[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[2:33] Call to order. Everybody, even though the room is empty, we need to speak into the microphone.
[2:40] Is that right, Jason? Yes.
[2:44] Let's call to order the village council work session for August
[2:49] 11th, 2026. We'll be taking up three general business items and then we will move into a
[2:56] closed session pursuant to North Carolina's general statute. The first item will be
[3:01] the given Memorial Library construction update.
[3:05] So I'll turn it to you, Doug, since I do not see Carlton.
[3:08] Yeah, we'll move through this pretty quickly.
[3:12] This is how it's been progressing over time,
[3:15] and we got here the update for June, the picture.
[3:20] Just stop, I love these aerial photos,
[3:22] so I get, just give me a minute on that one.
[3:25] That on the, I'm just trying to get my bearings here.
[3:29] Okay, that green roof on the right is the hut next to the police station.
[3:35] Yeah, the building of grounds.
[3:37] Yeah, building of grounds.
[3:38] Okay, now it's coming into sight.
[3:40] Okay.
[3:41] When you drive by, the back doesn't look as cleared out as it looks in this photo.
[3:46] Yep.
[3:47] Yeah, right.
[3:48] You don't realize the parking lot area is, you know, as much as cleared out as overhead.
[3:53] Yeah.
[3:54] Okay.
[3:54] Thanks.
[3:55] Thanks, anything to, 100% 100% looks like it's moving.
[3:59] Yeah, yeah, so in the past 30 days from when this was prepared,
[4:03] so the backfill and the stone were put in, the sewer was put in,
[4:08] the vapor barrier, and they installed the rebar.
[4:11] So here's some pictures of that stuff.
[4:14] Yeah, one day I drove by, I was like, why is it all blue?
[4:18] But put the vapor barrier in.
[4:21] So, some pictures of the construction.
[4:26] So the next 30 days they're going to begin the metal framing, which we can see that started.
[4:32] Yeah, so today.
[4:32] You can actually see stuff up.
[4:35] And then the concrete walls and footings will be put in and the beams for the storefronts.
[4:42] So that is what it looked like yesterday.
[4:45] Okay.
[4:45] I looked about the same today when I drove by, huh?
[4:49] It looks, we're going vertical here.
[4:52] Yes, yes.
[4:53] So, as far as you and Carl are concerned,
[4:56] we're on schedule and progressing.
[4:58] Okay.
[5:01] Questions, that's all I have, so.
[5:04] No, I appreciate the report like this, and.
[5:09] Is there a, just a detailed construction plan
[5:13] that suggests that we are on time plus or minus a couple of days.
[5:17] Yeah, yeah, we are on time.
[5:20] Yeah, so they're...
[5:21] Good.
[5:23] So far, Carlton has solved every issue that has come his way, so...
[5:28] Good.
[5:28] Great job.
[5:30] Okay, that includes...
[5:31] Unless someone has a question for Doug, that concludes item A.
[5:35] Item B is a review and discuss the 2026 business survey results
[5:40] of which we were all participants in.
[5:42] So go ahead, Doug.
[5:44] Yeah, so a couple of things to note.
[5:46] So this is the surveys that we actually received.
[5:50] Either they were handwritten and we entered it in,
[5:52] or they followed our links and submitted it.
[5:56] It does not include any information
[5:59] while you were just talking to people
[6:00] if they didn't actually fill something out.
[6:02] Obviously, we couldn't include that in the data.
[6:08] But we only got, so 35 people opened the survey, and then only 22 said that they actually owned
[6:14] a business in the town.
[6:16] And then only about 10 answered the downtown specific questions.
[6:21] So...
[6:21] Doug, 35 opened it, but how many was it sent to?
[6:26] I mean, we have a lot more.
[6:30] I'd have to double-check.
[6:31] I mean, there's a lot of...
[6:33] I mean it was it sent to 70 people or more than that there's like 70 businesses downtown, but this went to all of them
[6:40] So okay, so I'm just trying to gauge your response rate. That's all we ever update that list
[6:45] I mean, I would assume for closed businesses that type of thing. Okay, I have an old LLC. That's
[6:51] Eight years old. Yeah. Yeah closed down for a long time. I still got a survey
[6:54] You got a business for it. Yeah. Yeah, so I guess we're not very good at cleaning them up
[6:59] But it was that this year or was that I got this year's okay. Yeah, do we have space to incorporate any more if we get them?
[7:07] If we get more feedback, yeah, we can just put it in but
[7:12] so I guess what I was kind of
[7:15] Leaning towards is like you went out and talked to all these people. So you probably have just as much
[7:20] of a feel for
[7:21] What people said and I was thinking the conversation might turn more towards what your feedback was a person rather than what this
[7:29] actually survey says because this is only ten people and you each talk to ten people
[7:33] too, so you have as much feedback as this does.
[7:37] Yeah, let's go through the survey, let's go through what you have and then we'll chime
[7:40] in.
[7:41] Yeah, so what types of businesses responded, most of them restaurants, but then we had
[7:48] retail and professional services as well.
[7:51] I will go with a quick, slow me down if you want to.
[7:55] The majority of them have been here more than ten years.
[7:58] That's very – I find that interesting.
[8:02] But that's an indication we don't have too
[8:04] much turnover to begin. When you drive down Chincaquinn, the most recent turnover was the
[8:09] purple thistle. But otherwise, everything is very stationary. So I think it's, you
[8:16] know, somewhat of a credit to our – wait, Pinehurst is set up and the type of businesses
[8:21] we have down there. Interesting.
[8:24] So this is the number of employees that they have, so most are very small.
[8:33] Mostly their space.
[8:35] Only one actually owned the building and they responded, so that.
[8:39] That is a fascinating thing.
[8:41] It's not surprising, I don't think.
[8:47] I wouldn't have guessed 20 out of 21.
[8:50] That's what I wouldn't have guessed, but okay.
[8:55] Not a lot of changes forecasted by any of these businesses.
[9:03] Most rated the business climate as pretty good.
[9:07] That's better than I thought we would hear.
[9:16] So yeah, this asks kind of like what their business atmosphere was like.
[9:22] So most of them said it was about the same.
[9:27] So when asked what the leading challenges were, parking.
[9:33] It specifically says employee parking there.
[9:36] Yeah, employee parking, yeah.
[9:40] I think it was both were mentioned.
[9:44] Yes, that is true.
[9:48] Customer traffic.
[9:49] My understanding of that is like customers walking by,
[9:52] customers coming into your store.
[9:56] I'm surprised if you go back for a second.
[9:58] and staffing didn't get a higher response.
[10:04] Well, I think that the customer traffic
[10:06] is consistent with the last residence survey we did
[10:10] where 60% of the people said they never shop downtown.
[10:13] Right.
[10:15] And we just got the residence survey results last night.
[10:21] I haven't, they haven't dove into it that much, but.
[10:25] Will that be on September?
[10:28] I don't remember what the responses were to that question.
[10:35] Most of them said they were downtown but all the downtown questions really only 10 responded
[10:41] to them.
[10:43] So downtown business climate, 8 out of 10 said it was good or excellent.
[10:52] So here are the downtown conditions.
[10:56] So, there's a lot of information on this, so I'll leave it on here for a minute.
[11:00] Yeah, please.
[11:03] Just a general question.
[11:05] Given our efforts, was there an increase of surveys returned or same?
[11:11] On the business side, less, yeah.
[11:14] But you guys all went and talked to them, so a lot of those people may not have like
[11:20] submitted a survey because they felt like they gave you the feedback in person.
[11:24] But in my case, a number of the actual owners were on vacation and I left my business card
[11:31] with my cell phone and got zero calls back.
[11:34] So I'm actually thinking because I'm going to be a bachelor at the end of this week
[11:38] going back and knocking on some more doors to try to tune up some more responses.
[11:43] I repeatedly emailed all of my contacts and got zero return.
[11:49] I didn't email anybody. I went and tracked them down.
[11:53] Well, I did both and had three basic good meetings.
[11:58] I had a lot of incorrect information.
[12:02] That's an issue.
[12:03] I list specifically one building.
[12:07] The Maples building?
[12:11] 77 Cherokee.
[12:12] The one kind of behind the theater building?
[12:15] Yeah.
[12:15] Yeah, that one is a little bit out of sight out of mind.
[12:21] No soliciting signs.
[12:22] There was no one there.
[12:23] The door's locked.
[12:24] I mean, it was locked.
[12:25] I had the Village Chapel and the contact there was a reverend that I've never heard of.
[12:35] And when I went and met with reverends, Kester Ashley, who I know, and we went through
[12:42] the survey.
[12:43] He was fine.
[12:43] But I said, before you, or two preachers ago, was there a guy named Reverend, blah, blah,
[12:51] blah?
[12:52] He says, I never heard of a guy.
[12:54] So there is a, there needs to be some way to clean it up a little more so it's not
[13:02] as outdated.
[13:03] Because I didn't, I mean, that's a perfect example.
[13:05] Well, you can, they're not exactly great at responding to us, that's-
[13:10] Well, there was an email sent out or something on the website, our website, we need to update
[13:16] your information.
[13:17] I took that to Pinehurst Business Partners, too, and told them the same thing.
[13:20] Oh, good for you.
[13:21] Yeah.
[13:22] Well, I don't know if it did any good or not.
[13:24] We did get a few updates from it, so.
[13:27] But this is very, you know, as you look at this, excellent traffic flow.
[13:35] That's pretty interesting that you get an excellent on that topic.
[13:41] It's equal to poor.
[13:44] Landscaping, of course, is something we're very proud of.
[13:49] And it's demonstrated in that.
[13:51] And, okay, well, it's helpful to see.
[13:55] Yeah.
[13:56] And the biggest problem showing up on this is employee parking.
[14:03] Which...
[14:03] Now, let me ask you a question.
[14:05] Does that mean there aren't spaces in the sandlot?
[14:09] So, I have, I can, I used to look at it every single day via a camera and there was only
[14:17] one day that it was full and that was because the Village Chapel had an event.
[14:23] But other than that, I have never seen it completely full and there were always spaces
[14:27] available.
[14:27] So, what they're complaining about, I'm not exactly sure because, you know, within
[14:31] a three minute walk, you can park and get to the place.
[14:35] I found a restaurant in particular a very popular restaurant who has a lot of employees
[14:44] coming in at the same time in the late afternoon and that's when all of their customers are
[14:49] coming in too and they had a part of employee parking.
[14:53] and sometimes they also have employees who work.
[15:01] Different shifts coming in at a time when there's something else going on. That's the kind of thing I think is the problem.
[15:07] Interesting to say, I'm looking at my notes from another restaurant downtown, popular one as well. Parking is way too little.
[15:13] Please, building parking garage for my employees. That's interesting. Yeah, I just ran across it.
[15:18] We're trying to add five more spots right down there.
[15:21] Also, I mean, the one by the Pinecrest Inn, I mean, that one's usually also available.
[15:28] Well, in the evening, that one actually gets a little more full, because Pinecrest in Patron's
[15:35] park there.
[15:36] Anyway.
[15:38] Okay.
[15:40] Yeah.
[15:42] So this is looking over history.
[15:47] So yeah, for some reason, in 2024, Landscape More Appearance kind of took a little bit
[15:53] of a drop.
[15:53] Those are a little weird numbers there, but yeah, kind of a, so 9 out of 10 said landscaping
[16:05] was good, cleanliness also good, sidewalk condition, walkability, kind of in line, maybe a little
[16:13] better than past years, parking availability, those numbers are all over the place, so.
[16:22] Okay, so most said the three-hour parking land event did not make it harder, but unfortunately
[16:29] a lot of them said it didn't make an impact either, so.
[16:32] But that's okay.
[16:33] Yeah.
[16:34] We didn't make it worse.
[16:35] Nothing made it worse.
[16:36] I mean, about half of them said it improved.
[16:41] Okay.
[16:43] Satisfaction mixed.
[16:44] Let's see.
[16:45] Neutral.
[16:46] Satisfy.
[16:47] Yeah.
[16:48] Yeah.
[16:48] Close call.
[16:48] Well, seven out of ten, oh that's right, I don't count the neutrals, I didn't want to do that.
[16:55] Yeah, so whatever.
[16:58] This ETC, did the graphics?
[17:01] No, this was...
[17:05] That's right.
[17:06] Artificial intelligence made these.
[17:09] If you go back one slide,
[17:13] the neutral, I would have left the rankings constant.
[17:19] It's just, I don't need to have the bars increasing necessarily.
[17:23] Yeah,
[17:27] yeah, yeah.
[17:29] Downtown improvements.
[17:31] Parking and marketing.
[17:33] Okay, let's tackle their two issues.
[17:36] What on the marketing side should we or could we do?
[17:44] Or what have we postponed doing or what have we thought about?
[17:47] So, one of the things we talked about at our last business listening session was doing
[17:53] August Friday.
[17:54] So, we're actually doing that right now, and I meant to talk about it at the beginning
[17:58] of the meeting.
[17:59] So, Fridays, we're encouraging everyone to do sidewalk sales, put some of their merchandise
[18:04] out on the sidewalk, kind of generate a little bit of energy, and then you can
[18:09] get a ticket at the Welcome Center for a free cupcake.
[18:13] And so last week, yeah, we had a few people come and get it and I guess we'll see the mayor there on Friday.
[18:20] Is there an implication in that that maybe not because of the way the question was asked,
[18:29] but a comment that I have heard not infrequently is that they don't feel the resort supports them or markets for them.
[18:38] It beats against them.
[18:38] Well, if they try to capture every dollar they can't, they're a for-profit enterprise.
[18:43] I mean, this is kind of how capitalism works.
[18:46] I think the resort is helping them much more than it's ever hurting them because they bring
[18:55] a lot of people to visit, fine-hurst, and they just, one, they don't all play golf
[19:00] because they come with spouses that might not.
[19:05] and I'm not saying it's justified I'm saying it's a comment that I hear not
[19:09] infrequently the only on the additional parking we have Larry at work and I think
[19:16] I think he's made a difference whether people want to admit it or not I I
[19:20] certainly I think it was a smart move we've got on the runway the five
[19:28] additional spots down there and by the theater building and is there any place
[19:35] else that we're adding a spot or not dug downtown do you know of anything where
[19:40] we're squeezing something in somewhere no I don't think so we did put up a sign
[19:47] on the backside of the you know the trees by the library to get into oh
[19:55] Yeah, that says golf cart parking available. You can go park in the trees. So
[20:01] There we can do that. So that that's first golf park parking there
[20:06] Okay, yeah, and again, there always seems to be spaces available in the
[20:13] In the sand lot except for when there's events things like that, so
[20:20] Okay, so this questions regarding downtown events
[20:26] Some somewhat beneficial, here's the feedback.
[20:37] Well, this is the trade off of,
[20:39] I think in a lot of the folks' mind is that
[20:42] the events are not downtown, some of them.
[20:44] That's some that used to be, and now they're elsewhere.
[20:47] Yeah, live after five is the one.
[20:49] That's tough to overcome, yeah.
[20:51] Yeah, here's my quote from the restaurant.
[20:54] Food businesses hate that live at five
[20:56] is in the arboretum.
[20:58] This person wanted to take the whole thing over,
[21:00] and I was like, well, I don't think we could do that.
[21:03] But I don't know, is there any,
[21:04] was there a question on here
[21:05] about live at fives in general, or?
[21:07] I mean, it was one of the special events listed.
[21:10] Oh, okay, so. Yeah.
[21:14] Right here.
[21:17] Any buildings?
[21:18] Okay.
[21:19] I mean, also a little weird
[21:22] because eats, beats, and brews
[21:23] is essentially the exact same thing
[21:25] as live after five now.
[21:26] So I don't know why that's different.
[21:29] Yeah, who knows, but.
[21:32] A person may have been only one negative.
[21:35] The
[21:40] reason there's eight no impacts is because they're not down there anymore.
[21:49] I'll give them an A for accuracy here. I believe that piece of data.
[21:54] Yes, there is no impact.
[21:56] No, it's an interesting point.
[21:59] At least they didn't. Well, once a negative.
[22:02] I don't know what is the downside for the one person
[22:09] I mean people they don't like roads being closed they they think it makes it
[22:15] more difficult to get to their actual brick-and-mortar business yes okay that's
[22:37] to the more interesting one which is on Filledge Place, right there, yeah, we're good to
[22:44] move on. Yeah, street closures and parking are the, naturally.
[22:50] And street closures, the comment that I hear there is do we have to do it as early as we
[22:55] do it? They're not opposed to doing it, they understand why, but can we start a little
[22:59] later? I don't know. Yeah, and that's been something we've
[23:02] talked about and staff has consistently said, you know, we do it as late as we possibly
[23:08] can.
[23:09] So is that basically a personnel issue, the number of people it takes to put barriers
[23:14] up and what have you?
[23:16] And also, if there's cars that are within the barrier, you have to get the police
[23:20] to come and get them out or you have to like kind of wait them out and that takes
[23:23] a long time.
[23:24] We noticed that during the parade of nations there seemed to have been a lot more cars
[23:27] than normal stuck inside once the parade happens.
[23:31] It created a little bit of a dangerous situation because they were trying to leave right after.
[23:35] Yes, so that specific is not our event and they specifically requested to not close down the roads.
[23:43] Then that's the result of why.
[23:45] Okay, alright.
[23:51] Yeah, do they support additional downtown programming?
[23:54] It's one reason why we decided to do the movie at the park to try to address some of this.
[24:02] What's the date of that movie at the park?
[24:04] the 17th of September.
[24:06] Oh, Constitution Day, perfect.
[24:07] Okay, we need to promote that a little on the website.
[24:11] Do we think we could do live music
[24:14] on a smaller scale downtown?
[24:17] Yes, and that's something to talk to
[24:19] Pioneers Business Partners about,
[24:21] it's like, if you want to,
[24:24] like if we have a stage or whatever,
[24:27] like you could have someone just with a microphone
[24:30] and a speaker and they can just sing
[24:33] and have a little bit of live music, create some atmosphere, we're totally fine with that,
[24:37] but there hasn't been a whole lot of, like, yeah, go do that.
[24:42] I hadn't thought about that, but I think a permanent stage might lend itself to more
[24:49] feeling of credibility and regularity of where to congregate.
[24:55] Agreed.
[24:55] That's a plus.
[24:57] Obviously, it's a year away or so, but it's a plus.
[25:03] Yeah.
[25:03] Again, parking, question about what should we be looking at in the next five years.
[25:10] Parking is at the top of the list.
[25:21] Oh, sorry.
[25:22] You know, there's not a lot of empty storefronts.
[25:27] The only one I recall right now is the old 727 lounge.
[25:31] Yeah, it feels, yeah.
[25:33] And it's there for a price.
[25:35] Yeah.
[25:39] Can you go back one, Doug, please?
[25:42] So public restrooms, they're right in there.
[25:45] You know, if you want more people down there, we have to be able to accommodate the needs
[25:48] of people down there.
[25:50] And I think at some point, not tonight, we need to give some thought to a self-cleaning
[25:54] standalone public rest facility somewhere on the Village Green, somewhere near the
[26:01] archives.
[26:03] But not in the archives, we clarify that today.
[26:05] And I agree with that not in the archives, but there are technologies that would allow us to do that do it in a clean and safe fashion
[26:14] Anyway for another another time. I thought about that
[26:19] We're gonna be moving the welcome center
[26:21] Yeah
[26:23] I'm wondering if we could put more restrooms in the theater building
[26:29] well
[26:30] You know it's a private building
[26:32] so
[26:32] So the landlord would want to do that.
[26:37] So I don't know if you should go back to the old paid toilet days.
[26:42] I don't see the owners not going to put in a restroom.
[26:48] I have thought, I mean Kevin's idea might be great.
[26:52] I've also thought like if there were a small storefront somewhere
[26:57] that we could just rent and have it as the public bathroom is for downtown
[27:00] downtown, that might also work as well. Or maybe we reach out to the resort and say,
[27:07] when you redo the casino building, make sure you have some public restrooms in there.
[27:13] I mean, it's on the horizon, but I do agree with Kevin to the point of there's something
[27:20] in a small footprint that possibly could be done without creating a large scale situation.
[27:28] And yeah, we just we need to keep it downtown find her is appropriate. I mean it's not going to be a Porta John out there
[27:36] Well to Kevin's point, you know
[27:38] Vienna
[27:39] Self-cleaning toilet the thing they go back into the wall and come back out clean or they're just a big circle bowl
[27:45] And they just clean themselves. I'm sure they're not cheap though. We can look at that
[27:54] Yeah, so most are not all that familiar with Village Place
[27:58] Well, that's on our next month agenda, right?
[28:02] Yeah.
[28:03] Most are obviously in alignment with that are unsure of what to think about a village place.
[28:10] And when they have concerns, it's about additional parking, retail competition, traffic, lots
[28:20] of character.
[28:21] All right.
[28:22] Funny thing about retail competition I think if I've maintained for a long
[28:30] time that I'm not sure we have enough enough physical square footage to create
[28:38] retail critical mass. If you compare to to Broad Street let's say in Southern
[28:44] Pines they just have enough more space that you can go park one place and walk
[28:49] up and down the street. Not unlike going through a big mall. No one parks next to every store
[28:54] they want in the mall. They park once and they walk up and down in the mall, but everything
[28:58] is there. And I think it's a tough one for us to solve and almost bifurcating downtown
[29:04] between village places. It doesn't make it better. It looks more like competition
[29:10] rather than creating critical mass. I don't have an answer for that, but maybe the
[29:17] The bias, as we think through it, is a little more residential-oriented and a little less
[29:22] retail-oriented.
[29:24] I don't know.
[29:26] Yeah.
[29:30] So this is, do you use village services?
[29:34] So fire inspections, everyone has to have those, so they use that a lot.
[29:38] But some of our other services aren't used a lot, which is pretty normal.
[29:44] Reflective of a municipality's responsibilities. Yeah, my responsibility is public safety. And so what do they use widely?
[29:53] fire inspections
[29:54] police patrol in
[29:56] public emergency response
[29:58] So this
[30:00] Make sense. Yeah, yeah, it does. And I think maybe we're, I think we were doing a better job with our neighborhood patrols going through downtown more frequently, and I think that's beginning to be noticed, which is good.
[30:15] Yeah. Right, yeah, so this is satisfaction with village services. Again, again. Very small sample sizes. Small sample size, but it is.
[30:34] 9-12 is satisfied with the village communication and the next one is they all want email.
[30:43] And let's see, most respondents view the village as very responsive.
[30:49] It's good news.
[30:54] So this is kind of like an overall takeaway.
[30:58] way so parking is got mentioned a lot some events we need to do some more
[31:04] communication on Village Place communication seems to be good and they
[31:10] want us to maintain email yeah so I guess now what do we want to do differently
[31:17] because of this and because of the feedback that you guys might have
[31:21] received in person so I kind of throw that out there for discussion well
[31:30] one on the Village Place subject we have some work to do because that's what we
[31:38] were planning we're not rushing into anything so we're gonna have a meeting
[31:41] in September we'll get a little more flavor for where we are and possibilities
[31:45] that exist so I consider that somewhat on schedule okay we'll just know more in
[31:53] month. On the parking, we can keep Larry at it, and we can add those five spots and see
[32:07] what happens. It may be just one of those perennial things. It doesn't matter what you do.
[32:22] Someone
[32:23] on events,
[32:30] to me the big thing that sort of sticks with certain people is the move of
[32:40] the live after five. That's the only thing that seems to have captured attention of downtown
[32:47] business owners and it's understandable because there's a lot of people who are not hanging
[32:52] out there after live after five. Yeah, for four nights, yeah, out of the year. I think
[32:58] probably the best approach to deal with that is partner with the Pioneers Business Partners
[33:02] on smaller events that we can do to activate downtown or activate the park. And whether
[33:08] that's a, someone suggested a poetry reading, I would probably not go to that, but if
[33:14] But there is a smaller bands or movies in the park, things like that, or things we could
[33:22] do.
[33:22] We'll see how September 17th works out, but that may be a good start of something where
[33:27] we can find some other classic movies that will attract people around a certain event.
[33:36] I did have a thought of something else that slipped my mind.
[33:40] Some other comments?
[33:43] possibly we have it just an overall conversation about live at five at some
[33:47] point in time a little separate than this I think that moving it from the
[33:52] village to the arboretum possibly has displaced some of our current
[33:59] citizens that maybe don't want to park and then walk the far way and I think
[34:03] it's maybe servicing a little bit of a broader community beyond pioneers I
[34:07] just want to make sure that we have the opportunity for our citizens who
[34:10] You don't want to park and walk with their chairs.
[34:13] I know what my thought was.
[34:16] Maybe what we can do, live after five events, is we can provide complimentary bus or trolley
[34:24] rides from the arboretum to the Village Green for an hour after it ends.
[34:35] Yeah, and then that at least we had we'll have so people could actually park there
[34:39] We could do it. We had going both ways one, you know
[34:42] at five from five to six and another one from whatever it is eight to nine and
[34:47] And that's it that way people can actually park their car downtown get on a
[34:54] Bus for lack of better phrase
[34:56] Go up there listen to the music and eat and whatever and then get on a bus and come back to where their car is
[35:02] And maybe I'll hang out around downtown
[35:04] Yeah, that's a possibility I think we have used the bus to shuttle people from like behind the fire station parking area to a little bit closer
[35:14] I can ask if you know how popular that was or if we could redeploy that to drive between downtown or not
[35:20] It's the only idea I could come up with to just try to get people to end their night
[35:25] Going downtown at downtown at one point time there was a brief conversation about partnering with southern pines as well as Aberdeen about creating
[35:32] reading some sort of a bus loop or a trolley loop or something. I don't know if that probably
[35:36] never took off. We might have asked CVB to fund that. I think if I remember a couple
[35:45] years ago, and I don't know if that's an opportunity, but that could spur some downtown movement
[35:50] as well. So I think Moore County has talked about doing transportation services, something
[35:58] like that.
[36:01] But I don't know how quickly they're moving in that direction.
[36:04] Just spit balling things, they would move people around and also drop them off to like the mayor's point.
[36:10] One actually piece of feedback that I received for downtown is kind of accent lighting.
[36:16] It's pretty dark down there, especially in the winter.
[36:19] Uplighting?
[36:20] Yes, that.
[36:21] I've had that. I've had someone mention that to me.
[36:23] I actually think it would make it really nice
[36:26] So I got a talk to a couple of light vendors. It was like a hundred thousand dollars
[36:31] I think maybe that might be something we could apply to that CBB grant
[36:37] To pay maybe we do you know do it in phases
[36:42] The other difficult part about that is we have a lot of like islands that would need the lighting and then you
[36:48] to cut up the road and the road is fairly new pavement so maybe as the right
[36:53] before we repave the road we can do something like that that's a real
[36:57] impediment to seniors when it's dark there with the irregular surfaces and
[37:02] trying to navigate those yeah real impediment for them we can start where
[37:08] it's easier right yeah see how first phase is anywhere we don't have to cut
[37:13] through a road to get to it and we we try it and then no maybe the next
[37:16] face.
[37:22] Alright, anything else on this? Nope. Alright.
[37:29] And the few items we kicked
[37:31] around, Doug, where appropriate, you can put them on a future agenda.
[37:44] This is just
[37:44] a real quick, we met a few months ago, I can't remember when it was, maybe it was
[37:50] June, talked about communications, so got some good feedback from you, so
[37:55] a few things we're trying to do. One, tomorrow is our new relaunch of the monthly e-newsletter.
[38:04] So we're going to have a bunch of articles and information going out that applies to
[38:09] everyone. I have a question. How many e-mail newsletter
[38:15] recipients do we have? Not whether they open it up. What's the size of our list?
[38:20] I would have to check it well. I think that's very important for us to the main one is it's pretty large
[38:29] It is opt-in so it is through constant contact, so opt-in and out whenever you want and
[38:36] On the website is the ability to opt-in
[38:40] But we will
[38:42] Send this to all NAC members as well NAC members can spread it as as they can and actually maybe
[38:51] One of the things we should put on there is how do you sign up for this in case it just
[38:56] gets passed on through an email.
[38:59] The other thing Jeremy mentioned this is the kiosk, kind of using that a little bit more.
[39:05] So we added a few things on that.
[39:08] So like here is places to eat downtown and then we have another one that's like places
[39:13] you can shop downtown and another one that says go to the welcome center and find
[39:16] out all the information.
[39:18] They're another logical place for another kiosk.
[39:26] That comment was filtered through from some of the merchants, directional.
[39:33] Well yeah, there was one that says you need a sign that says you are here.
[39:36] There is a map on the back of the kiosk with the sign that says you are here.
[39:40] Does the kiosk have the ability to measure how many people go to it and ask questions?
[39:48] The kiosk is just a it's basically a poster board it's a billboard that but
[39:53] there's no because I don't have any idea how many people use it I mean it's like
[39:58] what I mean you can't use it you just look at I understand so I've been so it
[40:02] makes you wonder how reliable or how many people rely on it most people this
[40:09] is their kiosk I totally agree walking around town with this if the kiosk ever
[40:14] needed significant repairs, expensive repairs, I think we should consider whether or not
[40:20] it's valuable.
[40:24] That's my question. I'm trying to get some metrics for some of this stuff because I just
[40:28] don't know how to make an answer.
[40:32] And the other thing is, we mentioned if we could highlight, maybe make it easier for
[40:42] We have the website that highlights what happened, what it actually might mean to you as a regular
[40:49] resident.
[40:50] It's been great, by the way.
[40:51] Yeah.
[40:51] I have a suggestion.
[40:52] We may already be doing it.
[40:54] But when we say the council passed resolution X, a resident ought to be able to link to
[41:01] that, so that – and maybe they do.
[41:05] I didn't pay attention enough when I looked at it the other day because that helps
[41:11] actually go see what we did and rather than just hearing we did something
[41:19] they'll see that oh my gosh they're going to do this they're setting up an
[41:21] advisory committee that's going to do this it's going to meet so many days a
[41:24] week and so on so that's my one generic suggestion for our highlights Doug the
[41:32] quality of the graphics the inviting nature of this I think it's a real
[41:36] big step forward. So congrats.
[41:42] Thank you. If you click in meeting highlights, it takes
[41:47] you to this link. It takes you to this link. Okay, so it doesn't take you to the video of
[41:53] the council meeting. No, it does not. I mean, that is, we have it here. You can get to
[41:59] it. A minute's available. Well, that's a plus. That's a plus. Yeah. Or the YouTube
[42:05] channel that's that's a plus okay I just trying to help these the residents who
[42:10] are curious for more information after we give them some tidbits that's really
[42:22] all they have on that comments folks all in the right direction with
[42:31] that
[42:47] we're
[42:49] going to leave you.
[42:50] With that, we can go to a, we could go to a closed session if someone made a motion.
[42:55] I moved to enter the closed session pursuant to NCGS 143-318.11a6 to consider the qualifications,
[43:03] competence, performance, character, fitness, conditions of appointment, or conditions of
[43:08] initial employment of an individual public officer, employee, or prospective public
[43:12] officer or employee, or to hear or investigate a complaint, charge, or grievance by or against
[43:17] an individual public officer or employee.
[43:20] We have a motion.
[43:22] Second.
[43:22] In a second.
[43:23] All those in favor?
[43:24] Aye.
[43:25] Okay.
[43:26] We are in a closed session so.
[43:28] Yeah.
[43:28] Yeah, if you're...