030 --> 00:39:17,250
That was $9,000 in revenue, but it was in this category.

426
00:39:26,670 --> 00:39:30,530
Sills and services is up slightly at $158,800.

427
00:39:31,070 --> 00:39:33,270
The bulk of that is ambulance fees.

428
00:39:33,510 --> 00:39:35,710
They are up $125,000.

429
00:39:36,190 --> 00:39:41,910
And we also have about $75,000 new money in North Carolina, Medicaid managed care.

430
00:39:41,910 --> 00:39:44,430
It's a new revenue source for us.

431
00:39:45,010 --> 00:39:51,290
So those two have added some new revenue to sales and service.

432
00:39:53,270 --> 00:39:57,190
One of the largest and I guess everyone knows that interest rates are up.

433
00:39:57,430 --> 00:39:59,610
That's bad when you're borrowing money.

434
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:27,200
But because we invest our auto cash, we have an increase of $750,000 next year. Just to give you some context, a one-day yield last May 9th of 2022, we were getting about 0.57% interest. Same day, May 9th of 2023, we're getting 4.99% interest. So, as the rates are up, the amount of interest that we receive is up.

435
00:40:29,340 --> 00:40:33,400
Ms. Linius revenue shows a decrease of just over $37,000.

436
00:40:33,740 --> 00:40:36,000
This is sort of a catch-all account.

437
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:40,640
The largest drops we're seeing are related to donations.

438
00:40:41,340 --> 00:40:43,440
Meals on wheels receives donations.

439
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:46,100
They alone are down in about $16,000.

440
00:40:46,780 --> 00:40:52,300
So maybe the donations come in, but right now we don't feel comfortable budgeting and

441
00:40:52,300 --> 00:40:53,460
increase or even flat.

442
00:40:55,250 --> 00:40:59,110
That's sort of a summary of the revenues.

443
00:40:59,650 --> 00:41:02,170
Are there any questions before we start talking about the expenditures?

444
00:41:04,010 --> 00:41:04,110
Okay?

445
00:41:06,490 --> 00:41:25,230
So the School Resource Officer Program, we currently have eight schools that do not have a school resource officer as I've worked with the sheriff and the board to come up with a plan to see if we could provide coverage for all of those schools.

446
00:41:25,230 --> 00:41:26,310
that do not have an officer.

447
00:41:27,070 --> 00:41:34,350
So this budget does fund eight positions, that salaries, benefits, operating, and significant capital costs.

448
00:41:35,530 --> 00:41:45,270
The budget also funds the pay plan, a merit in cola, everyone knows we're in a really tough spot to attract and keep good employees.

449
00:41:46,030 --> 00:41:54,410
So in this budget we have an ink of a 4% cola and up to a 2% merit, that's roughly 6% combined.

450
00:41:54,410 --> 00:42:01,450
When you look at February's cost of living or the CPI consumer price index,

451
00:42:01,590 --> 00:42:10,050
it was at 6.19% over the prior February, so I think 6% keeps us and keeps our employees at market.

452
00:42:10,830 --> 00:42:15,810
We do lose some employees, but we aren't losing many employees for pay.

453
00:42:16,450 --> 00:42:22,550
And I think keeping this at 6% is a way that we keep folks able to serve the public.

454
00:42:23,390 --> 00:42:40,450
One other thing that I do want to mention that's in there, we have funds when we implement the Cola and Merit, if the board approves it, we also have funds to make sure that all of our employees, full-time employees with benefits will be all at $15 or better.

455
00:42:40,990 --> 00:42:46,550
That's something that we've worked at over the last couple of years, but this gets them to $15 an hour.

456
00:42:47,770 --> 00:42:52,010
We also have some increases related to the local government retirement system.

457
00:42:52,130 --> 00:42:56,250
The state changes that employer contribution every year.

458
00:42:56,450 --> 00:43:00,010
That's costing us about $531,000 more next year.

459
00:43:00,410 --> 00:43:07,410
And health insurance for existing and retiree insurance employees is about $658,000.

460
00:43:08,150 --> 00:43:14,690
We also have some increases in foster care that continues to increase.

461
00:43:14,690 --> 00:43:19,510
We have an increase of a little over $330,000 for foster care next year.

462
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:29,960
So, mentioned earlier, a penny and a half on the tax rate brings in about $1.475 million.

463
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:37,860
The expenditure side is a little over $763,000 for eight positions.

464
00:43:38,420 --> 00:43:45,520
Operating of 112,000 in vehicles and equipment is estimated at $600,000.

465
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:54,740
of the vehicle prices continue to increase all of the equipment that goes in them from light bars and radios and everything like that is driving it.

466
00:43:54,960 --> 00:44:02,620
So you can see we've tried to designate the full 1.5 cents for this program.

467
00:44:02,620 --> 00:44:02,680
there.

468
00:44:07,270 --> 00:44:08,930
Brown, how many positions was that?

469
00:44:09,330 --> 00:44:09,870
Was it on?

470
00:44:10,070 --> 00:44:10,510
It's eight.

471
00:44:11,130 --> 00:44:11,230
Okay.

472
00:44:12,290 --> 00:44:17,830
I also, do you have a breakdown of that, of what that calls the average household?

473
00:44:18,790 --> 00:44:20,310
I know we talked about that.

474
00:44:20,470 --> 00:44:21,250
Do you have that handy?

475
00:44:21,330 --> 00:44:21,830
Yes, sir.

476
00:44:21,950 --> 00:44:33,210
So, just using a $250,000 house, the 1.5 cents equates to $37.50 a year per year.

477
00:44:33,210 --> 00:44:37,730
That's an easy math, about $3 a month, so

478
00:44:47,580 --> 00:44:57,320
that's correct, to expand the SRO program because we already fund several school resource officers differently.

479
00:44:57,900 --> 00:44:59,300
That would give us full coverage.

480
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:03,280
Yes.

481
00:45:06,220 --> 00:45:08,960
I think right now we've got some part time coverage.

482
00:45:12,180 --> 00:45:22,640
Don't we have to middle schools? I'm not exactly sure how it's divided up. I can get that information from, you know,

483
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:38,380
I just know we don't have full-time coverage at every school, and we have a lot of schools that are very rural, out of the way, and it would take law enforcement several minutes to get there.

484
00:45:41,540 --> 00:45:50,140
On the employee compensation, and we budget these funds centrally, you'll see that later on in a non-departmental account.

485
00:45:50,140 --> 00:46:01,660
We have 2% merit, 2% cola, a little over 2.7 million, and that also has the funds to bring everyone up to $15 minimum pay.

486
00:46:02,380 --> 00:46:10,140
We did preserve the Christmas bonus, $175,000, fully funds longevity, and 3% 401K.

487
00:46:10,820 --> 00:46:17,780
One of the big drivers, medical insurance, our health plan continues to form better than national average.

488
00:46:17,780 --> 00:46:23,220
But it's still going up $1,000 per employee per year to 19-5.

489
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:29,120
Then just touch back onto the elders or the local government retirement system.

490
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:35,500
General employees, we're increasing again from 11.4% to 12.89% and

491
00:46:35,500 --> 00:46:40,900
the law enforcement officers are going up a full percentage from 13 to 14.10.

492
00:46:43,260 --> 00:46:49,320
We'll say the cola, if the board approves it, the 4% cola would go into effect the first full pay

493
00:46:49,320 --> 00:47:00,180
In July, that pay period starts on July 3rd, so employees would see that in their take-home pay on the check they received on July 21st.

494
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:10,660
We had a total of 28 positions requested for current year.

495
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:13,900
You can see only eight are actually included in the budget.

496
00:47:14,580 --> 00:47:18,600
The total cost of those positions would be a little over $2.7 million.

497
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:28,660
And just the position costs and operating for the SROs is 875, 315.

498
00:47:35,150 --> 00:47:49,610
Active employees, when you separate the cost, it's going up about $752,000, where retirees, much smaller group, only $67,000, a total increase of $819,000.

499
00:47:49,610 --> 00:47:59,730
dollars. You've seen this graph several times. I do just like to keep it on your radar screen

500
00:47:59,730 --> 00:48:05,250
that it continues to go up. You know, from fiscal year 19 to 20, we actually changed

501
00:48:05,250 --> 00:48:12,590
providers. We left Crescent and went to Edna. You can see we had a dip in its increase in

502
00:48:12,590 --> 00:48:18,810
fairly rapidly, but at a much lower rate than if we hadn't taken action in that fiscal year

503
00:48:18,810 --> 00:48:20,250
under 19 to 20 change.

504
00:48:23,780 --> 00:48:27,780
Operating overall, the general fund is only up $1.5 million.

505
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:40,920
When you start dicing that up by 1.5, 703,000 or just under half is for the schools and the college, 591,291.

506
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:46,460
Keep in mind that's based off of the new funding formula that the board approved a few weeks ago.

507
00:48:47,620 --> 00:48:51,600
HCC is an increase of $112,015.

508
00:48:51,910 --> 00:48:59,040
This equates to a 3.5% increase, much lower than what Dr. White presented at the last

509
00:48:59,040 --> 00:48:59,680
board meeting.

510
00:49:00,380 --> 00:49:02,160
She and I talked several times.

511
00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:08,620
She understands the constraints that we're faced with, and she's going to make it work,

512
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:10,700
but it's not without paying, that's for sure.

513
00:49:11,780 --> 00:49:18,560
I already mentioned foster care increases. Recovery court is in there, 230,000. That's offset

514
00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:25,860
100% by state grant, but it does contribute to the increase of 1.5. Disposable medical

515
00:49:25,860 --> 00:49:32,940
supplies, Travis is here. The cost of medical supplies continues to increase, and I believe

516
00:49:33,550 --> 00:49:40,180
almost all of that is related to the cost of oxygen. Some of the things we've faced, patients

517
00:49:40,180 --> 00:49:45,460
to stay on the vehicles longer waiting to offload, so we've had cost increases for oxygen

518
00:49:45,460 --> 00:49:53,120
over using more operationally. Utilities, we've planned on an increase based off of what

519
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:59,620
do energy is requesting so an increase of 53,000 and then juvenile detention fees.

520
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:14,280
Those are the fees the state charges us to house juveniles that are from Haywood County, and that number continues to increase. What they charge is up, and actually the users are increasing too.

521
00:50:20,420 --> 00:50:35,360
So the operating for the school system is up $591,000. Capital shows $1.25 million. That's an increase of $350,000. I think Superintendent Putnam talked about the ability for him to

522
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:40,220
to use some of their capital funds to replace devices when he presented his budget.

523
00:50:40,860 --> 00:50:44,340
And this is an increase of $350,000.

524
00:50:44,720 --> 00:50:50,200
And the debt service payments for next year total a little over $3.7 million.

525
00:50:50,740 --> 00:50:55,800
Both capital and debt come from the school's earmark on sales tax.

526
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:59,500
They're presented here, but they actually are not in the general fund.

527
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:19,940
Sort of similar to the community college's operating is up $112,000 to $3.312 million that represents a 3.5% increase capital we're leaving flat at $750,000 and the debts of $253,800.

528
00:51:23,620 --> 00:51:26,420
Vehicles, always a major budget driver.

529
00:51:27,020 --> 00:51:31,340
For current year, we spent a little over $2.1 million on vehicles.

530
00:51:32,060 --> 00:51:36,520
1.3 was just ambulances alone.

531
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:43,640
This board has been very proactive in ordering ambulances ahead of time.

532
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:47,700
So one of the reasons that we were able to show a decrease for

533
00:51:47,700 --> 00:51:52,740
next year is we already have on order ambulances.

534
00:51:53,540 --> 00:51:56,260
It's a much different story on when they will get delivered.

535
00:51:56,660 --> 00:52:02,640
They have significant supply chain issues, but that's one of the reasons that we are

536
00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:05,660
getting to drop this year is all the ambulances have been ordered.

537
00:52:06,860 --> 00:52:13,840
So for next year, we have 28 vehicles totaling $1.8 million overall a decrease of $355,000.

538
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:19,020
But all of these meet the requirements for replacement from the garage and

539
00:52:19,020 --> 00:52:24,320
Hopefully we can get those ordered and and take delivery sooner than later

540
00:52:28,500 --> 00:52:34,880
Capital projects we have some HVAC work. We have a hundred and eighty six thousand dollars budgeted there

541
00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:40,240
The Canton library bathrooms need renovation. We have sixty thousand there

542
00:52:41,140 --> 00:52:47,360
Peragon Parkway, we have $45,000 budgeted for higher suppression and lighting upgrades.

543
00:52:48,080 --> 00:52:50,420
And then we have 50,000 in for the armory.

544
00:52:51,020 --> 00:52:58,280
This is outside of the cost that we're working on, the project David got through the CDBG program.

545
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:08,020
It seems like it's the longest project known to man, but we do have $50,000 more in there so we can get that racked up, hopefully, and FY24.

546
00:53:08,020 --> 00:53:20,500
So, I said hopefully, gel expansion, even though the bids we received and rejected were much higher,

547
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:27,240
that does not overcome that the gel population continues to hit that 109 capacity.

548
00:53:27,760 --> 00:53:33,200
So I think it's next week that we are interviewing construction manager at risk,

549
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:49,760
This C-MAR project or construction firms, it's my hope that in June we bring back one that we feel that can bring in the jail as designed at a price that we can afford.

550
00:53:51,380 --> 00:54:02,120
And then because we've had delays, we probably have an interest-only payment and FY24, but a full year of principle and interest in FY25.

551
00:54:02,120 --> 00:54:03,040
Just

552
00:54:06,790 --> 00:54:11,810
to put it in front of you again, you've seen our debt profile, I think it's been

553
00:54:11,810 --> 00:54:13,590
official to keep track of it.

554
00:54:13,850 --> 00:54:15,850
It's a very healthy debt profile.

555
00:54:16,090 --> 00:54:21,830
I think this year it drops $390,000 on our side on the school system.

556
00:54:22,870 --> 00:54:26,690
You'll see we're still a couple years away from that balloon payment.

557
00:54:26,870 --> 00:54:30,910
You can see it at $2.3 million in outline years.

558
00:54:31,370 --> 00:54:32,670
And then it drops off significantly.

559
00:54:32,670 --> 00:54:43,410
And the community college, really all of the profiles except for a few peaks are very, very well managed.

560
00:54:43,930 --> 00:54:45,210
Those are great slides.

561
00:54:46,550 --> 00:54:46,950
For out?

562
00:54:47,150 --> 00:54:47,250
Yeah.

563
00:54:49,700 --> 00:54:56,480
Some of the things we want to talk about now at line years, besides the jail debt, is the operating and staffing costs.

564
00:54:56,480 --> 00:54:59,980
It will be phrased in because

565
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:29,800
Because we don't think that, you know, when you build 154 beds, that it will be all full on the first day, hopefully not. This is supposed to be in our needs for 25 years. But we will have to have additional costs for inmates, operating insurance, all of those things. Employee increases, this continues to drive our needs. Like I said, finding good employees is difficult. So we want to keep the ones that we have.

566
00:55:29,800 --> 00:55:33,280
Each one percent increases about $400,000.

567
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:38,460
Health insurance, I'm not sure what we can do other than we're investing in our wellness

568
00:55:38,460 --> 00:55:45,020
programs trying to contain costs, but as the costs increase, we're faced with those.

569
00:55:45,900 --> 00:55:50,880
And then the retirement system continues to be increases.

570
00:55:52,520 --> 00:56:02,140
HCC, we know that they will have to have some, as they modernize, they open that human services or health sciences building.

571
00:56:03,180 --> 00:56:06,260
They'll have costs associated with that coming to us.

572
00:56:06,580 --> 00:56:10,380
We also have the school system funding formula.

573
00:56:10,660 --> 00:56:18,680
If the student enrollment increases, we'll have to increase that per pupil funding 3.25% for

574
00:56:18,680 --> 00:56:27,760
next two years, after this year, inflation continues to be just an obstacle for us.

575
00:56:27,900 --> 00:56:31,980
We're faced with the same thing that everybody that lives here is.

576
00:56:32,580 --> 00:56:35,760
We moved some money around today for the Sheriff's Office for Fuel.

577
00:56:36,660 --> 00:56:39,300
They're spending $19,000 a month on fuel.

578
00:56:39,900 --> 00:56:43,120
So the pain at the pump, we feel it just like everyone else.

579
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:51,540
And foster care, I'm not sure exactly what we can do to curb that, children that need placement.

580
00:56:51,940 --> 00:56:57,860
It's our requirement from the state to house them and find them places that they'll be safe.

581
00:56:58,180 --> 00:57:00,240
So, and the cost just continues to go up.

582
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:05,020
And I just wanted to circle back to the library renovation.

583
00:57:05,480 --> 00:57:10,520
If it's a renovation or new construction, we're still talking probably eight to ten.

584
00:57:10,520 --> 00:57:16,480
And it may be even $12 million, but that's got to be an outline year consideration.

585
00:57:17,860 --> 00:57:24,720
If a full blown renovation doesn't occur, we'll have to talk about replacing the HVAC system.

586
00:57:24,860 --> 00:57:29,600
And I've chatted privately with all of you about the issues we have with that HVAC system.

587
00:57:30,240 --> 00:57:33,380
And we'll figure that out.

588
00:57:33,440 --> 00:57:37,600
But I'm sure that it will go out on a hot July or August day.

589
00:57:37,600 --> 00:57:41,760
and then Tam will be yelling at me.

590
00:57:43,910 --> 00:57:46,900
Just to give you some context, I thought this was interesting.

591
00:57:47,340 --> 00:57:52,460
So payroll and benefits, I went back through 2013 through FY22.

592
00:57:53,260 --> 00:57:59,080
Payroll and benefits have increased from 28.03 million to 44.6 million.

593
00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:03,340
That equates to an average yearly increase of 5.38%.

594
00:58:03,710 --> 00:58:06,040
The cost of employees just continues to increase.

595
00:58:06,680 --> 00:58:15,420
When you look at the value of opinion on the tax rate, from the same time period, it went from $693,000 to a little over $950,000.

596
00:58:16,800 --> 00:58:28,680
That's basically an average increase of 3.8%, except if you pull out the reval in FY22, because that was a 24% increase.

597
00:58:29,340 --> 00:58:34,720
If you pull that out, the value of opinion is only increasing at 1.24% a year.

598
00:58:34,720 --> 00:58:45,630
So while we're glad to get natural growth, one and a quarter percent is much less than 5.38 percent, just so you had that information.

599
00:58:53,030 --> 00:59:01,570
Okay, so the expenditure size actually increased in $3.2 million from $96.9 to $100.1, or as recommended.

600
00:59:03,700 --> 00:59:11,000
I think when you look at public safety, health and human services, and I'm going to skip over non-departmental to education,

601
00:59:11,000 --> 00:59:17,060
Those two totaled $3.55 million, or 111% of the growth.

602
00:59:17,780 --> 00:59:23,540
Reason I pulled out non-departmental is that's where we budget centrally the salary merit and

603
00:59:23,540 --> 00:59:23,860
coals.

604
00:59:24,220 --> 00:59:27,520
So we actually will spread that before the end of the fiscal year.

605
00:59:27,980 --> 00:59:34,040
And it largely will follow the lines of public safety and human services because that's the bulk of our employees.

606
00:59:36,080 --> 00:59:38,960
You can see a drop in economic and physical development.

607
00:59:39,360 --> 00:59:40,720
That's where we had.

608
00:59:40,720 --> 00:59:48,240
That's the category or function that we had the tourism development authority in so now that we've moved that to a separate fund, it's

609
00:59:48,920 --> 00:59:56,160
No longer there and then like I said our debt dropped off almost 400,000 390,000 this year

610
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:28,640
When you look at the increases overall, to the general fund, 4.1 million in salaries and benefits. This is the goal of the merit and the eight positions operating. We dropped 434,000 capital, down 100,000 and debt service, 3.9. So you can see basically, if it weren't for the cost of employees, the budget would be pretty flat.

611
01:00:31,740 --> 01:00:39,740
Even with opinion, a half tax increase, we need some fund balance to balance or at least start the year.

612
01:00:40,600 --> 01:00:45,800
But this is the fourth or third year in a row that we are dropping our appropriation.

613
01:00:46,300 --> 01:00:51,280
I think this shows that we're trying to get leaner as we move.

614
01:00:51,660 --> 01:00:57,560
Keep in mind, in FY22, we did hit fund balance for about $2.7 million.

615
01:00:57,560 --> 01:01:05,260
million dollars, but that was largely moving school and college funds out of the general fund to their own funds.

616
01:01:05,460 --> 01:01:14,740
So this is not a trend I like to see, but our revenues are coming in over budget, our expenditures under budget.

617
01:01:15,180 --> 01:01:20,640
So I feel like this is a good approach for the upcoming fiscal year.

618
01:01:24,600 --> 01:01:28,860
Okay, I'm going to spend more time than anybody cares talking about these other funds.

619
01:01:28,860 --> 01:01:33,180
but they are part of the net budget and we need to review them.

620
01:01:33,680 --> 01:01:35,700
Fund 15 is our health insurance fund.

621
01:01:36,420 --> 01:01:38,700
It's an increase of a little over a million dollars.

622
01:01:39,420 --> 01:01:41,440
Fund 16 is our workers' comp fund.

623
01:01:41,640 --> 01:01:54,660
It's a decrease of $999,99 or $99,999 will like to be very specific, maybe just round it to $100, but

624
01:01:54,660 --> 01:02:02,180
And fun 16 is our workers comp fund and we've had really good experience this year, so we think we can back off of what we need to fund.

625
01:02:03,080 --> 01:02:08,760
Fund 20 is the separation allowances for retired law enforcement officers, it's remaining flat.

626
01:02:09,500 --> 01:02:15,040
The emergency 911 fund, that's the funds that we get from the state to run 911.

627
01:02:15,440 --> 01:02:18,660
It's an actual decrease of $192,000.

628
01:02:18,660 --> 01:02:28,120
dollars, and Solid Waste is coming in at $5,765,784, it's down a dollar from current fiscal year.

629
01:02:29,580 --> 01:02:38,380
Fund 29 is the Genoluska sanitary district total of $331,000. That's an increase of $13,877.

630
01:02:39,220 --> 01:02:48,320
Fund 31 is the school systems debt service fund at $4.957. That's an increase of $467,190.

631
01:02:48,660 --> 01:02:57,720
And Fund 33 is the community college debt service fund, total of $3.5 million, an increase of $253,800.

632
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:05,460
You may remember these three funds were set up mid-year, this year or last year, I can't remember.

633
01:03:05,840 --> 01:03:14,220
There are no changes to any of these funds, previously, they were not even kept on our books.

634
01:03:14,220 --> 01:03:23,720
but one of the gas fees changed it so now we have to account for it and they remain flat at 61,350,000 and 910,000 respectively.

635
01:03:26,170 --> 01:03:32,910
We have the new fund, the occupancy tax fund, 2.962. That's an increase of an even million dollars.

636
01:03:33,350 --> 01:03:40,170
Tourism or the occupancy tax continues to perform very well and so it's on its own fund and it's up a million dollars.

637
01:03:41,910 --> 01:03:44,290
Fund 27 is a road district fund.

638
01:03:44,550 --> 01:03:46,530
It's a total of 311,000.

639
01:03:46,910 --> 01:03:52,530
You can see here there are three road districts that are requesting an increase.

640
01:03:53,330 --> 01:03:57,570
Maggie Valley, 15 to 19 cents, that's Maggie Valley Country Club.

641
01:03:58,230 --> 01:04:00,790
Upper Chestnut, six cents to 20 cents.

642
01:04:00,990 --> 01:04:08,450
It's a large increase, but current year, there was a little bit of miscommunication with our spreadsheet that we sent out to them.

643
01:04:08,450 --> 01:04:19,050
So they went from FY22 to from 20 down to 6 cents and now they want to go back up to 20 cents and give you some perspective.

644
01:04:19,350 --> 01:04:30,210
Upper Chestnut is an increase of $10,000 current year, they are $4,311 and they're going to $14,874.

645
01:04:30,830 --> 01:04:35,890
So I don't think they intended on taking that cut current year and we cleared that up.

646
01:04:35,890 --> 01:04:47,090
And then Tuscala Park is an increase of only $1,330 an increase from 10,513 to 11,0843.

647
01:04:47,910 --> 01:04:52,490
We have asked representatives from these three road districts to be here for the public hearing.

648
01:04:52,670 --> 01:04:57,970
In case there are people that have questions about the increases, they can actually answer those.

649
01:04:58,450 --> 01:04:59,970
That was the increases coming from that.

650
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:14,740
The homeowner's association themselves, is that correct? For most part of think they act like HOAs, but they're the road districts, but yes. It's just passed through funds. We just handle money. We just collect it. We levy and collect the taxes for them. Yes, sir.

651
01:05:30,360 --> 01:05:37,040
So they're capped at 20 unless you all actually go over 20 or allow them to go over 20, I should say.

652
01:05:38,420 --> 01:05:46,420
And then the Fire District Fund, totals a little over $6 million, there are three districts requesting increases.

653
01:05:46,700 --> 01:05:55,320
June, Alaska, from 7.5 to 10, that actually increases June, Alaska by $197,067.

654
01:05:55,320 --> 01:06:05,020
$1,000, Maggie Valley going from 6 to 8, that increases their revenue by $338,743.

655
01:06:05,900 --> 01:06:11,740
And Wayne's going from 6 to 8 increases their revenue $179,855.

656
01:06:12,300 --> 01:06:18,900
And like I said, with road districts, we've asked those fire districts to be here in case

657
01:06:18,900 --> 01:06:20,960
there are questions about the increase.

658
01:06:20,960 --> 01:06:21,900
The

659
01:06:25,870 --> 01:06:29,470
budget will be available in inspection, Amy will have a copy.

660
01:06:29,710 --> 01:06:36,110
I think Will's already given a Kathy Vossler copy to have it the library and Joey is going to have it published.

661
01:06:36,830 --> 01:06:43,050
First thing in the morning on our website, the next steps.

662
01:06:43,670 --> 01:06:51,150
Mr. Chairman, you already talked about a public hearing that we'll have that public hearing at 5.30 here in this room on the 30th.

663
01:06:51,190 --> 01:06:53,150
That's the Tuesday after memorial day.

664
01:06:54,230 --> 01:07:05,050
and we'll get an ad to the mountaineer to announce that public hearing and then at the June 5th meeting, hopefully the Board of Commissioners considers adoption.

665
01:07:06,030 --> 01:07:15,750
That's all I have, Mr. Chairman. I'll be glad to answer any questions or set up work sessions, whatever this Board would like to see.

666
01:07:15,750 --> 01:07:22,390
Right, I know, I know what's on everybody's mind closing the fact of evergreen.

667
01:07:23,670 --> 01:07:29,710
What kind of a projection do you have moving forward as far as loss of tax revenue?

668
01:07:30,830 --> 01:07:38,550
We received the letter I guess three or four weeks ago where the company actually asked

669
01:07:38,550 --> 01:07:53,110
That's for us to write off 90% of the value, and Judy declined that, so I'm not sure the next steps how far they'll pursue it, but we know there's going to be significant decreases.

670
01:07:53,650 --> 01:07:55,870
And this budget has been very cautious in that.

671
01:07:56,390 --> 01:08:05,990
The natural growth we're holding our breath on, sales tax, that's why we aren't pushing the envelope because this is huge and we're being very careful.

672
01:08:14,930 --> 01:08:23,210
I think it will be next year that we fill the biggest burdens of that hit to the tax base.

673
01:08:25,340 --> 01:08:29,080
When I see next year, I'm talking about FY25, not FY25.

674
01:08:30,320 --> 01:08:31,600
We can have that.

675
01:08:31,840 --> 01:08:34,140
What were our fund balance currently?

676
01:08:35,540 --> 01:08:36,600
We're very healthy.

677
01:08:37,920 --> 01:08:38,360
I'm,

678
01:08:40,850 --> 01:08:43,550
I'm, of course, we only report that as of 6th 30.

679
01:08:44,310 --> 01:08:46,310
So the, the, the, you don't know it?

680
01:08:46,430 --> 01:08:51,930
Oh, if we, Chris with, yeah, we, we, it only comes once a year at midnight on June 30th.

681
01:08:51,950 --> 01:08:54,750
But we, we try

682
01:08:57,120 --> 01:09:02,760
not to, to, to, to overstate anything, revenues are coming in very well.

683
01:09:03,320 --> 01:09:11,780
We're comfortable that that slide I showed you where we use $5 million to help balance for current year

684
01:09:12,880 --> 01:09:17,980
We feel like if we have to hit that it will not be much more than a million or two

685
01:09:18,800 --> 01:09:25,840
It's nice knowing that we've got a comfortable fun balance. You know especially with what commissioner long brought up because we don't know what the future holds

686
01:09:25,840 --> 01:09:27,720
So that's why you have those

687
01:09:29,980 --> 01:09:35,100
And, you know, it's been with us longer, we've fronted some funds.

688
01:09:35,360 --> 01:09:40,120
We're still fronting funds for clean up of the Tropical Storm Fred.

689
01:09:40,420 --> 01:09:44,120
So we've just recently started the EWP program.

690
01:09:44,440 --> 01:09:48,900
This board awarded the contract to SDR for the temporary debris management site.

691
01:09:49,320 --> 01:09:57,120
So some of those things are, that's sort of why I'm hedging a little bit, is because we have a lot of outstanding, you know, seven figure.

692
01:09:57,120 --> 01:09:59,700
projects that we're working on and

693
01:10:00,460 --> 01:10:30,320
But I think all those will be reimbursed as well. But I know we've got to, we're looking through this presentation. I mean, we've got to take care of our employees, which is what you've done, you know, with the 4%, and the 2%, I mean, that's something I'll always been, been big on. You've got to take care of them. They're going to go somewhere else. That's going to cost us money. The other big, big item, I say, is the SRO officers, you know, the penny on the half. And I hate, I hate talking about an increase.

694
01:10:30,320 --> 01:10:35,100
more than anything, but also hate not protecting our kids as well.

695
01:10:35,700 --> 01:10:38,360
You know, we've got to take care of our kids and watch after them.

696
01:10:38,740 --> 01:10:42,820
And take the steps that we can take to be sure they're protected.

697
01:10:43,220 --> 01:10:48,820
So knowing that that's roughly on a $250,000 home $37

698
01:10:51,540 --> 01:10:54,080
for the year is not too bad.

699
01:10:54,100 --> 01:10:59,920
Even though I don't like it still, but like I said, I don't like not taking care of our kids as well.

700
01:10:59,920 --> 01:11:05,960
So overall looks like a pretty good tight budget and a good presentation.

701
01:11:06,640 --> 01:11:10,840
Thank you, and a lot of credit goes to our department heads.

702
01:11:11,260 --> 01:11:16,480
We did, we cut about $4.8 million out of the requests, and

703
01:11:16,480 --> 01:11:20,720
that wasn't in that's positions in operating those things.

704
01:11:21,700 --> 01:11:25,740
And it's not, it wasn't an easy budget to put together.

705
01:11:25,740 --> 01:11:33,040
There are a lot of tough decisions, but not what you said, to take care of our employees.

706
01:11:33,860 --> 01:11:41,300
So much of what we do are people in cars taking care of the public, and this budget reflects that, it really does.

707
01:11:42,020 --> 01:11:46,120
We can have this already, do you have a timeline on land if this budget is approved?

708
01:11:49,310 --> 01:11:54,890
I know we've been talking with the sheriff, and we've all talked individually with you about all the estimates.

709
01:11:54,890 --> 01:11:59,790
But just looking at a timeline, I was curious how soon would get that going?

710
01:11:59,970 --> 01:12:04,850
Getting to eight, and I don't want to speak for the sheriff, but getting to eight for the start of the school year would be tough.

711
01:12:05,590 --> 01:12:09,050
But if we can work with a guy with a gun behind me.

712
01:12:11,550 --> 01:12:12,630
There's a hard door stand.

713
01:12:13,650 --> 01:12:16,950
We're going to have a man in the address.

714
01:12:18,190 --> 01:12:22,010
I just said we made a lot of cuts, so I know there's somebody behind me.

715
01:12:22,010 --> 01:12:25,470
As a, he was standing back here smiling.

716
01:12:27,890 --> 01:12:34,990
I think initially what we're looking at is a phased approach.

717
01:12:35,930 --> 01:12:41,070
I have enough school resource officers now to maybe hit four at the beginning of the

718
01:12:41,070 --> 01:12:45,830
next school year, but what we're also doing is holding a school in July that I intend to

719
01:12:45,830 --> 01:12:51,990
send six or eight deputies to that will also qualify them to be SRO so that we can actually

720
01:12:51,990 --> 01:12:59,310
move forward from July, and hopefully by the end of the school year, have all eight positions filled.

721
01:12:59,710 --> 01:13:06,850
But understand that we have to recruit and get folks into the agency in doing that.

722
01:13:07,010 --> 01:13:13,330
If we just take what we have in patrol and operations now, we leave a great gap in our ability to respond to calls for service.

723
01:13:13,490 --> 01:13:14,890
So it's going to require some balance.

724
01:13:15,410 --> 01:13:21,230
It's also important to understand that a school resource officer requires by state training and

725
01:13:21,230 --> 01:13:26,830
standards, at least one year of having served on the Sheriff's Department, having 40 hours

726
01:13:26,830 --> 01:13:31,330
of specialized training is in us RO, and then we put them into the school.

727
01:13:33,030 --> 01:13:38,930
One of the things to really understand about what a school resource officer does today,

728
01:13:39,110 --> 01:13:46,690
and these are not easy things for me to share with you, and I will just be as honest as I can.

729
01:13:46,790 --> 01:13:51,210
There's a great challenge in this for me because typically school resource officers have

730
01:13:51,210 --> 01:13:54,830
We had some experience, we're probably close to retirement.

731
01:13:55,290 --> 01:14:05,350
They had great communication skills, new the families, and we're integrated into the community in a way that most deputies or police officers weren't.

732
01:14:06,050 --> 01:14:10,890
We still need that, but we also need is a combat soldier.

733
01:14:11,170 --> 01:14:15,570
We need someone that's capable of responding to a shooting incident and

734
01:14:15,570 --> 01:14:19,530
being willing to look at another human being and in the defense of six to 12 year old kids

735
01:14:19,530 --> 01:14:27,450
shoot that person dead. That's not easy for me to tell you. I've spent some time in

736
01:14:27,450 --> 01:14:31,970
combat and it's tough, but these are the types of people that I have to build within our

737
01:14:31,970 --> 01:14:37,830
agency and ensure that our families have a confidence in the men and women that choose

738
01:14:37,830 --> 01:14:42,890
to do this and being able to keep their children safe but also have what we call the soft skills

739
01:14:42,890 --> 01:14:46,290
to guide their families through life challenges that they experience in school.

740
01:14:47,130 --> 01:14:55,790
And the other side to this is to have, we really want to work towards building the image of law enforcement.

741
01:14:56,110 --> 01:14:59,970
And in a lot of the studies that I've looked and even through some of them.

742
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:29,940
My class is with the Sheriff's Association. It really begins at that elementary school level and the eight schools that we're talking about are all elementary schools. We've got them in the high schools and we've got them in the middle schools, but the elementary schools are where we really get in to building that image, starting that education and building those community partnerships between our public servants and the families here. So this, when you consider this and you look

743
01:15:29,940 --> 01:15:35,200
to understand that it's a very deep, my intent is to build a very deep and

744
01:15:35,200 --> 01:15:40,100
an ingrained community-based program that goes far beyond what we typically

745
01:15:40,100 --> 01:15:45,820
understood or necessary to be. So this really is an investment, it's an investment in

746
01:15:45,820 --> 01:15:52,000
our youth, our children, our schools, and it's frankly going to be a significant

747
01:15:52,000 --> 01:15:55,680
challenge for the sheriff's office, but I think we can meet it. I'm sorry to get my

748
01:15:55,680 --> 01:15:59,400
three minutes Amy didn't it does me okay all right so you almost need to be a

749
01:15:59,400 --> 01:16:04,840
little bit of a guidance counselor too and that's it and there are a number of

750
01:16:04,840 --> 01:16:10,460
programs that we have now and there's a lot of talk about having conversations

751
01:16:10,460 --> 01:16:15,920
you build those relationships the key is really not in the response we used to have

752
01:16:15,920 --> 01:16:19,180
a saying in the army that the battles won in the preparation not necessarily on the

753
01:16:19,180 --> 01:16:24,720
field and I'm applying that philosophy here within the schools if we know and we

754
01:16:24,720 --> 01:16:27,120
We understand those that may be at risk.

755
01:16:27,340 --> 01:16:32,080
We see behaviors that are suspect we start working on developing those relationships.

756
01:16:32,460 --> 01:16:34,140
We want to prevent it before it even happens.

757
01:16:35,040 --> 01:16:39,940
And that's the key to having those officers and deputies in elementary schools.

758
01:16:40,260 --> 01:16:45,400
And also understand that this is a partnership outside of just the Sheriff's Office.

759
01:16:45,820 --> 01:16:51,060
I've talked with Chief Adams, I've talked with Chief Sluder, and the folks at Mac Valley.

760
01:16:51,060 --> 01:16:55,460
and we're working to move forward together with this.

761
01:16:55,600 --> 01:16:56,840
So it's going to be a coordinated effort.

762
01:16:57,060 --> 01:16:58,820
It's we're not going to be operating in silos.

763
01:16:59,040 --> 01:17:00,560
And again, it's an investment.

764
01:17:00,740 --> 01:17:02,080
So that's what I would share.

765
01:17:02,180 --> 01:17:03,920
That's probably a very long answer to your question.

766
01:17:05,280 --> 01:17:08,960
But Bill, do you think you can per lack of a better work?

767
01:17:09,040 --> 01:17:12,100
Can you poach some deputies from other counties maybe to come here?

768
01:17:12,380 --> 01:17:15,920
That's a difficult challenge because they're faced with staffing challenges.

769
01:17:16,020 --> 01:17:18,580
And I'll tell you, we have some staffing challenges,

770
01:17:19,100 --> 01:17:25,440
But our surrounding counties, just looking at them seem to have more significant challenges in the staffing area than we do.

771
01:17:26,020 --> 01:17:28,100
It will be tough to bring them in.

772
01:17:28,220 --> 01:17:42,360
You mentioned earlier about part-time deputies, and we use part-time deputies sometimes to fill when we have a full-time deputy that has to be out, sick, or there's something that affects them where they need to be out of work.

773
01:17:42,360 --> 01:17:47,020
My hope is, a lot of this can change, the legislature is considering a number of bills.

774
01:17:47,180 --> 01:17:54,140
One right now would be, give us the ability to bring retired law enforcement officers back while they collect retirement.

775
01:17:54,860 --> 01:18:00,300
But they can actually come back and continue to work full time right now, they're limited in scope in doing that.

776
01:18:00,800 --> 01:18:06,120
And if that opens up, my hope is we will be able to bring some folks in immediately, but again, that's-

777
01:18:06,120 --> 01:18:07,540
Is that a way to explain the decision?

778
01:18:07,820 --> 01:18:13,380
Yes, sir, it's actually, if I remember correctly, from the report I read from the Sheriff's Association,

779
01:18:13,640 --> 01:18:16,340
that actually goes to the Senate when they come back in the session.

780
01:18:16,620 --> 01:18:18,400
There's a very good chance of that passing.

781
01:18:19,000 --> 01:18:22,180
I don't know, Sean, okay, he wasn't following it.

782
01:18:22,320 --> 01:18:26,260
But some of us are following that, but I'm sorry to mean to put you on the spot.

783
01:18:26,400 --> 01:18:29,500
I was just wondering if they had any further information, because you know,

784
01:18:29,580 --> 01:18:31,380
the legislature things are constantly changing.

785
01:18:32,140 --> 01:18:34,920
And so, and I haven't checked in on that in a couple days, but I'm very hopeful that that

786
01:18:34,920 --> 01:18:39,080
That will help us, and there's some folks that will be willing to come in and do that.

787
01:18:39,300 --> 01:18:41,980
I can say I'll that will pass because it's hard to find help now.

788
01:18:42,220 --> 01:18:45,920
I mean, it is, you know, it is, it is, it is, and so.

789
01:18:46,180 --> 01:18:49,180
And there's a lot of support for it.

790
01:18:49,240 --> 01:18:55,140
I hope that it passes if it does, it could significantly change or short in the timeline

791
01:18:55,140 --> 01:18:58,260
that we could actually get deputies and officers into the schools.

792
01:18:59,380 --> 01:19:04,120
So that's my hope, but I will keep you informed as this goes if this budget passes

793
01:19:04,120 --> 01:19:09,740
And as approved, the good thing is we was working very closely with the county manager.

794
01:19:10,420 --> 01:19:14,800
For the first time in the history of the sheriff's office, we're actually paying,

795
01:19:15,120 --> 01:19:21,280
we're hiring and paying recruits to go through basic law enforcement training to fill our slots.

796
01:19:22,320 --> 01:19:25,960
That's an important aspect because a lot of folks, all three were from the mill.

797
01:19:26,700 --> 01:19:30,360
All folks, all three of those folks can't afford to go to school on their own,

798
01:19:30,360 --> 01:19:33,660
take time off and then come and apply the Sheriff's Office. So what we did is we

799
01:19:33,660 --> 01:19:37,340
frontloaded all that. We're actually paying them a salary while they go to school

800
01:19:37,340 --> 01:19:41,300
with the understanding that they will be working for us for at least three

801
01:19:41,300 --> 01:19:45,520
years following that. Queen's been very helpful with ensuring that we get all

802
01:19:45,520 --> 01:19:50,120
that documentation together and so they have signed a contract to work for us for

803
01:19:50,120 --> 01:19:54,940
three years. The good thing about that as well is we're building them within the

804
01:19:54,940 --> 01:19:58,960
culture of our Sheriff's Office and we're more likely to retain them because

805
01:19:58,960 --> 01:19:59,980
This retention is...

806
01:20:00,000 --> 01:20:28,440
This is, in my view, one of the biggest and most important things to saving us money because it costs money to retrain folks, but to kind of bring them into the family of the sheriff's office. And hopefully they come, they join and they stay for an extended period. I know a lot of other counties have done that for quite some time, so it's good to see we're doing that. Good way to recruit and retain them as well. So I appreciate you work taking care of that and getting that done because that's something I feel like a huge benefit.

807
01:20:28,440 --> 01:20:34,600
And Mr. Morehead has been very helpful and guided me through that process to make it

808
01:20:34,600 --> 01:20:38,320
sure that we're doing in accordance with training standards and of course all the legal

809
01:20:38,320 --> 01:20:38,780
requirements.

810
01:20:39,040 --> 01:20:43,180
I'm very confident that going forward within the next year or two, we're going to see

811
01:20:43,180 --> 01:20:48,840
staffing levels at the very top, hopefully be able to fill this if the budget is approved

812
01:20:48,840 --> 01:20:52,180
for RSROs and continue that way forward.

813
01:20:52,180 --> 01:21:02,600
So it's from overhead as far as I know we mentioned the towns and I'm helping out are they talking like they have

814
01:21:02,600 --> 01:21:08,060
South from a vehicle standpoint or even a sorry standpoint. I know we we discuss some of that.

815
01:21:08,860 --> 01:21:18,060
Nothing official. I did receive some proposals from Wayne's and and Canton. And if we go that route to

816
01:21:18,060 --> 01:21:24,620
where the positions were funded as a blend of sheriff's office and a couple of the towns.

817
01:21:25,360 --> 01:21:33,140
We could bring down that price a little bit on the equipment, but not to use in a county term.

818
01:21:33,460 --> 01:21:36,040
I don't think it would be material as far as the savings.

819
01:21:37,580 --> 01:21:44,520
It would just be a way to probably staff quicker or more quickly.

820
01:21:45,660 --> 01:21:54,940
No, from a administrative standpoint or a management standpoint, it's probably better to have it under one umbrella as far as having it all under the sheriff's office.

821
01:21:55,580 --> 01:21:55,860
Anyway,

822
01:21:58,860 --> 01:22:03,180
you talked about that partner with the police departments and stuff, the municipality.

823
01:22:04,520 --> 01:22:07,740
Do they have any trained SOARps?

824
01:22:08,000 --> 01:22:10,520
They're not using it. We could use until we get these trained.

825
01:22:10,520 --> 01:22:24,180
I can't speak for them, I can tell you that there's an effort amongst all of us law enforcement leaders within the county to train together, get as many trained as possible.

826
01:22:24,500 --> 01:22:33,800
I would also invite that the chiefs of police to send as many as they can to the school that's being held at HEC in July so that we have a pool of ready available and trained folks.

827
01:22:33,800 --> 01:22:38,360
And again, it's very specialized, and it's going to be very specialized going forward.

828
01:22:41,260 --> 01:22:46,920
I know that doesn't necessarily answer your question, but our intent would certainly be to share in the training and have those folks available.

829
01:22:47,540 --> 01:23:00,840
I see some of them like at Canton Middle School where they've got local police that, you know, as SROs, I just didn't know if they had two or three trained that you could work together with until we could get some more trained or something to get SROs in earth quicker.

830
01:23:00,840 --> 01:23:02,920
So training is ongoing all the time.

831
01:23:03,160 --> 01:23:05,900
This is, you know, the training plan is not new.

832
01:23:06,700 --> 01:23:08,500
And our trainers have been working together.

833
01:23:08,760 --> 01:23:10,200
We've just kind of stepped that up.

834
01:23:10,280 --> 01:23:12,100
We're going to be doing things when the schools are closed

835
01:23:12,100 --> 01:23:14,460
for the summer, where we're actually going to be going

836
01:23:14,460 --> 01:23:17,720
to the schools and the budget contains some specialized things

837
01:23:17,720 --> 01:23:21,860
that will help us, some equipment that will help us train

838
01:23:21,860 --> 01:23:24,700
something called Simmunitions is what we're looking at.

839
01:23:26,100 --> 01:23:28,360
And without getting into all the details of that,

840
01:23:28,360 --> 01:23:39,540
But that's the key to making sure that if we have to respond, training and speed are critical.

841
01:23:39,940 --> 01:23:43,780
And the Nashville set the standard.

842
01:23:45,060 --> 01:23:53,000
And Nashville did everything that protocols require them to do, and I would sadly remind you,

843
01:23:53,000 --> 01:23:54,420
they still lost six individuals there.

844
01:23:55,240 --> 01:23:59,920
time and training equals life saved. Unfortunately, when we get to that point,

845
01:24:00,520 --> 01:24:03,820
lives will be lost. The question is, how many can we save by getting there quickly

846
01:24:03,820 --> 01:24:07,840
and having the training and the equipment necessary to prevent further damage?

847
01:24:08,000 --> 01:24:11,200
It's a terrible thing to think about. It's hard for me to stand here and talk about it,

848
01:24:11,280 --> 01:24:13,440
but that's what we're faced with.

849
01:24:13,760 --> 01:24:14,200
That's what we're dealing with.

850
01:24:14,380 --> 01:24:18,240
I was reading an article and it was talking about the shooter went to that school

851
01:24:18,240 --> 01:24:22,940
because the other school correct. Yeah, that they had picked was armed.

852
01:24:22,940 --> 01:24:26,140
And I have to say that Dr. Putnam and I have been in open communication.

853
01:24:26,340 --> 01:24:39,840
There's some things that we have to do to make the school targets undesirable, and not only do we want to harden those targets, but we want to make sure and send the message very clearly that if you intend to come do harm to our children, we're going to take you out.

854
01:24:40,680 --> 01:24:44,760
That's just, I mean, that's what we're going to do, and that's part of it.

855
01:24:47,060 --> 01:24:52,660
So, the training aspect of that and the plan and the vision going forward, I'm confident

856
01:24:52,660 --> 01:24:56,960
that we're going to be a lot better place within a year and particularly if this has passed.

857
01:24:56,960 --> 01:24:59,460
And again, any questions?

858
01:25:00,000 --> 01:25:01,560
I'm available at any time.

859
01:25:05,140 --> 01:25:08,980
Thank you. Stay close, Bill. I'm going to have you read that. Okay.

860
01:25:13,060 --> 01:25:31,560
I just want to make comment, and I usually don't make these national comments, but, you know, this health insurance is just, it's, it's, when you want to look at the graphs, it's, I mean, in 2014, it was six million, and now it's,

861
01:25:31,560 --> 01:25:39,220
13 million. And I remember in 2020, about that time they passed the Obamacare and we were

862
01:25:39,220 --> 01:25:42,480
supposed to have lower health premium and we were supposed to, everything was supposed

863
01:25:42,480 --> 01:25:46,680
to be cheaper. You know, healthcare costs were going to go down and they didn't. If

864
01:25:46,680 --> 01:25:56,000
anything, they went more. So we had to took the pathway dead by swapping. And you could

865
01:25:56,000 --> 01:25:57,480
Let's see that graph.

866
01:25:57,740 --> 01:25:59,720
I mean, it was a shooting straight up on my side.

867
01:26:00,740 --> 01:26:02,560
The substantial we did, it'd be even higher.

868
01:26:03,360 --> 01:26:05,840
And I know our wellness clinic keeps costs down because,

869
01:26:06,440 --> 01:26:07,720
you know, it's there.

870
01:26:09,640 --> 01:26:16,120
We've got some big drivers to our health plan.

871
01:26:17,320 --> 01:26:21,460
And some of the things that are controllable,

872
01:26:21,460 --> 01:26:25,040
and that's what we're trying to work on, as some of its lifestyle,

873
01:26:25,040 --> 01:26:41,600
Some of it, for instance, we've got a large number of employees with diabetes and insulin costs have risen the last few years like you wouldn't believe that we've got heart disease and diabetes.

874
01:26:41,600 --> 01:26:53,420
It's those things, but we actually are trying to implement and later on in June, we're actually going to do some biometric screenings, make it voluntary for our employees.

875
01:26:53,420 --> 01:27:01,140
We've got an incentive there to get folks the blood draws so they know their numbers, they meet with a counselor.

876
01:27:01,600 --> 01:27:07,940
If they go through that program, we're going to use the hospital for meeting with a nutritionist.

877
01:27:07,940 --> 01:27:13,680
So, there are some things that we're trying to do, so we can keep our costs from rising as steeply.

878
01:27:13,780 --> 01:27:18,480
I don't think we're never going to flatten it or see it decrease, but if we can just slow that growth,

879
01:27:19,040 --> 01:27:23,920
then, and we're up about 7.2% and national average is over 10.

880
01:27:24,200 --> 01:27:31,000
So, while it's a big budget consideration, I feel like we're performing fairly well, but I think we can get better.

881
01:27:37,620 --> 01:27:41,940
I'd like to thank you for the time and effort you put in on this and just for everybody

882
01:27:41,940 --> 01:27:47,260
else's information that's looking, watching this on the YouTube or in the audience.

883
01:27:48,560 --> 01:27:52,900
Bryant and Will and staff have been very good to college, one of us in individually.

884
01:27:53,280 --> 01:27:58,540
We've sat down and went over this line item, my line item, to try to expedite this public

885
01:27:59,340 --> 01:28:02,120
presentation that County Manager has given us.

886
01:28:02,120 --> 01:28:11,900
So we were all scheduled and sat down and quietly in the session is going over this budget and we'll continue to and so thank you, Brian.

887
01:28:12,280 --> 01:28:12,960
Well, thank you.

888
01:28:13,200 --> 01:28:23,400
And each of you invested two hours individually into this to work together to get something that meets the needs of the community.

889
01:28:23,400 --> 01:28:30,480
But also is keeps us fiscally sound is a tough balance or getting more tough to.

890
01:28:30,480 --> 01:28:35,840
I can remember from our auditors presentation, the last presentation that we got.

891
01:28:36,560 --> 01:28:39,660
Speaking of the fund balance, I know Commissioner Rogers brought that up.

892
01:28:40,300 --> 01:28:45,740
We continue, even with the projections of the jail project and so on and so forth,

893
01:28:45,740 --> 01:28:51,680
we continue to be in the upper percentile across the state as far as our fund balance.

894
01:28:51,840 --> 01:28:53,260
And that's where we need to stay.

895
01:28:54,800 --> 01:29:00,940
It's that rainy day fund, it's there for rainy days and with inflation, and with things

896
01:29:00,940 --> 01:29:02,940
going on on national scale, we're seeing right now.

897
01:29:03,580 --> 01:29:07,780
It didn't go unnoticed that you said that you had to make some appropriations for fuel

898
01:29:07,780 --> 01:29:08,560
for the Sheriff's Department.

899
01:29:09,980 --> 01:29:14,160
You know, it's just like everybody's household across America, the infrastructure going up,

900
01:29:14,560 --> 01:29:19,900
inflation is going up, the cost of employees, and I can tell you that the employee retention

901
01:29:19,900 --> 01:29:25,020
is huge across the state and I think you've done a good job of trying to keep our public

902
01:29:25,020 --> 01:29:32,320
served and to keep our employees here. So the challenges that we're facing with the

903
01:29:32,320 --> 01:29:36,840
mill closure and that ripple effect worries me. It worries me over the next 18 months.

904
01:29:37,800 --> 01:29:44,780
So we'll see where it goes, but I think we're really going to have to look really close in

905
01:29:44,780 --> 01:29:50,660
In the next phase school year, we're pretty good right now, but we'll just see and hope

906
01:29:50,660 --> 01:29:51,200
for the best.

907
01:29:54,670 --> 01:29:55,030
Thank you, Brian.

908
01:29:55,270 --> 01:29:57,630
I do appreciate all the staff that's working on this.

909
01:29:58,170 --> 01:29:59,830
I would like to invite everybody.

910
01:30:00,000 --> 01:30:28,740
To take the opportunity to review the budget, I think you said it would be posted online in the morning. And I'm sure if there's any questions, all of us will do our best to find the answer. It is challenging and to not make a political statement in any way. It is definitely challenging to be faced with making a decision on a tax increase. But I feel very strongly about how we protect the most innocent of our citizens. And it has now become the norm.

911
01:30:28,740 --> 01:30:34,560
it is we turn on the news or get notifications on our phone that it is almost daily occurrence

912
01:30:35,920 --> 01:30:40,700
and from my seat and likely from the gentleman that I serve with, I think it would live with

913
01:30:40,700 --> 01:30:46,220
us forever if we did not make the right decision trying to fund that SRO program.

914
01:30:47,020 --> 01:30:53,380
So I think it's vital to, I really believe it's vital to our community, I'd rather have

915
01:30:53,380 --> 01:30:56,920
it and never use it, then they did not have it.

916
01:31:00,150 --> 01:31:04,870
I face using and Commissioner Hanzley spoke about the targeted school in Nashville, it

917
01:31:04,870 --> 01:31:12,530
was like no gun, gun-free zone, the active shooter drove right by two places, had signs

918
01:31:12,530 --> 01:31:18,550
up saying that these people are armed on this facility and went to a gun-free zone.

919
01:31:18,730 --> 01:31:24,590
So, I know the state of Ohio has been working toward enabling teachers and some administrative

920
01:31:24,590 --> 01:31:31,830
staff to have guns. I think we're head of the curve on that. I think Sheriff Wilkins can attest to that and I

921
01:31:32,550 --> 01:31:33,790
I appreciate his stand

922
01:31:34,550 --> 01:31:37,930
Concerning our most vulnerable, you know, we need to let people know that

923
01:31:38,890 --> 01:31:42,790
We've got their back and if you try to cause harm to our children

924
01:31:43,290 --> 01:31:47,550
You're gonna pay and I appreciate the stand he's he's to come that and

925
01:31:48,150 --> 01:31:54,570
But as things change, you know, I think moving forward we need to be you know, we need to be quick on

926
01:31:54,590 --> 01:32:00,250
our feet. If legislative decisions are made where things change, and it's more economical

927
01:32:00,250 --> 01:32:06,370
to do another route, I don't think we should back off on safety. Something that's more

928
01:32:06,370 --> 01:32:12,270
efficient, quicker, keeping our kids safer. I think we should certainly not turn the deaf

929
01:32:12,270 --> 01:32:17,370
ear blind eye to any changing events at the state legislature or on the federal level.

930
01:32:17,750 --> 01:32:23,430
And I know there are a lot of proactive steps being taken in other states, so I'll just

931
01:32:23,430 --> 01:32:24,190
throw that out there.

932
01:32:28,130 --> 01:32:30,430
I want to thank you for setting down each

933
01:32:30,430 --> 01:32:34,150
finding all that stuff to me. This has been my first one. And this

934
01:32:34,150 --> 01:32:37,610
being anyway, but I appreciate you explaining everything to me.

935
01:32:37,790 --> 01:32:42,270
That helps me to when the people ask me something that I can give

936
01:32:42,270 --> 01:32:45,350
me more solid nature, you know, when they're asking me something

937
01:32:45,350 --> 01:32:50,790
about this. I agree with the rest of them here about the nobody likes

938
01:32:50,790 --> 01:32:55,610
a tax increase. And I sure don't like tax increase. And I, but if

939
01:32:55,610 --> 01:33:01,090
I think there's anything that we need it for it would be for the kids and I don't think

940
01:33:01,090 --> 01:33:06,170
there's too many people that would complain about a tax increase knowing where it's going

941
01:33:06,170 --> 01:33:09,990
and that's what I say when you explain it to us I believe that'll help a lot of people

942
01:33:09,990 --> 01:33:14,050
understand why if we have to do that we're going to have to do it and that you know it'd

943
01:33:14,050 --> 01:33:19,510
be for a good college instead of just something you know we don't have to have like that because

944
01:33:19,510 --> 01:33:25,370
one incident and it's too late I mean you don't get two changes at it you know but we appreciate

945
01:33:25,370 --> 01:33:26,830
and the whole staff at work time.

946
01:33:26,990 --> 01:33:28,730
We really appreciate it, because I know it's

947
01:33:28,730 --> 01:33:29,610
what an easy job.

948
01:33:30,610 --> 01:33:30,950
Thank you.

949
01:33:31,290 --> 01:33:31,530
Thank you.

950
01:33:34,990 --> 01:33:35,430
Thanks, Brown.

951
01:33:36,590 --> 01:33:38,110
Okay, we'll move on to the discussion of adjustments

952
01:33:38,110 --> 01:33:39,870
of the agenda, but I do not have anything.

953
01:33:39,970 --> 01:33:41,150
Does anyone else have anything?

954
01:33:42,770 --> 01:33:44,490
Okay, we'll move on to the consent agenda.

955
01:33:45,590 --> 01:33:47,590
We have eight items on the consent agenda.

956
01:33:48,050 --> 01:33:52,150
I want to have Sheriff Bill Wilkie come up and read number four

957
01:33:52,150 --> 01:33:54,830
because it needs to be said.

958
01:33:55,470 --> 01:33:57,790
And I also want to remind everybody that we will be having

959
01:33:57,790 --> 01:34:05,250
a following officer's memorial in this room on Thursday, May the 18th, 530.

960
01:34:06,130 --> 01:34:10,950
And we'll be honoring those who have lost their life in law enforcement in the line of duty.

961
01:34:12,190 --> 01:34:12,970
Thank you, thank you, Bill.

962
01:34:14,270 --> 01:34:15,410
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

963
01:34:17,530 --> 01:34:23,910
Proclamation recognizing May 14th through May 20th, 2023 is National Police Week.

964
01:34:24,750 --> 01:34:30,230
Whereas the Congress and the President of the United States have designated that there

965
01:34:30,230 --> 01:34:36,430
be a National Peace Officers Memorial Day, and whereas the members of the Haywood County

966
01:34:36,430 --> 01:34:41,630
Sheriff's Office, Haywood County Police Departments, and Highway Patrol serve an essential role

967
01:34:41,630 --> 01:34:48,130
in safeguarding the rights and freedom of the citizens of Haywood County, and whereas it

968
01:34:48,130 --> 01:34:52,990
is important to recognize the duties and responsibilities of law enforcement officers and agencies

969
01:34:52,990 --> 01:34:57,970
and to express appreciation for the contributions made by law enforcement officers.

970
01:34:58,270 --> 01:34:59,810
Now, therefore,

971
01:35:00,270 --> 01:35:28,250
Be it resolved that the Board of County Commissioners of Haywood County, North Carolina, does hereby call upon all citizens to observe May 14th through May 20th, 2023, as National Police Week in Haywood County, with a ceremony honoring our fallen officers on Thursday, May 18th, and publicly salutes the service of law enforcement officers in our community and in communities across the nation.

972
01:35:29,070 --> 01:35:32,710
adopted this 15th day of May, 2023 signed.

973
01:35:33,110 --> 01:35:36,370
L. Kevin Inzley-Cherman, Haywood County Board of Commissioners.

974
01:35:37,210 --> 01:35:37,890
Thank you.

975
01:35:38,130 --> 01:35:38,370
Thank you.

976
01:35:38,510 --> 01:35:38,710
Thank you.

977
01:35:39,290 --> 01:35:45,490
And I appreciate you explaining the complicated SRO officer.

978
01:35:46,210 --> 01:35:47,830
And I'll be available for more questions.

979
01:35:48,050 --> 01:35:52,370
And I understand that it's a program that's that we're building from the bottom up.

980
01:35:52,470 --> 01:35:56,550
There may be some changes and I'm happy to talk about those as they come about.

981
01:35:56,550 --> 01:35:57,610
All right.

982
01:35:57,670 --> 01:36:02,950
You kind of along the lines of National Police Week, you kind of have a celebrity on your

983
01:36:02,950 --> 01:36:03,670
staff here.

984
01:36:04,230 --> 01:36:04,970
Is that correct?

985
01:36:05,230 --> 01:36:05,830
Many celebrities.

986
01:36:05,930 --> 01:36:06,990
Which one must you refer to?

987
01:36:07,630 --> 01:36:09,950
I believe she's in attendance.

988
01:36:10,170 --> 01:36:14,470
Could you kind of speak to what happened to Miss Morgan at the state level recently?

989
01:36:14,730 --> 01:36:14,890
Yeah.

990
01:36:15,250 --> 01:36:15,690
Actually.

991
01:36:16,070 --> 01:36:16,310
Okay.

992
01:36:16,770 --> 01:36:21,110
I'm not going to look at her in embarrassment, so maybe let's have her come over.

993
01:36:21,690 --> 01:36:21,950
Okay.

994
01:36:22,310 --> 01:36:22,530
All right.

995
01:36:22,530 --> 01:36:24,550
I did not plan that step around.

996
01:36:24,790 --> 01:36:27,710
Thank you for doing this, Tommy.

997
01:36:27,970 --> 01:36:30,490
I'll take the credit forward, Jan, if you're embarrassed.

998
01:36:30,790 --> 01:36:31,770
I'll thank the blame.

999
01:36:33,810 --> 01:36:41,190
I wish I had the narrative that she had actually one of her employees submit her for

1000
01:36:41,850 --> 01:36:48,070
the North Carolina Association of Public Safety Communications Officials, which is the Association

1001
01:36:48,070 --> 01:36:53,930
for 9-1-1 personnel across the state, submit her for 9-1-1-1 center director of the year.

1002
01:36:54,490 --> 01:36:59,290
She was chosen across a hundred counties in North Carolina for that award, for the year.

1003
01:36:59,770 --> 01:37:03,570
Got to go to Wilmington, take her family for a few days down there, accept the award,

1004
01:37:04,170 --> 01:37:06,230
get some additional training and do some really cool things.

1005
01:37:06,350 --> 01:37:08,770
But I will tell you in the short time that I've been sheriff,

1006
01:37:09,430 --> 01:37:13,170
I can't imagine there's anybody who can run a 9-1-1 center in like Santa Morgan.

1007
01:37:14,750 --> 01:37:16,030
And I don't say that lightly.

1008
01:37:16,030 --> 01:37:19,810
Because every time I'm in there, her people are working very hard.

1009
01:37:20,090 --> 01:37:26,130
They have a great attitude, and they don't have anything but good things to say about Ms. Morgan and their job.

1010
01:37:26,650 --> 01:37:34,230
And as a manager, one of the most challenging things that I have found is setting the work environment in the midst of a challenging vision and challenges.

1011
01:37:34,970 --> 01:37:43,210
And she has led that agency through, or that center, through floods, through all kinds of things that have happened in Haywood County.

1012
01:37:43,210 --> 01:37:46,930
and she's done it by actually picking up a headset,

1013
01:37:47,870 --> 01:37:51,870
answering calls for service, and she just didn't show the way.

1014
01:37:52,210 --> 01:37:56,530
She actually went the way and got down there with her employees.

1015
01:37:57,810 --> 01:38:00,990
And so, very, very happy to have her.

1016
01:38:01,050 --> 01:38:02,350
I can't imagine anybody could do anything different,

1017
01:38:02,510 --> 01:38:04,210
Shonda, I know you probably want to say something.

1018
01:38:04,950 --> 01:38:05,350
Oh, yeah.

1019
01:38:05,510 --> 01:38:05,690
This.

1020
01:38:07,330 --> 01:38:08,010
Thank you.

1021
01:38:08,150 --> 01:38:12,130
I'm actually very honored and just thankful to everyone that's had a part of my journey.

1022
01:38:32,360 --> 01:38:34,660
I know your mom would be very proud.

1023
01:38:38,410 --> 01:38:40,770
Okay, so something

1024
01:38:45,090 --> 01:38:46,110
else I was wanting to mention.

1025
01:38:46,890 --> 01:38:50,470
Does anyone have any questions about any of the items on the

1026
01:38:50,470 --> 01:38:53,150
Consumption? Just to come in about item number six.

1027
01:38:54,530 --> 01:38:57,730
If you guys looked at the packet, there was a couple in

1028
01:38:57,730 --> 01:39:01,550
Heywood County donated $500 to our senior center for

1029
01:39:01,550 --> 01:39:04,750
gaming equipment and things to help our senior adults.

1030
01:39:05,610 --> 01:39:14,590
And I don't know who you are, you want to remain anonymous, but I want to give you a shout out publicly here in the meeting that you contribute $500 and we've got to run it through this grant process.

1031
01:39:15,030 --> 01:39:18,170
So whoever you are, thank you for making a positive difference in the county.

1032
01:39:19,790 --> 01:39:28,870
I actually served on that board and when I was first chosen to serve on that board, I was amazed at what that senior center does.

1033
01:39:28,870 --> 01:39:34,730
I mean, they do a lot for our seniors in the county, and it's very much appreciated.

1034
01:39:35,010 --> 01:39:39,390
I know I told them last week, and the meeting we had, they don't tell their story enough.

1035
01:39:40,150 --> 01:39:44,530
You know, they do a whole lot for our folks, and they need to be recognized for it.

1036
01:39:44,770 --> 01:39:50,330
While I'm talking, I guess, some item number eight, right, I don't know if you could speak

1037
01:39:50,330 --> 01:39:50,930
to that.

1038
01:39:51,010 --> 01:39:56,010
I know that's an important line item as well for our bridges and road repairs.

1039
01:39:56,010 --> 01:39:57,750
You care to comment on that.

1040
01:40:03,660 --> 01:40:33,360
This was some work that the state budget office has already completed. And I think state emergency management actually was able to help in funding, my understanding is they can't pass those funds from emergency management straight to the budget office. So they're sending those funds to us to in turn give them back to state budget office. So their funds stretch a little bit further.

1041
01:40:33,360 --> 01:40:35,800
to do more bridges and road work.

1042
01:40:37,160 --> 01:40:39,080
Yes, that's a little more not as I was asking.

1043
01:40:39,180 --> 01:40:40,460
I guess the biggest thing, that's good,

1044
01:40:41,760 --> 01:40:43,760
or not asking, but just one of the folks

1045
01:40:43,760 --> 01:40:45,960
to know that we're still doing some of that work.

1046
01:40:46,300 --> 01:40:48,480
So I know that there was a lot of folks

1047
01:40:48,480 --> 01:40:51,700
that didn't get qualified or not qualified

1048
01:40:51,700 --> 01:40:54,060
but chosen to have their bridges repired.

1049
01:40:54,160 --> 01:40:55,820
That was a big need here in the spot.

1050
01:40:55,900 --> 01:40:58,020
It's a big need and the meeting that we had

1051
01:40:59,860 --> 01:41:01,840
Bethel, I guess, three weeks ago

1052
01:41:01,840 --> 01:41:11,980
So we talked to several, and I've worked with Kristen at State budget on trying to see if we can get funds in place to help.

1053
01:41:14,460 --> 01:41:22,320
Jake, Mr. Stanton and his assistant from Transvany County all the way over here tonight, so we thank you for being in attendance.

1054
01:41:25,540 --> 01:41:28,180
Any other comments or questions on the consent agenda?

1055
01:41:29,400 --> 01:41:32,080
If not on the intent of motion, we approve the consent agenda's presented.

1056
01:41:32,080 --> 01:41:32,120
Thank you.

1057
01:41:32,680 --> 01:41:35,700
Like a motion to approve the consent agenda is presented.

1058
01:41:36,880 --> 01:41:37,280
Thank you.

1059
01:41:37,580 --> 01:41:37,700
Okay.

1060
01:41:38,440 --> 01:41:39,340
Any other discussion?

1061
01:41:40,180 --> 01:41:41,220
All those in favor say aye.

1062
01:41:41,500 --> 01:41:41,700
Aye.

1063
01:41:42,400 --> 01:41:43,120
Anyone opposed?

1064
01:41:43,860 --> 01:41:44,300
That's your names.

1065
01:41:44,520 --> 01:41:45,660
We'll move on to the regular agenda.

1066
01:41:46,120 --> 01:41:49,100
I didn't want to make a comment that I should have made in constituent concerns.

1067
01:41:50,640 --> 01:41:52,060
And Tommy sent this to me.

1068
01:41:52,160 --> 01:41:52,640
Thank you, Tommy.

1069
01:41:52,860 --> 01:41:59,840
So on Sunday, May 21st, which is this Sunday, there'll be the third annual WNC drug awareness

1070
01:41:59,840 --> 01:42:04,600
at 3 o'clock it'll go from 3 to 5 and it'll be at the open air gym at Lake

1071
01:42:04,600 --> 01:42:13,820
Genoluska. So I would invite the public to attend and this event so I do want

1072
01:42:13,820 --> 01:42:18,420
to give that shout out. Michelle Rogers is part of that and she's very much

1073
01:42:18,420 --> 01:42:26,160
involved in trying to help families who have lost a loved one's addiction. Okay,

1074
01:42:26,160 --> 01:42:27,820
Okay, I'll move on to the regular agenda.

1075
01:42:28,500 --> 01:42:32,580
The first item is to request approval to purchase one KME

1076
01:42:33,120 --> 01:42:38,140
sever side mount service bumper truck in the amount of $850,000

1077
01:42:38,140 --> 01:42:40,900
$3,000 by the Crabtree Iron Death Fire Department.

1078
01:42:41,300 --> 01:42:44,660
We have the captain of a Crabtree Iron Death volunteer

1079
01:42:44,660 --> 01:42:46,700
part of Parliament, Chad Moody, is he here?

1080
01:42:47,080 --> 01:42:47,600
Okay, Chad.

1081
01:42:48,140 --> 01:42:51,040
And Chad, I think you've got a lot of your members.

1082
01:42:51,220 --> 01:42:52,420
We're bored here, maybe.

1083
01:42:52,420 --> 01:42:52,900
Okay.

1084
01:42:53,440 --> 01:42:54,000
Okay.

1085
01:42:58,980 --> 01:43:00,640
They're all smiling back there.

1086
01:43:06,690 --> 01:43:11,050
So we have requested the purchase of 1K and me fire truck.

1087
01:43:12,030 --> 01:43:17,230
We started this process back in January, December, timeframe looking into this.

1088
01:43:17,390 --> 01:43:21,150
It's a two and a half to three year lead time on getting a truck right now.

1089
01:43:21,430 --> 01:43:23,410
Much like the ambulance is the county's dealing with.

1090
01:43:23,410 --> 01:43:31,250
So, we started the process ahead of time that need for the truck.

1091
01:43:31,370 --> 01:43:38,230
We've got one truck that will be 21, 22 years old when this truck arrives to be replaced

1092
01:43:38,230 --> 01:43:42,850
and OSFM requires a first out engine to be less than 20 years old.

1093
01:43:43,030 --> 01:43:45,270
So, this truck will serve that purpose.

1094
01:43:46,030 --> 01:43:50,090
The deal purpose truck will hold all the rescue plus firefighting equipment

1095
01:43:50,090 --> 01:43:56,470
to handle the majority of the calls that our guys need on a daily basis on one

1096
01:43:56,470 --> 01:43:58,110
truck. So you

1097
01:44:01,560 --> 01:44:06,220
might have been have you had your public meetings? Yeah, last Thursday.

1098
01:44:06,780 --> 01:44:12,980
So, last Thursday. Did you have anybody there about this? Okay, did you

1099
01:44:15,350 --> 01:44:15,450
might

1100
01:44:15,450 --> 01:44:19,750
have any questions? Okay, I just drunk last as long as the other one did.

1101
01:44:21,810 --> 01:44:23,970
So you're

1102
01:44:23,970 --> 01:44:29,010
your board of directors like all of them prove this and your finance officer

1103
01:44:29,010 --> 01:44:34,690
as far as your finances I guess you'll get with with Kristen everything's good

1104
01:44:35,250 --> 01:44:39,110
and your board of directors are they they in favor of this move this truck

1105
01:44:39,110 --> 01:44:40,090
yeah I

1106
01:44:46,810 --> 01:44:50,030
guess what I was wondering so when did you order the truck that's why we

1107
01:44:50,030 --> 01:44:54,870
don't order yet okay so you're after this meeting contracts will be column in the

1108
01:44:54,870 --> 01:44:59,350
morning right yeah column in the morning so you're looking at two and a half to

1109
01:44:59,350 --> 01:44:59,730
Yeah.

1110
01:45:00,000 --> 01:45:13,020
The other saying, two to two and a half years, but we're kind of planning three years. That way, we don't get a hoax. Do you think your truck will be okay in the meantime that you have? Okay. Okay. Okay. All right.

1111
01:45:14,680 --> 01:45:21,920
Okay. I'm going to take a motion for item one. If there's no other questions, I might take motion. Okay. Okay.

1112
01:45:25,180 --> 01:45:26,040
Any other discussion?

1113
01:45:26,040 --> 01:45:26,220
question.

1114
01:45:26,680 --> 01:45:26,860
Sorry.

1115
01:45:27,300 --> 01:45:27,560
That's okay.

1116
01:45:27,820 --> 01:45:28,900
All those in favor say aye.

1117
01:45:29,260 --> 01:45:29,600
Aye.

1118
01:45:29,920 --> 01:45:30,620
We want to post.

1119
01:45:30,860 --> 01:45:31,080
Okay.

1120
01:45:31,220 --> 01:45:31,680
You know what?

1121
01:45:32,200 --> 01:45:33,260
I'll thank you all for coming out.

1122
01:45:33,360 --> 01:45:36,060
He's got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

1123
01:45:36,480 --> 01:45:37,760
From the Fire Department here.

1124
01:45:37,920 --> 01:45:40,280
So appreciate y'all coming out and hanging in there.

1125
01:45:41,600 --> 01:45:42,040
Okay.

1126
01:45:42,240 --> 01:45:47,600
Item two of the regular agenda is to request to execute memorandum agreement with the North Carolina

1127
01:45:47,600 --> 01:45:52,900
Office of State Budget and Management for a flood warning notification project in the amount

1128
01:45:52,900 --> 01:46:17,140
amount of $1 million and to award a water level censored that gauge bid to distinctive AFW's design incorporated in the amount of $197,965 and approve approval for the county manager to execute related contract documents and emergency services directors Travis Donaldson's here today.

1129
01:46:17,140 --> 01:46:18,640
Thank you, Travis.

1130
01:46:20,400 --> 01:46:21,180
Good, Chairman.

1131
01:46:22,140 --> 01:46:24,760
And that was a mouthful.

1132
01:46:25,060 --> 01:46:27,680
Good afternoon and good afternoon commissioners.

1133
01:46:28,260 --> 01:46:35,220
What I've got for you this afternoon is approval of M.O.A.

1134
01:46:35,500 --> 01:46:41,720
for the $1 million for the siren, flood siren, rain gauge,

1135
01:46:42,260 --> 01:46:45,240
and river gauge project previously

1136
01:46:45,240 --> 01:47:15,080
We've done this on a different grant, this money is being repurposed and we're going into an actual different part of money to execute the same project with hence the new MOA and then the bid award is for nine river gauges, river monitoring gauges, just like the ones that you see along the rivers, typically mounted on the bridges with a LiDAR system.

1137
01:47:15,080 --> 01:47:18,640
that shoots a laser beam down toward the river bounces back,

1138
01:47:18,940 --> 01:47:23,720
determines level and flow and then two additional rain gauges

1139
01:47:25,940 --> 01:47:29,800
in areas that we've determined would be beneficial to know

1140
01:47:29,800 --> 01:47:32,840
what kind of water is falling in the head water.

1141
01:47:33,140 --> 01:47:37,460
So during the flood one of our biggest

1142
01:47:38,120 --> 01:47:40,680
issues was not knowing what was happening out there

1143
01:47:40,680 --> 01:47:45,540
with what was actually falling and what was going on in the rivers so this

1144
01:47:45,540 --> 01:47:51,700
project takes us many leaps and bounds forward in having early notification

1145
01:47:51,700 --> 01:47:57,380
that something is going on that we need to warn our citizens of once this

1146
01:47:57,380 --> 01:48:02,540
project is complete it's going to be tied in to a upcoming project to be able to

1147
01:48:02,540 --> 01:48:08,140
do the sirens for the early notification in the morning for folks in flood

1148
01:48:08,140 --> 01:48:13,780
the prone areas. So these are going to tie together nicely and hopefully service

1149
01:48:13,780 --> 01:48:18,100
well and build a warner citizens if they need to get out of the way.

1150
01:48:20,680 --> 01:48:28,360
So Travis, how long, so once the sirens go off, how long do they have to, I guess, go

1151
01:48:28,360 --> 01:48:30,780
to higher ground? Is that what that would be for?

1152
01:48:31,400 --> 01:48:37,480
Yeah, it's going to depend on the notification based on getting those out. And the siren

1153
01:48:37,480 --> 01:48:41,300
One project is going to be a different project that we're getting ready to step into.

1154
01:48:42,020 --> 01:48:50,880
The project tonight is mainly the river gauges and the rain gauges placed in the headwater areas.

1155
01:48:51,620 --> 01:48:55,580
I was wondering when you collect this data or this information, where does that go to?

1156
01:48:56,100 --> 01:48:56,980
Did you go to you guys?

1157
01:48:57,580 --> 01:49:00,480
It actually goes to several outlets.

1158
01:49:01,360 --> 01:49:03,580
There's state monitoring systems.

1159
01:49:03,580 --> 01:49:18,560
They're tied in throughout the state through emergency management, as well as us having access to it, USGS, everybody for the most part, if you've got a gauge, somebody sharing that information, so it gets shared with multiple, multiple entities.

1160
01:49:18,560 --> 01:49:26,570
I guess it takes everything in the consideration of the weather forecast is for more rain

1161
01:49:26,570 --> 01:49:27,050
coming.

1162
01:49:28,350 --> 01:49:28,590
Yep.

1163
01:49:29,250 --> 01:49:29,750
Yeah.

1164
01:49:30,670 --> 01:49:38,730
One of the very key to the cruiser area, River Gage is actually going to be there on

1165
01:49:38,730 --> 01:49:44,590
the tunnel at Big East Fort Trail, so we actually know what it's doing up there.

1166
01:49:44,590 --> 01:49:49,250
on that side of the river. Our first gauge isn't until the the big eagles

1167
01:49:49,250 --> 01:49:53,290
forecratch. That's a lot of distance that we don't know what's going on.

1168
01:49:54,030 --> 01:49:54,830
Where that started?

1169
01:49:55,770 --> 01:49:59,970
So if we know what it's doing at the tunnel, we have a whole lot more...

1170
01:50:08,820 --> 01:50:29,980
I just spoke to the vendor. He's saying five to six months, barring any issues, but he felt comfortable in saying five to six months from the time we issue contract. Do these operate on cell phone signal or on electric or telephone? They're a combination between past and past.

1171
01:50:29,980 --> 01:50:37,580
power, solar, and then cell phone, and then actually radio frequency. All the

1172
01:50:38,260 --> 01:50:43,920
rain gauges themselves operate off of radio frequency. I think I believe a

1173
01:50:43,920 --> 01:50:51,760
UHF system or VHS system. So they'll they will. That cuts out.

1174
01:50:53,970 --> 01:50:54,570
Would there be

1175
01:50:54,570 --> 01:50:59,170
like battery packs there? Okay. Yes. There will be redundant power systems and

1176
01:50:59,170 --> 01:51:00,510
communication systems.

1177
01:51:01,290 --> 01:51:09,510
Because if self-towers go out, maybe jumping again a little bit, but as far as warning

1178
01:51:09,510 --> 01:51:16,370
folks from the siren standpoint, will it be audible as well as a notification on

1179
01:51:16,370 --> 01:51:16,570
that?

1180
01:51:17,710 --> 01:51:17,870
Yeah.

1181
01:51:18,250 --> 01:51:20,530
These will be the siren system itself.

1182
01:51:20,690 --> 01:51:27,310
It will be audible sirens, no different, very similar than to what Clyde has, but obviously

1183
01:51:27,310 --> 01:51:32,950
in your technology to build and give people that audible signal to see

1184
01:51:32,950 --> 01:51:36,570
chiro ground strategically placed based on the needs.

1185
01:51:40,570 --> 01:51:44,210
I've been said many times, fat flood event had occurred at 4.30 in the morning and

1186
01:51:44,210 --> 01:51:50,210
instead of 4.30 in the afternoon, it would have been terrible, right.

1187
01:51:51,410 --> 01:51:57,290
So these sirens and educating people on what the purpose are, I mean, I can see where

1188
01:51:57,290 --> 01:52:01,890
where this could possibly say 50 to 75 lives in the event in the middle of the night.

1189
01:52:02,350 --> 01:52:03,550
Very easily.

1190
01:52:04,410 --> 01:52:09,730
And you mentioned there the educational, educational piece.

1191
01:52:11,030 --> 01:52:13,530
We've got funds factored into that.

1192
01:52:13,970 --> 01:52:18,570
So that once we get these projects, this siren project out there that we're able to educate

1193
01:52:18,570 --> 01:52:23,990
the public on what their response is if these sirens go off in the middle of the night.

1194
01:52:26,340 --> 01:52:32,420
It's going to be much quicker. I mean now Travis knows I mean the sheriff as well that when we have

1195
01:52:32,420 --> 01:52:37,280
these situations not only will we have to drive out and look at it but then we have to drive the folks

1196
01:52:37,280 --> 01:52:44,320
homes and tell them to seek higher shelter and so a lot of time lost here so like Commissioner Long

1197
01:52:44,320 --> 01:52:49,640
pointed out if this happened overnight that could have been a whole lot worse. So having this in

1198
01:52:49,640 --> 01:52:55,800
places huge. I know when I went to a meet and am round up crew so with Senator Corbin several

1199
01:52:55,800 --> 01:52:59,140
of the folks asked about some kind of an alarm system. So I think they

1200
01:53:01,660 --> 01:53:03,800
have one in Clyde because

1201
01:53:04,580 --> 01:53:07,880
I have some friends that live there when they heard the siren they knew they had to leave.

1202
01:53:08,500 --> 01:53:08,780
Yeah. Yeah.

1203
01:53:09,060 --> 01:53:09,500
Clyde.

1204
01:53:09,500 --> 01:53:15,620
Um, um, Town of Clyde has one that's based there at the fire department. It's a manually engaged siren

1205
01:53:15,620 --> 01:53:30,060
and I think we're going to make an attempt at trying to incorporate updating that siren there to be able to be remotely activated versus having to actually be there at the fire department to be able to turn it on.

1206
01:53:31,420 --> 01:53:33,780
That was how long will it take for this to be implemented?

1207
01:53:35,200 --> 01:53:35,960
Do you think?

1208
01:53:36,680 --> 01:53:39,100
The rain and river gauges five to six months.

1209
01:53:39,100 --> 01:53:46,640
It's the siren system obviously we still got to go to bed and go through all the contracting processes.

1210
01:53:47,720 --> 01:53:57,020
I think that realistically the siren project itself is probably hopefully maybe looking at completion sometime toward middle to end the next year.

1211
01:53:58,160 --> 01:53:58,560
Okay.

1212
01:54:00,580 --> 01:54:04,220
Well, it seems like hurricane season is worse than the mountains and it is in the oceans anymore.

1213
01:54:04,660 --> 01:54:10,420
So, I just, you know, so, I wish she, I was hoping she was going to say bye, say bye to her.

1214
01:54:10,920 --> 01:54:18,720
We can always hope that sooner or the better, but I think realistically, I think we're looking

1215
01:54:18,720 --> 01:54:21,660
at probably a year out on getting that fully operational.

1216
01:54:23,260 --> 01:54:28,860
Yeah, and these funds are complements of the state budget management office, so thank you.

1217
01:54:30,600 --> 01:54:34,380
I'm opening up to remember, I know there are several people in them, maybe not several,

1218
01:54:34,640 --> 01:54:38,860
they might just be a few people here can remember when there was some fatalities in a flood,

1219
01:54:38,900 --> 01:54:42,880
similar flood of any of what in this body is drop stormed Fred, but back in the 70s.

1220
01:54:43,000 --> 01:54:49,600
You remember that, the young girl, there was a tremendous flood hit just to my girl burst.

1221
01:54:50,140 --> 01:54:56,420
I'd say that if those alarms had been in place in that day, that would save those lives as well.

1222
01:54:58,480 --> 01:54:59,960
And our folks...

1223
01:55:09,960 --> 01:55:29,980
We've been making really good strides and getting a lot of those that had needed some work for a long time, and getting those back to where they need to be. Again, if we know what it's doing on the mountain tops, we have a really good idea what it's going to do in the valleys afterwards. So, being able to get that rain falling.

1224
01:55:30,000 --> 01:55:34,760
all data on the head water areas is very, very key in all of this.

1225
01:55:41,160 --> 01:55:41,920
You have other questions?

1226
01:55:43,400 --> 01:55:45,820
Okay, can we have a motion to approve item two, the regular agenda?

1227
01:55:47,240 --> 01:55:48,620
I can motion to approve item two.

1228
01:55:49,260 --> 01:55:49,980
They're second.

1229
01:55:50,680 --> 01:55:50,920
Second.

1230
01:55:51,340 --> 01:55:51,980
Any more discussion?

1231
01:55:53,120 --> 01:55:54,340
All those in favor say aye.

1232
01:55:54,860 --> 01:55:55,040
Aye.

1233
01:55:55,400 --> 01:55:55,820
Anyone opposed?

1234
01:55:56,280 --> 01:55:57,600
Okay, so you know, Ms. Lanky Travis.

1235
01:55:57,780 --> 01:55:58,020
Thank you.

1236
01:55:58,440 --> 01:56:03,560
Okay, the next item three is the request approval to accept the bid in the amount of $24,900

1237
01:56:03,560 --> 01:56:05,020
for electric cleanup.

1238
01:56:05,020 --> 01:56:30,020
Electrical cleanup, electrical demolition of all unused equipment, installation of new distribution panels, and connections for a new, uninterrupted power supply, by Latham Electric Incorporated and approval for the county manager to execute all documents related to the back up 9-1-1 renovation project.

1239
01:56:30,020 --> 01:56:34,100
and our Haywood County Facilities Director, Tim Siskis, here to talk about that.

1240
01:56:34,460 --> 01:56:35,120
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

1241
01:56:35,460 --> 01:56:35,560
Thank you.

1242
01:56:35,660 --> 01:56:36,700
Good evening, commissioners.

1243
01:56:37,360 --> 01:56:41,640
I've asked Joey and Shannon to kind of be with me here at the same time we met.

1244
01:56:42,220 --> 01:56:48,700
Some time back, I started talking about renovating the Backup 911 Center.

1245
01:56:49,620 --> 01:56:54,940
When we started talking about this, it was very clear to me and Joey can speak to this,

1246
01:56:55,220 --> 01:56:56,180
at least I hope he will.

1247
01:56:56,180 --> 01:57:06,660
So that the electrical equipment that's in this space is, it needs cleaning up in a big way.

1248
01:57:06,800 --> 01:57:12,420
We've got unused EPS equipment, we've got unused junction boxes, large service junction

1249
01:57:12,420 --> 01:57:12,920
boxes.

1250
01:57:13,200 --> 01:57:18,700
We've got unused disconnects, distribution panels that simply need to be removed.

1251
01:57:20,310 --> 01:57:25,200
In order to get to a new connections for new EPS, we need a new distribution panel.

1252
01:57:25,200 --> 01:57:31,760
we need a new panel for branch circuits to be cleaned up and that's what this whole

1253
01:57:31,760 --> 01:57:32,780
project is about.

1254
01:57:35,860 --> 01:57:39,700
Outside of that that's what this project is. It's the kind of the

1255
01:57:39,700 --> 01:57:46,120
stepping stone to get started on the back up 911. I certainly entertain any questions

1256
01:57:46,120 --> 01:57:52,680
about the cleanup process of this project and we can entertain any questions about the back

1257
01:57:52,680 --> 01:57:55,060
at 911 center with Mrs. Morgan.

1258
01:57:58,210 --> 01:58:02,890
I've talked with the team about this in depth and that's

1259
01:58:02,890 --> 01:58:07,370
certainly a needed thing to get prepped up and getting ready for that.

1260
01:58:07,730 --> 01:58:07,910
Okay.

1261
01:58:11,800 --> 01:58:15,940
This sound like concern is nearing this clean up as far as interruption.

1262
01:58:17,040 --> 01:58:19,660
I guess we'll work through that as we do.

1263
01:58:19,720 --> 01:58:21,200
There will be an interruption.

1264
01:58:21,340 --> 01:58:22,060
There's no question.

1265
01:58:22,420 --> 01:58:27,100
It is our plan to mitigate some of that through some temporary

1266
01:58:27,100 --> 01:58:33,460
electrical work that we can do in-house. I think we've got a couple of recreational

1267
01:58:33,460 --> 01:58:40,380
staff and some officers downstairs that will be interrupted, you know, during

1268
01:58:40,380 --> 01:58:46,740
that time, but we've talked to all parties involved, minimal at best, but yeah.

1269
01:58:50,540 --> 01:58:53,800
We'll also have an interruption because we'll be replacing a lot of the

1270
01:58:53,800 --> 01:58:58,820
equipment there. So, Chanda's worked with another county and we've got a good

1271
01:58:58,820 --> 01:59:02,840
contingency plan in place so we still have a backup while that equipment's being replaced

1272
01:59:02,840 --> 01:59:03,960
in the works being done.

1273
01:59:05,040 --> 01:59:06,260
That's my next question.

1274
01:59:06,720 --> 01:59:07,900
We can talk to any other county.

1275
01:59:09,160 --> 01:59:11,540
I figured no one's going to be probably on top of that.

1276
01:59:11,560 --> 01:59:12,500
It's stainless transfer.

1277
01:59:12,700 --> 01:59:13,520
That's what we're looking for.

1278
01:59:13,800 --> 01:59:13,980
Yes.

1279
01:59:14,380 --> 01:59:19,640
And when you're talking, when you're talking almost $1 million of emergency equipment, power

1280
01:59:19,640 --> 01:59:24,580
is the one thing that can absolutely, as Tommy knows, it can cause electronics if that

1281
01:59:24,580 --> 01:59:25,420
power's not clean.

1282
01:59:25,660 --> 01:59:27,480
Your electronics are not going to last.

1283
01:59:27,920 --> 01:59:45,740
So when we are investing that much money from the non-on-one fund into that equipment, we want to make sure that power is as clean as it can be and basically you've got a building that's been used for decades for lots of different purposes and there's different people have been in and out. It's just kind of been added to an attitude to meet the needs.

1284
01:59:46,280 --> 01:59:49,720
So this will get us back to a good standard of where we should be.

1285
01:59:54,960 --> 01:59:55,940
You want the same thing, Chen?

1286
01:59:57,080 --> 01:59:57,180
No?

1287
01:59:57,560 --> 01:59:58,540
Unless you have any questions?

1288
01:59:58,940 --> 01:59:59,420
Oh, OK.

1289
02:00:00,000 --> 02:00:05,380
No, I think we have a good plan and I think we'll have no interruption at all, so we should be good.

1290
02:00:09,030 --> 02:00:32,110
Okay, so I'll entertain a motion. We approve item three of the regular agenda. Second, second. Thank you. Any discussion? Anybody think of anything? All those in favor say aye. We want to pose. Okay. It's unanimous. And then number four is the request approval of the additional repairs to Dacon H.

1291
02:00:32,110 --> 02:00:35,130
back system at our Paragon Parkway facilities.

1292
02:00:35,610 --> 02:00:36,150
Go ahead, Tim.

1293
02:00:36,690 --> 02:00:36,870
Okay.

1294
02:00:37,590 --> 02:00:40,690
This one is a continuation of the contract

1295
02:00:40,690 --> 02:00:47,210
that this board approved on 2623 with Bolton construction.

1296
02:00:47,210 --> 02:00:49,110
This was the repair component.

1297
02:00:50,420 --> 02:00:54,860
The original assessment, if you will,

1298
02:00:54,900 --> 02:00:58,080
was performed on 410 of 22 by Hoffman Mechanical

1299
02:00:58,510 --> 02:01:00,240
and Hoffman will be the contractor

1300
02:01:00,240 --> 02:01:04,320
that we will be engaging in this approval.

1301
02:01:06,980 --> 02:01:09,100
Once they got on side and started making some

1302
02:01:09,100 --> 02:01:14,640
repairs, they simply found additional components. And we were able to move a few things around

1303
02:01:15,040 --> 02:01:22,680
to fund this in this year's budget. So I don't want to lose my grip on Hoffman while I have

1304
02:01:22,680 --> 02:01:31,860
him and get these additional components fixed, frankly. And this list is, I mean, this

1305
02:01:31,860 --> 02:01:36,900
It's compressors and condenser fan motors and pulling the system down and waiting overnight.

1306
02:01:37,420 --> 02:01:41,380
And I don't like to tell Tommy what that consists of in decision labor.

1307
02:01:44,100 --> 02:01:49,020
And the die-consystem is extremely specific to Hoffman Mechanical.

1308
02:01:49,100 --> 02:01:52,180
That's the only company that's really ready to look after this equipment.

1309
02:01:54,340 --> 02:01:54,420
Okay.

1310
02:01:55,460 --> 02:01:56,720
You know, there's questions on that.

1311
02:01:57,580 --> 02:02:01,340
Even the name sounds foreign.

1312
02:02:01,340 --> 02:02:02,980
and they can de-

1313
02:02:02,980 --> 02:02:05,380
I think it's House of Finance, Mr. Chairman.

1314
02:02:05,780 --> 02:02:06,380
What is that?

1315
02:02:06,640 --> 02:02:07,540
Korean or something?

1316
02:02:08,880 --> 02:02:09,180
Okay.

1317
02:02:09,520 --> 02:02:10,420
This is what we got.

1318
02:02:11,980 --> 02:02:12,220
Okay.

1319
02:02:12,360 --> 02:02:13,160
I'll entertain the motion.

1320
02:02:13,300 --> 02:02:14,800
We approve item four.

1321
02:02:15,180 --> 02:02:16,380
Mr. Chairman, one second.

1322
02:02:17,540 --> 02:02:21,960
In this, the language four, I want to also make sure

1323
02:02:21,960 --> 02:02:23,740
that we add the approval for the county manager

1324
02:02:23,740 --> 02:02:27,060
to engage or to execute the documents.

1325
02:02:27,480 --> 02:02:30,000
It was in my presentation to you, but not in this.

1326
02:02:30,480 --> 02:02:30,760
Okay.

1327
02:02:30,760 --> 02:02:30,800
Okay.

1328
02:02:30,880 --> 02:02:31,860
25,000.

1329
02:02:32,480 --> 02:02:37,700
25,000, 957, and 64 cents.

1330
02:02:39,390 --> 02:02:39,970
Okay.

1331
02:02:40,070 --> 02:02:40,230
Do we?

1332
02:02:40,390 --> 02:02:41,090
Is that okay, Amy?

1333
02:02:42,430 --> 02:02:42,670
Okay.

1334
02:02:43,710 --> 02:02:44,430
All right.

1335
02:02:44,550 --> 02:02:52,330
So the motion will include what's written an item for along with approval for county manager to execute all documents.

1336
02:02:52,670 --> 02:02:53,070
Yes sir.

1337
02:02:53,310 --> 02:02:53,490
Okay.

1338
02:02:54,710 --> 02:02:58,010
In the amount of 25,000.

1339
02:02:58,010 --> 02:03:04,950
In the amount of $25,957 in 64 cents to Hoffman mechanical solutions.

1340
02:03:05,530 --> 02:03:10,030
Okay, all right, that's the motion, will you make that motion?

1341
02:03:12,180 --> 02:03:14,840
I make a motion to prove item four or as amended.

1342
02:03:15,220 --> 02:03:19,020
Okay, zero, okay, is that good, Amy?

1343
02:03:19,780 --> 02:03:24,700
Okay, okay, all those in favor say aye, okay, that's approved, okay, thank you.

1344
02:03:24,800 --> 02:03:25,740
Thank you, appreciate it.

1345
02:03:27,220 --> 02:03:31,300
Okay, item six is the request approval of a consolidated fee schedule and we have our

1346
02:03:31,300 --> 02:03:33,560
management analyst, Will Scarborough.

1347
02:03:36,260 --> 02:03:36,880
How would do?

1348
02:03:37,020 --> 02:03:37,560
Did I miss one?

1349
02:03:38,420 --> 02:03:39,140
Oh, I'm sorry.

1350
02:03:39,460 --> 02:03:39,740
I'm sorry.

1351
02:03:41,160 --> 02:03:41,600
Okay.

1352
02:03:42,260 --> 02:03:42,980
The horse is well.

1353
02:03:43,200 --> 02:03:43,760
How would you horses?

1354
02:03:45,020 --> 02:03:45,660
Will what?

1355
02:03:45,920 --> 02:03:48,800
I looked at him and he wasn't coming up because he knew I was wrong.

1356
02:03:50,620 --> 02:03:52,360
That's the first time that's happened all day.

1357
02:03:52,900 --> 02:03:56,680
Okay, item five is to request approval to award bid to Jackie Jones.

1358
02:03:56,680 --> 02:04:15,480
Cross our Dodge Jeep Ram as the lowest responsible responsive bidder for the purchase of 10, 20, 23 Dodge Chargers police package in the amount of $387,000 and to authorize the county manager to execute all necessary documents.

1359
02:04:16,420 --> 02:04:23,180
Chris, thank you Mr. Chair and Commissioners, I'm sure each of you are saying here we go again, Chris is chasing his tail on vehicles.

1360
02:04:23,940 --> 02:04:25,360
It does feel that way.

1361
02:04:25,540 --> 02:04:26,840
It feels like we've chased a lot.

1362
02:04:27,160 --> 02:04:28,040
But these are there, right?

1363
02:04:28,100 --> 02:04:28,640
Good meeting.

1364
02:04:28,840 --> 02:04:33,540
Just a little background information that Stellantis, who owns Dodge,

1365
02:04:34,200 --> 02:04:38,860
is discontinuing the charger after Model Year 2023.

1366
02:04:39,880 --> 02:04:44,460
So next year, the only thing we have to purchase and proceed rated is a mid-size or

1367
02:04:44,460 --> 02:04:45,320
full-size SUV.

1368
02:04:45,980 --> 02:04:49,420
Either an Explorer, a Tahoe, or a Durango.

1369
02:04:49,420 --> 02:04:56,340
ago. We got some information that there was some 2023 charges sitting on a lot, so we

1370
02:04:56,340 --> 02:04:59,980
posted a bid. Quickly, we had one bid from Jackson.

1371
02:05:00,000 --> 02:05:29,980
Thank you, Jones. They bid $37,378 for a proceed-rated charger that would meet our needs. They have ten of those on the lot ready for delivery this week if this is approved to not. So as much as we seem to have been chasing police cars, regular vehicles, ambulances, this time we finally maybe have found something that is going to be significant benefit to us. So the difference that I want

1372
02:05:29,980 --> 02:05:34,800
I want to share with you in purchasing needs, current year, a

1373
02:05:34,800 --> 02:05:41,600
proceed rated Durango is about $9,000 more than his bid on these chargers.

1374
02:05:42,220 --> 02:05:48,400
We've seen an escalation of $3,000 to $4,000 in price per vehicle with the new model years coming.

1375
02:05:49,140 --> 02:05:55,920
So it's easy to say by purchasing these now instead of waiting next year to purchase some type of SUV,

1376
02:05:55,920 --> 02:06:01,560
We can save about $10,000 per unit, which saves us about $100,000.

1377
02:06:02,100 --> 02:06:11,860
Don't want to speak necessarily for the sheriff, but that is just about enough funds to upfit all TN chargers with light sirens, radios.

1378
02:06:12,640 --> 02:06:16,320
We were running about 12, 5 or 13, I think, in current year.

1379
02:06:17,000 --> 02:06:24,840
So that just about gives us all of our upfit for free by acting early on a tip we got that there were some chargers sitting around.

1380
02:06:25,400 --> 02:06:27,240
in the far west of the state.

1381
02:06:28,580 --> 02:06:32,000
I happen to have a business with the county manager that day when I had a career, he had

1382
02:06:32,000 --> 02:06:41,100
a day off and this came up where he needed to put the bed in and he delayed his plans

1383
02:06:41,100 --> 02:06:45,620
for his day off to come and help save the county tax payer $90-$100,000 and I appreciate

1384
02:06:45,620 --> 02:06:46,020
that.

1385
02:06:47,400 --> 02:06:54,820
He rushed over here and done the paperwork so that speaks well and I'm glad we've got

1386
02:06:58,130 --> 02:07:01,130
I'm asking you to award the bid to Jackie Jones.

1387
02:07:01,310 --> 02:07:08,050
As the only bidder, because in our bid document, we had a request that these vehicles could be delivered to us within 30 days.

1388
02:07:08,550 --> 02:07:13,630
We had contact from other folks that said, well, we may have some coming, we have maybe one or two on the lot.

1389
02:07:14,270 --> 02:07:18,510
But this was the only group that could meet the guidelines of delivering all 10 within 30 days.

1390
02:07:19,290 --> 02:07:22,570
So we're good with the finance.

1391
02:07:22,570 --> 02:07:23,610
Okay,

1392
02:07:26,080 --> 02:07:31,060
I entertain the motion. We approve item five of the record agenda.

1393
02:07:31,680 --> 02:07:36,600
Okay, third of second. Second. Any other discussion? Okay, all of them is the

1394
02:07:36,600 --> 02:07:42,360
favor indicate the same. I. Anyone opposed? Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Appreciate

1395
02:07:42,360 --> 02:07:48,020
everybody's being proactive on that. Okay, item six is the request approval of

1396
02:07:48,020 --> 02:07:53,240
consolidate of a consolidated fee schedule. Now it's your turn. Will, so we have

1397
02:07:53,240 --> 02:07:56,560
We're managing management analyst Will Scarborough to present that.

1398
02:08:06,850 --> 02:08:08,210
Good evening commissioners.

1399
02:08:08,470 --> 02:08:16,230
I'm here to discuss the fee schedule consolidation again, and request the approval of that fee schedule.

1400
02:08:19,270 --> 02:08:28,610
So as we talked about last time, the real problem we were running into with the different fees is that they were all decentralized within the different departments.

1401
02:08:29,630 --> 02:08:31,030
Not definitely cause some problems.

1402
02:08:31,030 --> 02:08:37,030
One example is some of the departments would charge credit card fees, some would not.

1403
02:08:38,310 --> 02:08:46,450
Usually when people were looking for fees, they had to reach out to the department specifically because there was no central hub where all of them were contained.

1404
02:08:47,390 --> 02:08:54,690
And when making the budget, it's hard to budget correctly the fees if they change mid-year and

1405
02:08:54,690 --> 02:08:59,890
And usually when people would bring fee changes to you, it was whenever they re-did their fees

1406
02:08:59,890 --> 02:09:02,950
not necessarily at one central time period.

1407
02:09:04,390 --> 02:09:10,010
So what we think will solve this problem is consolidating the fee schedule into one

1408
02:09:10,010 --> 02:09:11,890
fee schedule that's centrally located.

1409
02:09:12,710 --> 02:09:14,650
And there are some benefits that come with that.

1410
02:09:16,030 --> 02:09:19,570
Those are one that is convenient because it's widely available.

1411
02:09:19,570 --> 02:09:30,330
And what we plan to do is get a page on the website that contains all the fees without having to have it separately contained to all the different departments.

1412
02:09:30,610 --> 02:09:33,790
So when you go on the website you can just find all of these in one place.

1413
02:09:35,030 --> 02:09:46,010
It's efficient because ideally what we'll do is during the budget process each year we'll come before you all, usually before the, well it will be before the recommended budget.

1414
02:09:46,670 --> 02:09:54,750
bring any fee changes, and then once a year you'll be able to change them, unless there's some outstanding circumstance that we can't control.

1415
02:09:55,910 --> 02:09:59,650
And then also it's accurate, and that really has a lot to do with the budget.

1416
02:10:00,000 --> 02:10:05,480
Make sure that before we recommend a budget to you, we know what the fees will be to be able

1417
02:10:05,480 --> 02:10:06,900
to make accurate projections.

1418
02:10:10,310 --> 02:10:14,390
So in the fee schedule that you all have, basically, there

1419
02:10:14,390 --> 02:10:20,250
are four different types of, I guess, changes that you'll see. The first is an update,

1420
02:10:20,550 --> 02:10:25,230
and basically all that is, is it showing if the fee changed either up or down or say the

1421
02:10:25,230 --> 02:10:33,410
same. The second one is basically we're incorporating new fees and that's usually denoted by the

1422
02:10:33,410 --> 02:10:43,030
new notation under the change. We've got a consolidation and basically what happens there is we

1423
02:10:43,030 --> 02:10:50,130
had multiple fees that we consolidated into one fee to make it easier for both the departments and

1424
02:10:50,130 --> 02:10:53,590
citizens to be able to understand what those fees are.

1425
02:10:54,610 --> 02:11:00,390
And then we also eliminated fees that were no longer necessary or basically were covered

1426
02:11:00,390 --> 02:11:02,870
by other fees, so those were no longer necessary.

1427
02:11:06,250 --> 02:11:12,110
So departments fell under three different categories, one were changes were requested, two were changes

1428
02:11:12,110 --> 02:11:14,830
were not requested, and then special cases.

1429
02:11:15,830 --> 02:11:22,530
With the changes requested, basically we created a quote unquote department, but really it's

1430
02:11:22,530 --> 02:11:29,210
the whole county will have certain fees that apply to everyone unless there's like a statute

1431
02:11:29,210 --> 02:11:35,450
or something that says that it doesn't, but the highlight of that is the three percent credit

1432
02:11:35,450 --> 02:11:42,050
card fee. And I know last time we talked about signage if this were to be approved and our plan

1433
02:11:42,050 --> 02:11:46,870
is to be able to make not just like a piece of paper we stick up but an actual nice sign to be able

1434
02:11:46,870 --> 02:11:50,810
to make sure people know that that is a fee that we're going to have if this is approved.

1435
02:11:50,810 --> 02:11:52,930
I think most people expect that.

1436
02:11:53,570 --> 02:11:53,930
Yeah.

1437
02:11:54,430 --> 02:11:55,110
If you use a card.

1438
02:11:55,850 --> 02:11:56,010
Yeah.

1439
02:11:56,710 --> 02:12:00,270
So, the next one is development services.

1440
02:12:00,570 --> 02:12:02,770
And this is where most of the changes occurred.

1441
02:12:03,510 --> 02:12:08,610
And basically what was going on was they surveyed a lot of the surrounding counties

1442
02:12:08,610 --> 02:12:10,010
to find out what their fees were.

1443
02:12:10,690 --> 02:12:16,150
And like inspections specifically, those had not been updated since 2008.

1444
02:12:16,150 --> 02:12:26,550
So we wanted to make sure that those fees were accurately aligned to what other counties were charging so that we weren't selling ourselves short.

1445
02:12:27,970 --> 02:12:33,250
For GIS land records, basically that was a massive consolidation.

1446
02:12:34,390 --> 02:12:45,590
It went from 57 fees down to 11 and a lot of that has to do with different mapping types and Joey worked really hard to make sure that it was pretty straightforward and simple.

1447
02:12:45,590 --> 02:12:50,230
within the fee schedule so that people would understand what they actually needed.

1448
02:12:51,390 --> 02:12:57,510
The second grouping of departments is animal services, library, DSS,

1449
02:12:57,710 --> 02:12:58,950
under NATO changes requested.

1450
02:12:59,710 --> 02:13:03,730
Animal services, they updated theirs in 2020.

1451
02:13:04,510 --> 02:13:07,750
And since this was first presented, we actually do have a couple of changes,

1452
02:13:08,010 --> 02:13:09,930
but we'll talk about that on the next slide.

1453
02:13:10,930 --> 02:13:17,870
The library is an alignment with its neighbors and its fees, but on the last fee schedule,

1454
02:13:18,110 --> 02:13:20,170
you all saw there are a few admitted.

1455
02:13:20,750 --> 02:13:24,170
So we'll talk about that, but overall, those fees are not actually changing.

1456
02:13:24,350 --> 02:13:26,050
They just need to be added to the fee schedule.

1457
02:13:26,750 --> 02:13:33,190
And then DSS, none of their fees change, but just a note, clinic fees, very specifically,

1458
02:13:33,550 --> 02:13:34,370
the health department.

1459
02:13:34,590 --> 02:13:37,610
We kept those separately because those are really governed by the state.

1460
02:13:37,610 --> 02:13:41,590
So we don't have any say on them and they should probably be kept separate.

1461
02:13:42,950 --> 02:13:46,210
And then the last category is special cases.

1462
02:13:46,750 --> 02:14:07,270
The first one is EMS and basically their rates, we already have basically a contract approved where every year it rolls where their fees are based on the center for Medicare and Medicaid services billing rate and basically what they do is they capture all available insurance money.

1463
02:14:07,270 --> 02:14:13,730
V of those fees so that we already do and we'll continue doing it so that's a special case.

1464
02:14:13,950 --> 02:14:19,010
The next one is Register of Deeds and that one is governed by General Statute.

1465
02:14:19,330 --> 02:14:24,690
So although it's on the fee schedule technically we don't have anything to do with it.

1466
02:14:25,430 --> 02:14:32,610
Next we have the Sheriff's Office and the only change they had was the Pistol Permit fee and

1467
02:14:32,610 --> 02:14:35,930
And that was eliminated by the state, so we just no longer charge for that.

1468
02:14:36,890 --> 02:14:40,890
And then solid waste, we have in the budget ordinance that you all received earlier.

1469
02:14:41,610 --> 02:14:44,150
And there's have to be located in there.

1470
02:14:46,540 --> 02:14:49,140
It's still permit fee was $5, $5, $5.

1471
02:14:49,140 --> 02:14:49,760
Yeah, it was $5.

1472
02:14:52,320 --> 02:14:57,440
So update since the last time I was in front of you, the first one was the library late fees.

1473
02:14:57,860 --> 02:14:59,320
And those were just accidentally omitted.

1474
02:14:59,560 --> 02:14:59,880
So we added.

1475
02:15:00,000 --> 02:15:29,980
Those to make sure that they were on there. Animal services got rid of three different fees. One was heartworm tests. The next was feline, amino deficiency virus slash feline leukemia virus. And then the last one was a cat trap deposit. And then register of deeds, we had a few changes. And really it was just clarifying some language and making sure that we delineated what fees went where. So some fees, some of the

1476
02:15:29,980 --> 02:15:35,880
the money goes to the register of deeds and some goes to the vinyl records.

1477
02:15:36,580 --> 02:15:40,200
So really what that was is just making sure those were delineated correctly.

1478
02:15:41,720 --> 02:15:47,960
And then planning we clarified the manufactured home definition and basically our b's were

1479
02:15:47,960 --> 02:15:54,820
a part of that original denotation and they do not fall under the manufactured homes.

1480
02:15:55,000 --> 02:15:57,340
So we took just that two words out.

1481
02:15:58,140 --> 02:16:06,420
And then inspections, there are a couple of things in that that really we discovered through the ordinance project that Amy's finishing up.

1482
02:16:06,980 --> 02:16:11,540
And one of them was the adult establishment business license.

1483
02:16:11,920 --> 02:16:22,160
No one's ever applied for one here, but we technically have a fee in the ordinance, so we wanted to make sure that we added that to inspections to cover that fee.

1484
02:16:22,160 --> 02:16:28,720
And then we also apply our prevention fees and we wanted to basically move the fees from

1485
02:16:28,720 --> 02:16:36,060
that into the fee schedule so that when you change the fees if necessary in the future,

1486
02:16:36,200 --> 02:16:40,200
it won't be located in the ordinance where you have to change the whole ordinance, it

1487
02:16:40,200 --> 02:16:44,880
will just be in the fee schedule and then the ordinance will reference the fee schedule.

1488
02:16:45,660 --> 02:16:48,900
So that's why we did that and those were added.

1489
02:16:49,640 --> 02:16:59,260
So, I can take any questions, but just a note, if approved, this will go into effect on July 1, 2023 with the new fiscal year.

1490
02:17:00,080 --> 02:17:14,420
All those EMS changes with Medicare expansion and everything, that's a set fee that's reimbursed to the person needing care, so it's just keeping up with what the set standard fee is.

1491
02:17:14,420 --> 02:17:20,560
I noticed a lot of changes in that section, so yeah, just Medicaid reimbursement

1492
02:17:20,560 --> 02:17:21,040
holidays.

1493
02:17:24,400 --> 02:17:25,940
That's who we build Medicaid.

1494
02:17:33,280 --> 02:17:36,660
That's about it. The fee on this public

1495
02:17:36,660 --> 02:17:41,400
information request, things on the statute on that public information joy will

1496
02:17:41,400 --> 02:17:48,180
know about it. That it says in the statute if I understand and correct it, if

1497
02:17:48,180 --> 02:17:52,540
somebody don't actually front specific, then we can charge them for it if I get

1498
02:17:52,540 --> 02:17:56,100
It's really exorbitant, it takes a lot of manpower and a lot of hours to do it.

1499
02:17:56,800 --> 02:18:08,020
There is a provision in General Statute 132, 6.2, that does say if a request requires extensive use of information technology resources,

1500
02:18:08,620 --> 02:18:14,520
or extensive use of clerical or supervisory resources, that the county can charge for

1501
02:18:14,520 --> 02:18:20,460
those resources up to and including labor, where normally we are only allowed to charge for

1502
02:18:20,460 --> 02:18:27,100
the materials that are used and not the labor, the law does not define what the extensive

1503
02:18:27,100 --> 02:18:34,380
use would be. So we would need a policy in Haywood County that would define that in order

1504
02:18:34,380 --> 02:18:39,380
for us to charge that so we could do that uniformly across the board. If that's something you guys

1505
02:18:39,380 --> 02:18:42,680
were interested in, we could put something together and bring it back to you.

1506
02:18:42,900 --> 02:18:48,640
That being up to a certain amount, do we have that work? Who would be the divine line on that?

1507
02:18:48,640 --> 02:18:53,060
That would be up to the policy that's not being created currently.

1508
02:18:53,580 --> 02:19:02,620
We would have to draw a line in the sand basically that said at this point when we consume this amount of staff time or this amount of resources, we would begin to charge.

1509
02:19:03,300 --> 02:19:12,820
The statute does allow to charge for labor if that's staff resources or for any cost we incurred from a technology standpoint, if that's technology resources.

1510
02:19:13,960 --> 02:19:18,860
Some may say somebody asked for something that they're just on a witch and I can't tell

1511
02:19:18,860 --> 02:19:23,360
you what they're hunting for and this won't exorbitant amount of information and stuff

1512
02:19:23,360 --> 02:19:23,740
like that.

1513
02:19:23,820 --> 02:19:24,960
Would that follow in that category?

1514
02:19:25,460 --> 02:19:28,040
It would depend on the amount of resources that were used.

1515
02:19:28,180 --> 02:19:30,760
We get a tremendous amount of public record requests.

1516
02:19:31,400 --> 02:19:37,480
Some of those are very specific and those we can handle very quickly and very efficiently.

1517
02:19:37,820 --> 02:19:42,020
If somebody comes up and says I'm looking for this particular contract, for example,

1518
02:19:42,020 --> 02:19:45,560
that can be turned around in minutes, not a big deal.

1519
02:19:45,840 --> 02:19:47,840
Those things we deal with on a daily basis.

1520
02:19:48,380 --> 02:19:53,420
We do get an increasing number of more broad requests

1521
02:19:53,980 --> 02:19:57,040
where we may have, and I've used this example recently,

1522
02:19:57,580 --> 02:19:59,980
we had a request where some-

1523
02:20:00,000 --> 02:20:29,360
Somebody had requested, I think, 15 months worth of emails from three different staff members, which would require someone to go through and review about, I think it was 60,000 emails or something to that effect. This particular person was very easy to work with. We let them know, you know, we'll be glad to do whatever we need to do, but this is going to take months to complete this. And we gave them some options. We can refine this by keywords. We can refine this by timeline.

1524
02:20:29,360 --> 02:20:35,180
line to bring that down to a level that would be quicker, and they were able to do that

1525
02:20:35,180 --> 02:20:42,520
into a much smaller scope, but we do have some requests that we receive from lots of

1526
02:20:42,520 --> 02:20:47,080
different places that are more open-ended, and with those it does consume a considerable

1527
02:20:47,080 --> 02:20:51,380
amount of staff time, so depending on where that line would be, those would fall into

1528
02:20:51,780 --> 02:20:52,960
a billable category.

1529
02:20:53,980 --> 02:20:57,860
The pretty exorbitant amount of money, but what would you just, I guess,

1530
02:20:58,040 --> 02:21:02,760
I don't know what that one you're talking about would cost the one that said 15 months or whatever.

1531
02:21:03,120 --> 02:21:04,740
Well, I don't really know.

1532
02:21:05,000 --> 02:21:08,820
I can tell you we had one during the pandemic with the health director,

1533
02:21:09,360 --> 02:21:13,420
and it took trying to balance going through those,

1534
02:21:13,540 --> 02:21:16,160
because when you're dealing with the health director's email,

1535
02:21:16,520 --> 02:21:20,500
a lot of the information that she receives is protected by HIPAA

1536
02:21:20,500 --> 02:21:22,020
and different privacy statutes.

1537
02:21:22,720 --> 02:21:26,400
I know that that one in particular took six months

1538
02:21:26,400 --> 02:21:28,560
for her to sort through all those emails,

1539
02:21:29,740 --> 02:21:31,700
and balance sorting through all those emails

1540
02:21:31,700 --> 02:21:35,200
with her regular duties in the middle of a pandemic.

1541
02:21:35,400 --> 02:21:37,700
So it was the perfect storm it took six months.

1542
02:21:38,040 --> 02:21:40,480
I don't know exactly how many man hours that was,

1543
02:21:40,500 --> 02:21:41,440
but it was considerable.

1544
02:21:42,080 --> 02:21:45,400
And that's probably the largest one we've actually produced

1545
02:21:45,400 --> 02:21:48,780
in recent history, but we've had several requests

1546
02:21:48,780 --> 02:21:51,440
Yes, that are large and could assume a lot of staff time.

1547
02:22:04,240 --> 02:22:07,520
All of the staff you can do, you know, because we get several.

1548
02:22:07,700 --> 02:22:12,200
I know one of them, I believe you told me, took 40 hours and eight people, wasn't it?

1549
02:22:13,120 --> 02:22:13,260
Yes.

1550
02:22:13,460 --> 02:22:17,240
That's a whole lot of money that the county's people and taxpayers money are paying for nothing.

1551
02:22:17,860 --> 02:22:22,780
When there wasn't nothing there, and then there's, we're paying that kind of money for nothing.

1552
02:22:23,760 --> 02:22:26,620
We've done that for about 15 years with one person here, so.

1553
02:22:26,720 --> 02:22:27,780
Yes, and Dr. Williams.

1554
02:22:27,780 --> 02:22:28,460
Yeah,

1555
02:22:31,730 --> 02:22:37,070
they're usually isn't anything, so go ahead, man.

1556
02:22:37,350 --> 02:22:44,930
Mr. Chairman, if that's something you'd like us to look into, we can spin the next 30, 60 days looking at it.

1557
02:22:45,330 --> 02:22:50,850
That law isn't real specific, so we want to make sure that if we go down that road, that we get it right.

1558
02:22:51,190 --> 02:22:57,930
You're probably going to have to charge any public request that, because if you don't, it might be easy.

1559
02:22:57,930 --> 02:23:04,450
But easy employees, we just approved a budget and hourly rate.

1560
02:23:04,930 --> 02:23:12,910
So if it takes an employee an hour, that's $15, but if Joey's doing it, it's probably a lot more than that.

1561
02:23:13,310 --> 02:23:18,770
So the statute is really drafted and

1562
02:23:18,770 --> 02:23:21,970
Joey points it out and he actually read the part of it.

1563
02:23:21,970 --> 02:23:39,090
But the statute is very vague and it anticipates that the examples that Joey mentioned of just popping up a copy of a contract or a dozen contracts or something is very easy to do and very cut and dried.

1564
02:23:39,550 --> 02:23:49,810
The statute seems to anticipate that all of those public records or responses will be at just the cost of reproduction, just the cost of copies, okay.

1565
02:23:50,590 --> 02:23:58,090
But the statute also says that if it takes this extraordinary amount of time of folks,

1566
02:23:58,230 --> 02:24:02,970
not just in other resources, then you can set it up.

1567
02:24:03,270 --> 02:24:09,010
But without a policy, we need to establish a policy so that we can apply that correctly.

1568
02:24:09,370 --> 02:24:16,610
And uniformly, again, uniformly, so that there's no allegation that it's somebody's being punished or something.

1569
02:24:16,610 --> 02:24:34,350
It also gives you a negotiation issue with the requestor because sometimes the requesters don't realize how complex the information is embedded in things that have to be sorted out.

1570
02:24:34,850 --> 02:24:36,090
That's what Joe was talking about.

1571
02:24:36,090 --> 02:24:39,630
that we also have some software coming, I think.

1572
02:24:40,190 --> 02:24:40,830
Is that right, Julie?

1573
02:24:41,210 --> 02:24:45,390
Yeah, we've got some software coming that will handle some

1574
02:24:45,390 --> 02:24:50,730
of that kind of processing large quantities of emails, documents,

1575
02:24:50,910 --> 02:24:54,330
and things like that to pluck out the information you need

1576
02:24:54,330 --> 02:24:58,730
by date subject matter, that kind of thing.

1577
02:24:58,730 --> 02:24:59,970
That's good.

1578
02:25:00,000 --> 02:25:29,560
And to simplify, in many cases, these routine requests that come from a lot of different sources for a lot of aggregated information, rather than just a copy of a thing. So, there be a lot of moving parts on this particular policy, the business of responses to public records requests that's going to impact how we do our business. We also are not far away probably from a public information officer.

1579
02:25:29,560 --> 02:25:36,460
being hard. And that and you shuffle some of those duties into into that office if

1580
02:25:36,460 --> 02:25:44,200
if that gets done. Somebody request for you for example to go over it actor go

1581
02:25:44,200 --> 02:25:47,960
he went out in the county manager to go through it and you go through it with that

1582
02:25:47,960 --> 02:25:52,840
statute covered. Y'all please. They need to they need to they need to seriously

1583
02:25:52,840 --> 02:25:58,720
consider what my fees might be in that situation and we don't we don't actually

1584
02:25:58,720 --> 02:26:03,040
have a schedule for my fees for that kind of situation but we could look into it and I think

1585
02:26:03,040 --> 02:26:10,320
something ought to be looked into absolutely. And I will say Frank mentioned about a little bit

1586
02:26:10,320 --> 02:26:17,140
about that but the about being able to negotiate the scope of the public records request the really

1587
02:26:17,140 --> 02:26:22,220
unfortunate part in the example that I mentioned with the health director is she put six hours or six

1588
02:26:22,220 --> 02:26:28,060
months worth of labor into producing that request and when she reached back out to the media outlet

1589
02:26:28,060 --> 02:26:33,820
that had made the request initially to see how they wanted delivered they said oh we don't

1590
02:26:33,820 --> 02:26:42,080
need that anymore. So that entire amount of labor really was just wasted where if we had

1591
02:26:42,080 --> 02:26:45,680
been able to let them know how long it would have taken and provided some kind of estimate

1592
02:26:45,680 --> 02:26:48,140
maybe that would have allowed us to negotiate something there.

1593
02:26:54,240 --> 02:26:59,120
Getting back to the big picture the feast rupture is basically just keeping up with times.

1594
02:26:59,120 --> 02:27:03,960
had someone hadn't been updated in 15 years that correct since 2008.

1595
02:27:04,820 --> 02:27:11,040
The inspections were not updated since 2008 and then let me make sure but

1596
02:27:11,040 --> 02:27:16,880
environmental health was 2002 and then Gary and you might know, Gary might

1597
02:27:16,880 --> 02:27:21,400
know more. I don't have how long planning was but inspections alone.

1598
02:27:21,860 --> 02:27:26,400
Raise the more customary as what we're looking for. Malcolm Bred's gone up in 15 years.

1599
02:27:26,400 --> 02:27:27,280
One

1600
02:27:29,550 --> 02:27:34,470
thing that's interesting on the land records piece, like Will said, we dropped it from

1601
02:27:34,470 --> 02:27:36,290
57 different charges to 11.

1602
02:27:36,910 --> 02:27:41,250
You'll actually see a reduction in a lot of those fees or they've stayed the same.

1603
02:27:41,770 --> 02:27:47,790
Part of that is because as technology has improved, the cost of the materials has reduced.

1604
02:27:48,670 --> 02:27:56,090
So wherein the past, the cost of printing a three by four foot map might be $40 or $50.

1605
02:27:56,090 --> 02:27:59,810
dollars and now that cost has reduced greatly as we've gotten better

1606
02:27:59,810 --> 02:28:04,610
technology so that's another another benefit of re-evaluating the fee

1607
02:28:04,610 --> 02:28:07,170
schedules is being able to line those up with the cost.

1608
02:28:07,450 --> 02:28:08,850
Several of them had went down.

1609
02:28:11,030 --> 02:28:15,330
I'd be a good idea to get on some kind of a schedule if it's ever four years

1610
02:28:15,330 --> 02:28:19,390
just like a re-evaluation or we look at this ever three or four years so

1611
02:28:20,000 --> 02:28:21,670
maybe someone had questions

1612
02:28:27,110 --> 02:28:27,630
or comments.

1613
02:28:33,530 --> 02:28:34,790
Yeah, we got to prove it.

1614
02:28:34,790 --> 02:28:34,910
Yeah.

1615
02:28:35,070 --> 02:28:35,250
Yeah.

1616
02:28:35,830 --> 02:28:36,530
Item 6.

1617
02:28:36,990 --> 02:28:37,090
Yeah.

1618
02:28:38,670 --> 02:28:43,850
At your hard work on that, that's going to help us and help other people too.

1619
02:28:46,660 --> 02:28:46,980
Okay.

1620
02:28:47,160 --> 02:28:52,820
So why don't we approve Item 6 and then we'll talk about Terry's point there.

1621
02:28:53,740 --> 02:28:55,220
So I'll entertain a motion.

1622
02:28:55,280 --> 02:28:56,420
We approve Item 6.

1623
02:29:02,960 --> 02:29:03,740
You hear the discussion?

1624
02:29:04,400 --> 02:29:05,500
Others in favor say aye.

1625
02:29:05,820 --> 02:29:06,140
Aye.

1626
02:29:06,480 --> 02:29:06,940
You want to post.

1627
02:29:07,140 --> 02:29:07,360
Okay.

1628
02:29:10,360 --> 02:29:19,840
So we're going to hire a public information officer, a PIO, and we're looking at doing that soon.

1629
02:29:20,120 --> 02:29:25,420
They're paid a salary, I guess, and this program that y'all are going to buy, how much is it?

1630
02:29:26,640 --> 02:29:28,380
It's about $6,000 annually.

1631
02:29:29,660 --> 02:29:39,360
annually so to me just to me if okay that's $6,000 annual that's a cost so we need

1632
02:29:39,360 --> 02:29:50,140
to probably have a cost built in even though it might be easy for that to for that

1633
02:29:50,140 --> 02:29:54,980
also I'm just talking you know because are we using that justification to hire a PIO

1634
02:29:54,980 --> 02:29:59,140
No, no, no, no, you're just saying that we possibly need to go that direction.

1635
02:30:00,910 --> 02:30:13,170
Correct. I would like to have a few weeks to reach out to the school of government and research this, see if there's other counties or municipalities that have come down this through that because.

1636
02:30:16,150 --> 02:30:21,990
They just keep getting worse and worse and worse, and people's out here tax money is going

1637
02:30:21,990 --> 02:30:26,710
for foolishness gains, and on some, some of them are legit, there's a lot of them are

1638
02:30:26,710 --> 02:30:32,090
legit, but there's some of it, it won't ask for nothing specific, and they're just hunting

1639
02:30:32,090 --> 02:30:32,270
something.

1640
02:30:32,510 --> 02:30:34,270
I mean, it had made it, they just hunt something.

1641
02:30:34,850 --> 02:30:38,710
And when you got two, three said it's out here, just hunting something like that, they're

1642
02:30:38,710 --> 02:30:40,790
I'm taking up tons of the county's time

1643
02:30:41,270 --> 02:30:42,810
plus the taxpayer's money.

1644
02:30:43,350 --> 02:30:44,250
I agree with that.

1645
02:30:44,270 --> 02:30:45,930
Very few of them are legit, believe me.

1646
02:30:46,250 --> 02:30:47,330
So I agree with you.

1647
02:30:47,370 --> 02:30:48,550
I think there's other jobs out here

1648
02:30:48,550 --> 02:30:50,870
that would help the county instead

1649
02:30:50,870 --> 02:30:52,770
of wasting time on stuff like this.

1650
02:30:52,930 --> 02:30:54,030
I think that's just my opinion.

1651
02:30:54,390 --> 02:30:55,610
No, you're right, you're right.

1652
02:30:58,630 --> 02:31:00,530
Okay, so why don't you check into that front

1653
02:31:00,530 --> 02:31:01,630
with the school government

1654
02:31:01,630 --> 02:31:03,830
and find out what they say and kind of get back to us?

1655
02:31:04,130 --> 02:31:08,330
I'll try to have something to report back June 5th.

1656
02:31:08,330 --> 02:31:09,430
Okay, okay, great.

1657
02:31:09,430 --> 02:31:17,530
Okay. Okay. All right. So that concludes the regular agenda. Right. Amy, we're doing

1658
02:31:17,530 --> 02:31:23,070
good. Okay. All right. Next is appointments, request approval appointment of one position

1659
02:31:23,070 --> 02:31:28,710
by vote to the Hayward County Community Board College Board of Trustees. We interview, so

1660
02:31:28,710 --> 02:31:34,230
we lose two candidates, very good candidates, Danny Wingate and Ed Brown. It's submitted

1661
02:31:34,230 --> 02:31:38,250
applications and we had great candidates for this one position unfortunately.

1662
02:31:38,250 --> 02:31:39,310
You

1663
02:32:18,890 --> 02:32:28,410
voted to appoint Danny Wingett to term on the Haywood County, the Haywood Community College Board of Trustees.

1664
02:32:33,000 --> 02:32:35,300
Okay, that concludes the agenda.

1665
02:32:36,620 --> 02:32:41,260
We do not have a closed session, does anyone have any other business to bring before the board?

1666
02:32:42,680 --> 02:32:50,100
Well, I do, Mr. Chair, I'd like to wish all the mothers, I think you can install some of that with bragging on your mother.

1667
02:32:50,100 --> 02:32:56,060
of my mother's in the rest home, care facility. She raised five children, her and my father.

1668
02:32:57,180 --> 02:33:02,920
We actually had a milk cow. We had fresh milk and butter growing up through high schools. She

1669
02:33:02,920 --> 02:33:08,380
actually sewed our clothes for the store-bought clothes about seventh grade, I remember correctly.

1670
02:33:09,600 --> 02:33:13,340
I was looking her hands. I went down to the federal breakfast yesterday morning. I was looking her

1671
02:33:13,340 --> 02:33:19,680
hands and I thought, well if those hands could talk, all the work she did and to help other people

1672
02:33:19,680 --> 02:33:23,780
grew a big garden had enough for us and then gave enough the way to needy families

1673
02:33:23,780 --> 02:33:29,180
that needed it. I feel fortunate to have a mother like a dead and I just want to wish all

1674
02:33:29,180 --> 02:33:36,460
the mothers out there around the county and happy mother's day, belated one day.

1675
02:33:37,020 --> 02:33:46,960
So, I do want to say that the friends of the NRA, Blue Ridge Friends of the NRA will be having

1676
02:33:46,960 --> 02:33:51,980
in their banquet on May 25th at the fairgrounds.

1677
02:33:51,980 --> 02:33:54,840
That's on a Thursday night and the money goes

1678
02:33:54,840 --> 02:33:57,800
to the shooting clubs at the high school,

1679
02:33:58,340 --> 02:34:00,740
teaches young people how to handle firearms.

1680
02:34:01,220 --> 02:34:03,140
So, somebody's interested in that,

1681
02:34:03,240 --> 02:34:05,600
that'll be, you can call me a brand,

1682
02:34:05,960 --> 02:34:06,800
if they're interested in that,

1683
02:34:06,880 --> 02:34:07,980
we can get you in touch with somebody.

1684
02:34:08,780 --> 02:34:11,640
We'll say, Bethel Middle School won the State Championship

1685
02:34:12,700 --> 02:34:16,100
and I can't remember what Brandon Sutton told me

1686
02:34:16,100 --> 02:34:22,060
that Pizgan Tesco did, but I think they tied in their competition, but there were several

1687
02:34:22,060 --> 02:34:22,540
competitions.

1688
02:34:23,400 --> 02:34:23,880
Yeah, they did.

1689
02:34:23,960 --> 02:34:24,820
They did very well.

1690
02:34:25,220 --> 02:34:26,000
Excellent program.

1691
02:34:26,820 --> 02:34:27,360
Yeah, it is.

1692
02:34:27,700 --> 02:34:30,460
So, and this helps keep young people.

1693
02:34:31,800 --> 02:34:33,800
This is, you know, not everybody's going to play ball.

1694
02:34:33,940 --> 02:34:37,760
Not everybody's going to do certain things, but some people are more interested.

1695
02:34:38,200 --> 02:34:41,120
Like I was when I was a young person in hunting and stuff, so.

1696
02:34:42,100 --> 02:34:45,960
but and I do want to say again that I appreciate that I had a godly mother and she

1697
02:34:45,960 --> 02:34:50,780
taught me taught me well and I was I've been very blessed with my parents so

1698
02:34:54,890 --> 02:34:59,530
Zimba you have anything else I'll entertain a motion we

1699
02:35:00,000 --> 02:35:11,680
I see. I think I got everything. Is that everything, Amy? Okay. I'll entertain a motion. We adjourn. Okay. All in favor say aye. Okay. We're adjourned. Everybody have good evening.

1700
02:35:11,940 --> 02:35:12,300
Thank you.