Second, 2020, six meeting of the Carbero Town Council. This is a regular business meeting this evening. And we will start out a single case.
We'll start our meeting off as we do all of our meetings with a poetry reading from
our
a poem by Black queer poet named Jericho Brown. He is rooted in Atlanta and this is from his collection,
the tradition, I'd actually won the Pulitzer Prize. And this is a poem called Four Day in the Morning.
My mother grew morning glory, he's that spilled onto the walkway toward her porch,
because she was a woman with land who showed as much by giving it color.
She told me I could have whatever I worked for.
That means she was an American.
But she'd say it was because she believed in God.
I am ashamed of America and can founded by God.
I thank God for my citizenship in spite of the time
or set on my life to write these words.
I love my mother.
I love black women who plant flowers as sheepish as their sons.
By the time the blooms unfurled themselves for a few hours of light, the women who
tend them are already at work, blue.
I'll never know who started the lie that we are lazy, but I'd love to wake that bastard
up a four day in the morning, toss him in a truck and drive him under God, past every bus stop
in America to see all those black folk waiting to go to work for whatever they want. A house,
a boy to keep the lawn cut, some color in the yard, my God, we leave things green. Thank you.
Very good, Dr. Bennett.
We thank you so much for that poem, and so we'll move right into proclamations.
We are going to start out with our Pride Month proclamation brought to you by Mayor
Protem, Pesada Orozco, and Councilmember Frey.
All right.
We've got a joint reading tonight.
I'm going to start it off.
Whereas Lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer LGBTQ plus Pride Month is celebrated nationally.
each year in June to commemorate the Stonewall riots of 1969, and whereas the town of
Carborough has a proud history of advancing the rights of LGBTQ plus people, including
adding sexual orientation to the list of protected categories in the town's equal employment
opportunity policy in 1990, being the first municipality in the state to create a domestic
partner registry in 1994, being among the first to support civil marriage for same-sex couples
and inclusion of LGBTQ plus families in comprehensive immigration reform.
Being the first to call for a repeal of the discriminatory House Bill 2 in 2016, being among
the first with the towns of Hillsboro and Chapel Hill and Orange County to adopt the local
ordinance prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations and employment in 2021.
And whereas the town of Carbero has been a pioneer in queer representation, with 28 consecutive
years of LGBTQ plus mayors after being the first to elect a gay mayor in 1995 and later the
first to elect a lesbian mayor in 2013 and the first to elect a second gay mayor in 2021
having elected multiple LGBTQ plus older men and council members and being first to elect a
Latinx LGBTQ plus council member in 2022 and being the first to elect a non-binary council member in
plus people.
LGBTQ plus people, especially trans people,
and LGBTQ plus people of color,
experience disproportionately high rates of poverty.
Over 30% of trans and gender non-conforming people
have experienced homelessness.
LGBTQ plus youth make up a disproportionate number
of homeless youth in the United States,
and LGBTQ plus youth experience high rates
of bullying, harassment, and parental rejection,
with a company and heightened risk of depression, anxiety,
and suicidal ideation, and whereas the general assembly continues to target LGBTQ plus
people through laws such as House Bill 574, which prevents trans youth from participating
in middle and high school sports. House Bill 808, which bans best practice medical care for
trans youth, and Senate Bill 49, North Carolina's own don't say gay bill, which were all vetoed
by North Carolina Governor, then Roy Cooper, and later overturned by the Republican members of
General Assembly.
And whereas the town of Carber was committed to defending the human rights of LGBTQ
people and ensuring that all residents, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender
identity and gender expression are treated with respect and dignity.
And whereas in 2024, Carber received a high score of 91 out of 100 in the municipal equality
index, a measure to of how inclusive a town's laws, policies, and services of LGBTQ people are.
And whereas the town of Carbero and the town of Chapel Hill have long been partners
in affirming their opposition to discrimination, prejudice, homophobia, and transphobia, and
where we share commitment to create a place where all are welcome.
And whereas the town of Carbero and the town of Chapel Hill co-host small town pride, a series
of celebrations that include community and partner events, like Carbero Oduyo Pride happening
here in Carbero in a couple of weeks.
Therefore, I, let's have a look at that in the name of Barbara M. Fushi, Mayor of the
town of Carbero, hereby proclaim June 26th to be Pride Month in Carbero. I encourage all
residents of Carbero to celebrate and affirm the LGBTQ family members, friends, and neighbors
to take action to defend their human rights and to participate in small town pride events
in Carbero and Chapel Hill throughout this month.
This, the second day of June, 2026.
Oh, yeah.
Before we bring on a one of our local community members
who was here to receive the proclamation
as she shares some comments, I wanted to thank my colleagues
of course, Council Member Frey and all of you
on this dias for the continued support
of queer people here in North Carolina
in Carbero and North Carolina.
And to all the staff of Carbero for their continued engagement
with our community. In a time where we have over last time we checked over 500 legislative
attacks against queer people all over the United States, we need local communities like
Carbrod to continue to stand up. Here North Carolina, just last session, we had 13 anti-LGVT
Q builds. We were able to defeat 12 of them, and every time we had advocacy in the legislature,
not only we have my colleagues there, whether it's in person or through their continued support.
We also have residents of Carbero showing up.
So, to the council, to the staff and to all the members of Carbero, thank you so much for
your continued support of the Corps of Community.
With that, I would, you want to invite our guests?
I have one off the cuff thought.
As I was walking here, somebody asked me looking up at town hall, which is flying several
pride flags right now.
So they asked me, you know, didn't the general assembly ban those and they had like some bill where they were going to regulate what flags towns could fly to stop towns from flying pride flags?
I said, yeah, but they didn't, and we're not touching those flags.
You know, we're not going to roll over.
We're going to keep doing what we are here to do and upholding our values.
So thank you very much for your attention.
and I'd like to ask Cody Meyer to come up to receive the Proclamation and say anything they'd like to.
Welcome Cody.
Hello to the council. Hello everyone in attendance.
I am very honored to receive this Proclamation.
I moved here in July of 2023.
I am Transmask, non-binary.
A lot of different flavors of queer.
I came from a place that was not as inviting, actually, I would say it was a little bit homophobic
and a lot of respects,
and moving here was like a breath of fresh air.
In that, I felt like I could finally breathe.
I have been loved and supported by this community, and I thank you so much for keeping it
a safe town for me to live in and with my family and my wonderful wife who I love with all
my heart to finally hopefully thrive.
So please keep doing what you're doing, please keep fighting.
It means the world to me and I think to every other LGBT plus person in this town.
Thank you.
Good
evening everyone. Good evening. I have two more proclamations for this evening. The first one is in honor of pollinator week.
Whereas pollinators, including bees, butterflies, birds, and beneficial insects, are the silent
architects of our ecosystem, essential for biodiversity and the agricultural productivity that
sustains us.
And whereas, our local farmers, gardeners, and conservationists depend on these species to grow
the fruits, vegetables, and natural beauty that define carburals, economy, and character.
And we're as global pollinator populations face unprecedented threats from habitat loss and pesticide use, making local conservation efforts more urgent than ever.
And we're as the town leads by example through the installation of native bean nesting sites, the maintenance of dedicated pollinator gardens and the restoration of riparian buffers with native flora.
And whereas every resident and business can play a vital role in this effort by planting native species,
reducing chemical use and protecting the natural habitats that serve as life support for these species.
Now, therefore, I, Barbara Infushi, mayor of the town of Carber, North Carolina, do hereby proclaim June 22, through June 28,
2020-26 to be pollinator-week and carburel, be it further resolve that the town council
calls upon all residents to champion the protection of our pollinators.
We urge our community to plant natives, reduce pesticide use and cultivate pollinator-friendly
landscapes to ensure carburel remains a sanctuary for generations to come for the pollinators
That's the stainless. This the second day of June 2026. And accepting is Scott Nure.
See you at member. Welcome Scott.
Well, thank you for having me. I believe the proclamation sort of sums up a lot of the, you know,
the reasons this is important. I just wanted to read a little poem author unknown to me.
Just to give you a moment to reflect on all the insects provided basically every time we go to the grocery store and we're in the produce section.
while those fruits depend on pollinators and so they're the sort of the bases of our food chain.
So let's put them about that.
A flutter of gold and a dusting of wings,
a quiet vital dance is the warm season springs.
From the deep, sleepy blossom to the open blue sky,
the keepers of harvest go buzzing on by.
Without their small footprints, the gardens would fade,
and leave us without all the beauty they made.
From the tiniest meadow to the towering tree, the whole world depends on a hard working
bee.
Thank you so much for that Scott and for accepting the proclamation.
The last proclamation is to raise awareness about national gun violence awareness
day and whereas every day more than 130 to Americans are killed by gun violence and more
300 are shot or wounded and whereas Americans are 26 times more likely to be murdered
with guns than people in other developed countries and whereas firearms are the
leading cause of death for American children and teens and whereas North Carolina
ranks 19th amongst states for gun deaths in the United States with an average of 16.3
death.
1,500,000 people, every day, with 58% of gun-related deaths by suicide. And whereas, support for the
second amendment rights of law-abiding citizens goes hand-in-hand with keeping guns away from dangerous
people. And whereas, together with our neighbors, in Orange County, Chapel Hill and Hillsborough,
The town of Carboro supports efforts to enact common sense gun safety laws and educate and educate the community on gun safety.
And whereas anyone can join this campaign by pledging to wear orange on this Friday, June 5th, to help raise awareness about gun violence.
And we're as, by wearing orange on June 5th, Americans will raise awareness about gun violence and honor the lives and lost human potential of Americans stolen by gun violence.
And whereas we renew our commitment to reduce gun violence and pledge to do all we can to keep firearms out of the wrong hands and encourage responsible gun ownership to help keep our children safe.
Now therefore we now therefore okay the way this is where it. Now therefore we the
Carborough Mayor and town council here by proclaim June 5th, 2026. It's the National
Gun Violence Awareness Day in Carborough and encourage everyone to support the local
communities efforts to prevent the tragic effects of gun violence and to honor
and value human lives as well as to advocate with state and local elected officials
for passage to maintain an inact commonsense gun legislation. This is the second day of June
2026 and police chief Chris Ateck will accept this proclamation and while he's coming on Friday
at 9 a.m. at peace and justice plaza. There will be our annual gun violence awareness event.
It is joint with Orange County, Chapel Hill, Carboro, and Hillsboro, and representing our
council will be council member for a joiner.
And so, come on out, there'll be tabling and speeches in the reading of a joint proclamation,
T-Fate.
Thank you, Mayor.
Council members, you know, as I reflect on this issue, the harm that I've seen in my career,
the damage to folks in the community, the anxiety and the fear.
This is a challenging issue, and I think Carber were very lucky, but we also have the impacts
here.
We've seen them recently, and I just feel grateful for the folks that I work with our
first responders that are there.
We've got a lot of mental health initiatives going on now in the county.
We've got the care team going out there, trying to connect to folks in crisis, to decinflate,
trying to de-escalate, trying to support folks so we don't get to that level, right, because the prevention is a large part of that.
And then to all the community organizations, all the volunteers, all the folks, safe kids, all these that are trying to do their part to address this issue.
So I feel very grateful to be part of a team as well as an partnership with the community.
So thank you very much, Mayor.
Okay, so we're down to our town managers update, town manager Tony.
Good
evening Madam Mayor and Council members.
Just wanted to reiterate all of the events that we have in June.
Please visit our website.
We have some great events for pride for June,
for Frederick Douglass reading and so forth.
So please visit our website, carbrollnc.gov
to get update on our June activities in the town.
Also, just to mention there are probably questions
around what's happening on NC54 and so this is a partnership with NCDOT that is creating some
pedestrian improvements on NC54 at Abbey Road near rural park apartments as well as Westbrook
Road near Carolina apartments. This project should be completed around the end of this year and the
with all have bus stops on both sides of the highway.
They will be also refuge islands in the median
and will allow pedestrians to walk across the highway
until the next signal.
So we're excited.
Anytime there's opportunities for pedestrians
say DNA improvements in car rural.
And that's it, Mayor, thank you.
Thank you, town manager Tony.
We are now down to the public comment period.
And I have one person signed up, comments are limited to food minutes per speaker ask that
you adhere to those three minutes.
And as a time line stand, please try to finish up your comments and prepare to take
your seat.
And so the council wants to keep the public comment period equitable for everyone.
And the only person signed up for General Public Comment is at the podium, welcome Bill.
Good evening council.
First of all, I want to start off and just mention that everything
I have to say is my own personal opinion, I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody else.
As I had said a day, previous meeting, I wish that you would change the name of the town and
be done with the car in his history. I believe that calling this the town of progressive would
the most apt name to describe the people that live here. And it would also avoid a lot of
arguments.
Last year I sent an email about a self-described nonprofit called Opportunity
South Carolina. And I included this town council in that email. I heard nothing more from
Tammy Grooper. Good for her. Had a front page article in the Rally News and Observer.
This passed April 13th. Non-profit partnerships are reducing local tax revenues.
A week later, April 20th, a different reporter also for the News and Observer.
Had an article on the top of the front page, lawmakers put property tax cap on NC ballot and
loopholes.
The article on the 13th, again, with Tammy Gruber, it says, in Orange County, the
loopholes affected five properties valued at a total of $56.6 million this year, creating
A 742,844 dollar loss, a property tax revenues, four more properties.
Owners are seeking exemptions next year for a total potential revenue loss of about $1 million.
Data shows. These are the words of Tammy Gruber and another reporter with the Rally News and Reserve.
Carbure is the most significantly affected town, followed by Chapel Hill in Hillsboro,
doing part to older, more affordable apartment complexes.
Chapel Hill Carbure city schools are also losing significant public dollars, data shows.
So I really think that if I hadn't sound the alarm, nobody would have noticed, because
when a document is recorded in the public registry.
It's like the ending of that 1980s film,
the Riders of the Lost Ark, where something
gets put in a box in this warehouse,
and basically won't get found.
You would be surprised what I have found,
and I wish you would be nicer to me.
Thank you so much, Bill, for your public comment.
We have one item on our consent agenda. Council members is approval of the minutes from the
town council meeting held on May 19th, 2026. So we just need a motion to approve those
minutes. I moved it. We approve the minutes.
All right. It's been moved and properly seconded that we approve the minutes from the town
Council meeting on May 19th, 2026. All in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries
70, the minutes from that date are approved and we're moving to the next item, which
is the public hearing time manager Tony. I want to introduce that item.
This is our second opportunity for public hearing on the budget for the F. Black 27 budget
and capital improvement plan.
Welcome, Mr. Keys.
I'll go ahead and open up the public hearing.
Thank you.
Give us a short presentation, I imagine.
You know, we'll hear from members of the public.
Good evening, Madam Mayor.
And town council members.
This evening, I will be providing all
with an overview of the manager's recommended budget
and capital improvement plan.
The total F-277 recommended budget is $44.6 million
across all funds. The managed recommended budget is balanced, meaning that total revenues
plus available fund balance equals total expenditures.
This slide shows a breakdown of our
revenue sources by type in the general fund. Property taxes count for 56% and it serves as
our main source of revenue.
The total recurring revenue is 33.4 million dollars.
The recommended budget doesn't include fund-bounce appropriation, which represents 8% of the general fund budget, which is $36.2 million.
Here are some revenue budget drivers. The first driver is the Blue Ridge Lupo, which will have a negative impact on our property tax base.
we are projecting a decrease of $82 million with a potential revenue loss of $463,000.
However, we are projecting modest growth across other revenue sources such as local sales
and use taxes, fees, and permits.
As I've mentioned in the previous slide, the recommended budget does include fund balance
appropriation of $2.76 million, and that is to support one-time expenses related to tropical
storms on tall and recurring expenses ordered to close the revenue and expense gap.
Demandagers recommend a budget does not include a property tax increase.
The rate will remain at 56.53 since per $100 of assessed value.
This slide shows a breakdown of our expenditures by function in the general fund.
Our top areas are public safety, general government, and public works.
Here are some of our expenditure budget drivers by category in the general fund personnel.
The recommended budget does include livable wage and permutation, which will require us to make adjustments to our current pay plan.
The recommended budget addresses the rising cost of health insurance and includes a 2.5% cost of living adjustment.
Operations, the recommended budget allows us to continue maintaining current service levels,
provide free transit services to the community, our contract with the town in Chapel Hill,
will be increasing by 217,000.
And the budget allows us to cover one time expenses related to tropical storm trot hall recovery
and that includes expenses, leases, and supplies.
Our last category is transfers, our transfer schedule includes transferring funding from the general fund to the parking fund to provide free
services to community and to provide one-time transfer for capital projects related to
Trump, Trump, Trump, and Trump recovery.
Let's move on to our capital improvement plan.
The recommended CIP includes 43 proposed projects and one of those projects is the full-in-creak
phases 3 and 4 and the revenue source to offset the cost.
It will be debt financing.
The proposed investment for FY27 is $5.6 million and the impact to the general fund is $1.7 million.
Overall, five-year estimate costs is approximately $71.6 million.
The investment priorities include infrastructure and mobility, sustainability initiatives,
888 improvements and storm recovery and resilience.
So what's happening next?
Today June 2nd, we will have our second public hearing.
And after that, we will have a motion to adopt FY27 budget
and the capital improvement plan.
That concludes my overview.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr. Keyes.
Council members will have a public
I presume that maybe there will be questions or comments afterwards.
So that's okay.
I
have, and first on the list, Mr. Robertson is making a way up, Diane Robertson, and have comments about the budget.
Right, thank you. So I did want to note that the last full-fledged, showed resilience and sustainability as a priority in the budget.
Diane Robertson, resident of Carveros since 1991, I live in Spring Valley along Bowen Creek,
and I am on record on this matter before the Council since 2011.
I know that the Friends of Bowen Creek have sent a letter to the mayor and to manager Tony
to this matter as well.
So for the record again, this area is still a floodplain and will remain a floodplain.
The destruction of tropical storm shuntile is fresh and still evident.
This area is a sensitive riparian buffer that must be protected as noted in today's
pollinator proclamation.
It is physically irresponsible to commit resources to this project.
There are certainly higher priorities for taxpayer dollars in this economically challenging
time.
If there is an extra 500,000 for an engineering study in 20 million to complete the project in the Treasury,
perhaps it should be saved for the upcoming maintenance at a time when FEMA, which I also noted in your report, may not exist.
That is the current situation that FEMA is under destruction and may not have the resources that we have relied on in the past.
We're there a concrete path during Shantau.
It would have been moved into the creek.
That is a fact, water always wins.
And we see the evidence of that still from Shantau.
So thank you for considering this and thinking about this very strongly as you look at the budget
and what our priorities need to be.
Thank you so much, Mr. Robertson, for your comments.
Next, Melba.
Could you pronounce your last name, so I won't rub the arrow.
And Tilly Peck?
Or Peck?
Peck.
All right.
So each of you are talking for three minutes each.
Sharing the three minutes or less.
Thank you.
Welcome.
Till we pick 144 Northfield Circle.
Thank you for having us.
And number of RO 405 James Street.
Dear Mayor and Council on May 30th, 2026, a group of citizens of Carbon North Carolina, convened
to discuss our concerns about the fiscal 202627 budget proposed by Tom Council in management
staff.
The document, which you have been shared with you, outlined system level and project specific
issues recommended for remediation prior to approving the budget.
There are five issues that we have highlighted that we believe require remediation.
I'm going to summarize them briefly and then go into detail.
The first one is showcasing the financial stewardship that is actually behind the budget.
It's unclear.
Number two is providing clarity around funding.
Number three is adhering to open government decision making.
Number four is holding on to the Bolin Creek Greenway projects, and number five is continuing human services support.
I'll start with the first one, showcasing financial stewardship.
The effective financial stewardship of the town's resources, with 56% coming from property taxes, is unclear in the documentation.
This issue is exacerbated by seemingly insufficient attention and resources for economic development
strategies and projects. We, as a group, recommend a task force composed of financial professionals
and carbo residents be created and funded for the purpose of reviewing and providing feedback
on the town's financial strategy, decision making governance and reporting with processes
and results being shared with the community prior to the fiscal 28 budget public hearings.
Item number two, provide funding clarity.
Carbero homeowners saw a significant spike in mortgage payments
and cost burden resulting from last year's massive property re-evaluations.
And yet this year's general fund is 1% lower than last year.
The current budget does not reflect the additional revenue generated by the increase
in property tax revenues. We recommend clearly documenting how funds from increased property
revenue are being deployed. We also recommend that carbo not increased property tax in any
amount for fiscal 2627. I'll do one more you do it in plus two. Item number three, adhere
to open government decision making. The current economic and socio-political climate has
direct impact on the citizens of the town of Carboro. We are concerned that the town's
current approach and practices to the capital improvement plan CIP creates a financial
risk that is not clearly recognized or understood by town residents. As a result, we recommend
clear documentation of processes, community engagement, governance and reporting of all new
that financing.
Consistent with a town's goal of pursuing
participatory budgeting as outlined in carburels
in carburel connects.
The balancing strategy that refers to
that financing.
I'm going to ask you to finish up or either pass
over to Melba if you don't want to.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, you welcome.
Right there.
Melba has solid three minutes.
So the balancing strategy that refers to
depth financing on the slide 10 of the FY27 recommended
budget and CIP dated 512, 2026 feels too broad, generic and permissive.
Number four is hold on bowl and create greenway projects.
The bowl and create three and four greenway projects constitutes nearly 45% of the FY27
CIP budget with a projected 20 million future cost.
Whether the project is a good idea, or is even feasible, is beside the point right
Now what matters is that town leadership is supporting and recommending a project and resource
allocation that fails to recognize the risky financial climate we are living in.
We recommend removing the Bolin 3 and 4 greenway from the FY2627 Capital Improvement Plan.
And last, continue human services support also because of the current economic climate and
because of the town of Carbero's historical commitment to race and equity as reflected in the town of Carbero 2022 to 2024 comprehensive plan.
We strongly oppose cuts in human services funding.
We recommend openly revisiting options for funding for human services.
And so we have about 34 signatures of residents and I think mostly reside in northern part of
the car.
I don't know.
They're all everywhere.
I will just add for my perspective, you know, I'm a single female living by myself, one
income.
And, you know, the tax increase has been tremendous.
It's a tremendous burden right now.
And so we just asked that you guys consider what's on the docket.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank
you.
Next up, I have Celia, Pierce, welcome Celia.
Good evening, mayor and town council.
I haven't had the pleasure of entrusting you before.
But I want to add on a live at 307 Ocavenew.
I want to add one to what Melville was talking about.
I kind of represent the other end of the spectrum,
not a young woman living alone, but an older person.
My family has been in color, but since my grandmother came to town
in the Battle of Wagon as a child.
And I'm living in the house that my grandparent, my grandmother was a child in, and I was a child in and my mother was a child in deep, deep roots.
We worked to have what we have.
Nothing was given to us.
We started out with my grandfather working in the mill
and just passed on a real strong work ethic.
However, the things that are going on in this country and in this town
so far as the economics are concerned is causing me a great deal of concern
about whether or not our family that has been able to work hard, nothing was given to us,
but being able to pass on and help culture and give back to car bro. Whether or not we're
going to be able to stay, and I'm saying the we because I'm hoping my son will be able
to keep our house.
So I urge you to keep in mind that the decisions
that are made by the carabero town council
and we have voting to hear to do this for us,
for us, your decisions are going to have
a direct impact on all of us.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your comments.
Next I have Terry Buckner.
So Terry is okay.
Margaret Weiner.
Is it Weiner?
I hope I said it right.
Welcome Margaret.
Well thank you and good evening.
I wanted to say I support the suggestions for remediation
in the Carberos Citizens Tax Action Group budget feedback documents.
And I urge you to pay very close attention to the details of those documents.
I want to also underline the point about Poland Creek.
But I also want to add the following.
Budgets project the past into the future.
The past appears in the budget plan in the form of old projects,
capital improvement projects.
Treading events, more recent events such as Shantal as one time occurrences.
But what if what one's counted as normal is gone?
For the coming year, consider two additional concerns.
Some predicts that the 2026 El Nino may be the strongest one ever.
This could lead to more devastating storms as well as droughts.
In addition, the closing of the Strait of Hormuz is devastating the world's economy, leading
to massive inflation, which we're all feeling here.
By autumn, there may also be a food crisis due to the war's impact on the availability
of fertilizer and diesel.
These issues should figure into planning for the net with the coming year.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for your comments.
Margaret.
Next, I have Piper, please for not your last name, so I won't murder Honigman, welcome Piper.
Hello, I am Piper Honigman, and I live on Hillsborough Road. Good evening Mayor and members of the Council.
Before you cast your vote tonight, I urge you to look honestly at what this budget says about our town's priorities and what it commits our taxpayers to down the road.
To absorb rising costs and storm recovery, this budget cuts human services funding by 45%.
Yet we are still authorizing $80,000 for the phase 2 design, and I separate 240,000 out of our general fund over the next few years, just to design phases 3 and 4 of the Boeing Creek Greenway.
Actually, building this greenway will cost upwards of 14 million.
Assuming federal grants will cover 80% of that construction.
Carbore tax payers are still legally on the hook for 2.8 million, which we will most likely borrow.
The federal funding is never guaranteed.
If we don't get those grants, the town has paid for a costly design we cannot use.
This greenway project is a want, not a need, and every year we see true need increasing all around us.
Last year was a difficult budget year, and this year is yet another.
In fact, last year the greenway design was intentionally excluded because of budget constraints.
Despite how many residents stand up at these meetings to argue against paving through our woods in an active flood zone,
The Council continues to stick to this plan year after year.
Perhaps your support stems from the results of the survey taken a few years ago.
A survey I didn't know about until after the fact, so I went back and I looked at it.
There were no concrete numbers referenced nor any of the difficulties or drawbacks or other options like a path along school school road.
Now that we actually have the numbers, the majority of the public speaking to this issue,
these meetings has been against it. Are you hearing something completely different?
Speaker after speaker comes up here, makes their argument, and we hear big-
Basically nothing in response from the council. The project just quietly stays on the agenda.
I would like to know what are your thoughts? What are you hearing?
We are already on the hook for 1.5 million per year just to service our past debt.
If you think I'm being an alarmist, regarding our financial constraints, tell me how I'm wrong.
And explain how more debt is totally affordable.
I believe a paved path through a flood zone when less expensive, less controversial alternative
exists is a bad idea that we should not cram into an already strained budget, and I urge
the Council to strip it from the budget once again, and hopefully for the last time.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Parker, for your comments.
In the last person I have signed up is Rob Cric, welcome, Rob.
I could evening everybody, and I'd just like to state that I also am opposed to paving the path along
Bolin Creek.
I'm not going to go into the budgetary considerations, because I think so many other people have done a very good job of laying out the numbers and the strategies that you need to consider for this budget to sum it up.
It's a waste of money, Margaret brought up some global issues, one of the things that came
to my mind was there is a lot of activity in the global bond market right now and I don't
think anybody really knows what you're going to be paying for interest rates on a lot
of this debt that you seem to want to take on for the taxpayer of carburel.
I've been talking about this issue since 2009 to you guys.
And you do keep it on the books because staff keeps bringing it up.
You guys keep on allocating funds for this thing.
Even though sun gate you're engineering for them that you want to have
design work done on it has already said in their signed and sealed report
that there are a number of issues regarding this path,
which are going to make it technically very, very difficult.
It's a really dumb idea.
I mean, it just is.
Environmentally, you get to end up taking out a lot of trees along with the creek.
That's going to increase sunlight penetration into the water column.
That's going to increase temperatures in your water.
That's going to drive algae growth.
It's also going to kill off a lot of biodiversity within the creek.
that creek, pulling creek, drains into Jordan Lake, and that is a drinking water source
that you're playing around with.
We don't have other drinking water sources in this region except for Jordan Lake.
We have no aquifers.
Jordan Lake is the water source for a lot of these towns to use as drinking water.
You're playing around with things, and you don't even understand it, I mean honestly, and
For other pathways, the Jordan Lake rules also states that you cannot put in a pathway if there
are a practical alternative that exists.
There are practical alternatives that exist.
You can put one along a school school road and you can also wait for the time and the opportunity
when it presents itself to put in a green way that goes from the libicotten pathway up the railroad line
all the way to Durham. I mean, you can get all the way up to NC-10. And it's just, that would
be a regional greenway that would lower your vehicle miles traveled. Right now, this path that
you're talking about is pure recreation. It's as somebody described it, it's paper described,
it's a want. It's not a need. This is, it's time to put a Dale on the coffin of this project
and just kill it and be friscally responsible.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Crook, for your comments.
Those are all the folks that I have signed up.
If anyone else wants to speak, I see your hand come on up.
I believe that is Lori Carter, and probably human services.
Welcome, Lori.
Yes, Matt. Mayor.
It is.
Good evening, Mayor, Council members and staff.
I am in fact, Lori Carter, living on 209 Simpson Street
since for 21 years, having married a townie.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak again.
And thank you for those of you who took the town
when you're holiday weekend to respond to my emails,
pleading for additional funding for human services.
I am also here in the face of extraordinary financial
times as otherwise mentioned by other folks, and to ask you to do all that you can do, to
fund human services for fiscal year 2027.
I am personally looking for ways that those of
us with resources can share them with those in need, whether that's in financial means or
through gifts of time, and I am saying this because people are watching, I invite all of us
or in the the privilege position to do so to do that because it is not going to get this financial
situation. It's not going to get solved by the town writing a gargantuan check any more than
it is by any one of us doing one part. It's going to take our collective effort to do so.
I'm here because I didn't see any change in the proposed budget paperwork. Some here asking again.
And I'm here specifically to plead with you on the behalf of those in our community who cannot be here.
Those people work in three jumps.
Those elders, those people who are going to rely on the services that have been cut.
And so I ask you, Jeff, consider a new creative.
Honestly, I'm like happy for any way that you want to figure this out.
Go with God.
Please do so to please do it.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for those comments about human services.
funding, a decision that we have to talk about and make this evening. Is there anyone
else that would like to give public comment?
I just want to really quickly offer if any of you ever want to talk about the route from
Carborough out to Olden, C10 and how we can create a regional greenway that will serve more
people, a lot of a diverse community,
it would be a really good project.
If you want to talk about it, contact me, I'd be happy to talk to you about it.
I presented to the Orange County Commissioners a couple of years ago and they love the
presentation.
If you want to contact me.
Thank you so much for that information, Mr. Crap, I appreciate it.
Since no one else is wanting to give public comment and our speakers are spoken, I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing council members.
Just a couple of things ahead of our discussion, which actually
we are going to the action item.
Are there are there any questions for Mr. Keyes any points of clarification.
And if not, I've closed the public hearing, and I would just move forward to the adoption
where we can discuss, do some discussion, and make a decision if it's the council's
pleasure.
Anything from the case?
Good.
So, we're going to move to the agenda, tell manager Tony, is there anything about our action item?
first one that you want to add before we just pop right into it, all right, let's pop into it.
So things we have heard colleagues, we have heard that community members do not want to
property tax increase in any amount for the next physical year. The recommendation to remove the
three and four greenway from the physical year 2627CIP and the recommendation to openly revisit
options for funding human services, which I think that one we are pretty close to a solution.
We just have to talk it through the night, chew on it a little bit. I'm reading from the
document,
and out of the five items, you know, those were just kind of items that may have
disveble to the surface for our discussion anyway, which is why I'm bringing them up.
So here we are, and
whether we're going to adopt the budget tonight or not, the next opportunity
of course would be June 16th if we don't adopt it tonight. There's was also some concern
about us adopting our budget ahead of our inch county. I believe maybe they're scheduled to adopt
maybe June 19th. Is it June 19th? I'm not sure what the date I've seen floating around as well
But I agree that it is a Friday, and so I'm not sure if it's correct.
Oh, do I take it straight?
That's what I saw at it.
Oh, yeah.
I wasn't.
Confident on either.
Okay.
So let's get down to business and decide what we're going to do.
Let's discuss two on some of these items.
I think in our last meeting, human services funding, we can go ahead and just start there.
And just hear from council members about what their thoughts are, about how to feel that get.
Oh, I see a hit. Council member Palmer.
Madam Mayor, I would like to give some comments, but I would like to just start by offering an amendment to match the previous fiscal year's human services funding out of fund balance.
And I want to explain myself a little bit if colleagues will bear with me, briefly, at
our previous meeting, I mentioned potentially doing this with a 0.5-3 cent tax increase after conversations with members of the public.
My fellow members of council, the town manager,
I'm given to understand that we are in a fiscal position where we can do this out of fun balance this year and that appropriate limiting functions exist in future fiscal years to do that now.
And I believe we have votes tonight to adopt such an amendment to the manager, so I can
admit it, but
it pause and speak extremely briefly about the voluntary green way
and note
that from this dias, we do not respond directly to members of the public when they give public
comment. That's not how our procedure works. And there are good reasons for that. That does not mean
that we either agree or disagree with specific comments.
I know that my reading, backed by people who have expertise,
is that Ballon Creek faces three and four,
a core to our active transportation, moving forward.
And that we can do this, we should do this
If we want to adapt to climate change,
I trust expertise, I trust experts in their field, I have a degree in information science, I focus with science and metrics.
I strongly encourage people to listen to experts in their subject area,
and I should stop there for now.
Can I ask was there was there a motion for any credits?
I'm sorry if you want me to formally I would like to now make a motion and I would ask for a second.
Can I propose some friendly language?
I would accept a friendly.
Is this motion, are you going to say the exact amount of money or just whatever money?
That's the idea.
let's go. I would like if it's amenable to you colleague to propose that we adopt the budget ordinance
with an amendment to allocate an additional $197,130 to the recommended budget to restore human services
grants to base level funding to be offset by matching appropriation of fund balance of the general fund.
If you're making that motion I will second it. Great doing business with you.
I've got $197,130.
I'm Madam Mayor Fitzgerald, I would add comments to that.
Do you have comments?
Oh, go ahead.
Yeah, mostly I just want to reflect on the really strong work by our financial staff to put us in this position.
We have talked about some difficult trade-offs here, and none of our choices have been perfect.
And we've had a far-ranging discussion about it through this budget season.
Long time listeners of the program will know that I have hesitations in pursuing the strategy that we're pursuing tonight.
We, you know, to restate some points I've made. Every year we don't raise our revenues to keep up with inflation, we are functionally losing revenue.
as we too well know in carburetor that means property taxes and sales taxes.
I think after conversations that we've had, it's not the year for a tax raise.
Many years are not, more years are not than years that are since I've been on this board.
But we're going to need to, you know, these are recurring expenses.
It is my understanding that we are ahead of our appropriation and fund balance for fiscal year 2025,
and this is like the really good work of our staff.
is we had a really good budget that put 3.5 million dollars of fund balance, a preparation
in front of us.
And then the really good budgeting work turned into really good finance work to keep us
from actually tapping into that 3.5 million dollars.
So relative to FY2025, we are roughly 3.2 million in the black against projected.
If I have that right, and that is an extraordinary testament to our financial office.
And then, you know, our fund balance policy to kind of underline something that would, like, in the, in the spirit of transparency, because I know that we've heard a lot of comments from people who are motivated about this.
Carverose fund balance policy is to carry a fund balance in excess of three times the recommended fund balance that the North Carolina League of Municipalities stipulates.
So, the conservative end of the North Carolina League of Museum of Spalities and the
8 percent, and I think ours is 22, so not quite 8 percent.
We're looking at about 3 times a little bit less than 3 times what the North Carolina League
of Museum of Spalities considers conservative.
And I think that that's a wonderful policy for us because I think it puts us in a position
to do what we are doing here tonight, which is to have an avenue toward making
hard choices and listening to our residents and, you know, threading needles that might not be available to us to thread if we were a 8% rather than 22%.
So there's sort of an important conservatism to our policy that I think is very fruit tonight.
That's it. We are kicking the revenue can down the road here.
As we have done in the past,
we have questions that we need to disentangle about our strategy and overall locations of human services.
as we sort of tabled in our first discussion.
We had we owe it to ourselves before budget cycle next year
to talk about the special revenue fund
and its relationship to the general fund
and to make that decision without the pressure of cuts.
We were surprised by healthcare increase this year.
We will not be surprised that we can guarantee healthcare increase next year.
And so, between the health care and a couple of other expenses, we're looking at about
three quarters of a cent next year off the bat to maintain this budget.
I'm really, really pleased that we have a balanced budget that we don't have to raise
taxes on, really, really pleased and not after-cut human services.
I'm really, really pleased to be making progress on all of our approved infrastructure projects.
As every year, you know, we need this to be a year-round discussion, and you know, I think
the one thing that I somehow forget in all of the things that I say is this is the land
you sort of nuts.
That's the other thing is like this is the land you sort of nuts, and that's the work
that's in front of us and why it's so vital is because we've heard from a number of the folks
that we've heard from tonight over the years and other commenters, but certainly some folks
tonight we've heard repeatedly and have well heard the necessity of expanding our
revenue streams. We are dying on the vine here and we are going to keep
putting it on the backs of a small number of homeowners unless we get this land
you sort of done and dusted and in a position first to start making some money
off of it. So really really pleased here with our work and I just kind of wanted to
close the loop on a couple of things we've been talking about over the past couple
Good comment, thank you so much, Councilmember Nell.
I see Mayor Pro Tempestado, that's good.
Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, colleagues for your consideration.
And to the staff, especially you, Mayor Tony, for the work on this,
I'm conflicted, right?
We're going down like, Councilmember Nell said, again and again, and every time every time
voter on a budget. It's we've pulled from from the fund balance. It's something that we keep
saying we're going to fix. We're going to fix. We're not going to get to it. And once again,
we're looking at pulling from the fund balance for ongoing expenses. Yes, I agree. We have
we're in a good financial position. And I agree that we can do this. Doesn't mean that because we
can do something we should continue to do the same thing over and over again.
With that said, I deeply believe in the work that all these nonprofits are doing.
And I don't want to secure ourselves thinking that the small amount we're taking from the
fund balance to make up for the small gap in funding that doesn't cover the entire
entirety of what nonprofits are asking for is going to make
it is going to make a difference.
But we're not solving the problem, the town cannot continue to just throw more money at the issues.
When you're looking at, and I think one of our speakers mentioned this, it's not just the town.
All of us at a community need to come together to support these organizations.
I was doing the math, if 200 community members here in Carpro can donate $100.
That makes up, hey, I lost my numbers, I had to think, but a little bit over 200 members of the community
don't need a hundred dollars each.
That fits everything that we have to do that the communities are asking us to meet that gap.
Now, if we continue to promote events, use town resources to be able to show the important work that these
organizations are doing for the residents of Carboro, that goes beyond just simply allocating
more money from the fund balance that we're later going to have to increase taxes to make
up.
I understand how this is a small amount of money compared to the entire budget, and I'm not going
to seriously vote against the budget because I agree with just like last year with the
like 99% of what is in here, and I again believe that the staff is in a great job at putting things together.
But let's not kid ourselves and let's not pat ourselves in the back saying that because we're taking money from the fund balance to support these nonprofits,
we're doing that huge of a difference. We're not funding their entire requests.
We're not meeting the actual gap that these community members and organizations are feeling out there, and we cannot continue to act as a foundation because we're not.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
All right, thank you so much.
Councilmember Prasadotos, are there any other comments or concerns about any portion of the budget?
I don't know.
I'm happy to say.
I'd like to.
Councilmember.
All right.
So yeah, I think other folks have done their version of this, and I'm for whatever reason
inclined to do my version of it tonight too. But just want to kind of frame our decision in the larger
kind of trajectory of things. When I was riding my bike here tonight, I passed a couple of
neighbors walking there dog and pushing a stroller with their great-grandbaby in it. And they said,
are you going to raise taxes on us again? And I said, I don't know, I haven't decided.
But what I am
sure of is that we won't go another 10 years before we raise taxes again. And that's why it hurts so
last year is because for 10 years we didn't raise taxes. And so we're not going to do that again
because we don't want to put people through that pain again. What we are going to do is do our best
to keep pace with inflation at the bare minimum so we can continue to provide the services that
make, you know, to make this town run. And so we can continue to pay people a reasonable age
that they still can afford to live in Carborough on to keep this town running.
And I also want to frame that in the trajectory, you know, kind of into the larger work
that we're doing around the land use ordinance that council member now mentioned, there's
an adage in the planning world, you can have good services, low taxes, and low population
density pick two. Right now we have low population density in good services, which is why we
have high taxes. So what we're trying to do with the land use ordinance, the downtown area
plan. And I hope that putting this in perspective will help gain some support for these ideas.
Is we're trying to increase the population density near the core where we have the infrastructure
And we can make better use of that infrastructure and actually be revenue generating so that when we bring more people down town and we have more businesses down town
We are reducing the burden per household. So just just kind of want to frame all that where we came from how we got here where we're trying to go.
So that's my
I won't call it two cents again. That is that is my
brief comment. Thank you. Thank you so much councilmember Maran Cali. It's absolutely great comments.
It's like feel like we're rounding a corner with motion still on the table about human services and not forgotten about that other comments.
I'm sorry councilmember for it. Thank you madam there. I'll be very brief because I think my colleagues comments have covered a lot.
My personal preference would have been to do the very small increase because I feel that we owe people that honesty.
If we do not grow our tax base,
we will either cut services or we will consume our savings or we will raise taxes.
Those taxes are going to have to go up every year we do not find a way to increase our revenue.
So I understand for this year we've we've opted I get the sense of the consensus of the council is to use the fund balance.
That's not personally my favorite. I think that it is incumbent on us to make the case to our residents that five bucks per household per hundred thousand of home value.
comparing, I think as Council member, as Mayor Pertem Bosadotosco pointed out, if 200
Carvera Residence gave a hundred bucks, that would cover it.
Well the other way to cover it is for each household to give $5 per hundred thousand because
that's the way that the structure works.
So for the median home in Carvera, that is 20 bucks.
I think that is well worth it to close that gap and that's not to get into questions about
are we where the buck stops for human services?
No, we can't be.
Are we off the hook for human services?
No, we can't be.
We're in this interesting spot in the middle in between the county and the federal government, right?
But we're an important site of services for our residents and especially those who need most.
So, to me that is worth it, we will have to pay for it next year and we will find our way
to do that.
So, I think we've all sort of given notice that we're going to do our best to grow that
tax pace so that we can start having that right come down each year.
But until we get that work done, it's going to have to go up and if it's not every year,
it's going to be more in the years than it does.
So, I think my colleagues for keeping the important thing front and center, which is to fill
that gap in the funding.
Thank you so much, Council Member Frey, are there any other comments?
I'm sure there are no questions.
Madam Mayor, if I could, I just...
Council Member Jordan.
I just want to thank my colleagues and thanks staff for all their hard work and helping us
come to a humane decision,
because that was my appeal the last time we sat here is to think
about how we can have the highest, not just the highest and best use of our resources,
but the highest expression of our humanity towards our community members.
And so I know it doesn't permanently fix that gap, but I do like the discussion that I'm hearing
about what we can do as a community together.
I think it's both, and I think, yes, we do this,
but let's put some teeth in trying to figure out
how we can pull the community can pull their resources
to execute this, because I think we're definitely
going to need it.
We're definitely going to have to think about
these things moving forward, but I like the energy
behind us pulling together, pulling our resource together,
because I think that's the ethos of who we're trying to be as a town,
the essence of what we're trying to project,
not just to each other as neighbors, but also to the state and to the country.
So anyway, I want to thank you all for...
I'm going to open this up because we've had so many comments. And you know, I'm going to
emails about the recommendation to remove,
bowl in three and four, green wave from physical year CIP.
Now my first inclination from my colleagues,
as I know it, I think that that would not be
what my colleagues would be in favor of,
but there is the concern that we continue,
or that we are gonna support this project
and the resource allocation, which Mr. Keys,
He did talk about that earlier about how that would be financed, and I'm raising it because we have heard those concerns.
Are there any comments or questions, colleagues, or are we leaving it? Where were we?
Can't remember now. Yeah, the floor. Thank you.
It's a proved project that our agenda plan.
And we're going to continue to try and fund all of our proved projects.
We have approved the project. Legislating whether or not we will pursue Bowling Creek 3 and 4 is behind the work
of Bowling Creek Greenway 3 and 4. There are complications in planning any greenway that
one does not wave a wand and get a buffer permit. One does not wave a wand and automatically
comply with the Jordan Lake Watershed Rules. But like the Morgan Creek Greenway, which is
set to begin construction, the professional planners and our employee work with the relevant state
agencies to get the buffer permits and comply with the relevant watershed rules as is standard
operating procedure and totally day-regoer for thousands of
creakside greenways in the Jordan Lake watershed, which is to say that we have
been vocal about the hurdles in funding this project, the total project cost is
huge. And once we have sort of crossing analysis is a huge step toward
complying with the watershed rules, toward concretizing our actual alignment, you know,
from there on we'll need to negotiate easements with property owners with the
So we'll have to like, yeah, it's still a lot.
And as a council, we'll have to almost certainly
face the project out, to bid it into smaller chunks,
then the overall total cost and the capital improvement plan.
But I think to the extent, we want to have a community
discussion here and put our cards on the table,
just like the restriping for Greensboro Street,
just like the South Greensboro sidewalk,
just like the Shelton Street Contraflo Lane,
just like the dozens of projects
in our safe routes to school and bicycle project.
This is an approved infrastructure project
that we will be pursuing construction and funding for.
So I thank you for those comments.
Council member now, I did want to open it up
because there has been quite a few emails
and comments here this evening.
It is an approved project with a long, long, long way to go.
And I'm not even sure any of us will.
Probably not even be at this day, unless there's a magic wand and we have 20 or 20 or 30 million dollars to just kind of fall upon us.
And also not sure about paving.
I think things change over time, and ideas may change about how to make this area more accessible.
and paying may not be what we're thinking, you know, it could, it could be the
crushing run. Everybody seems, you know, wildly enthusiastic about that.
You know, the work that Owasa has done there, and I've heard a couple of other
ideas, so we just don't know. And as Councilmember Nau alluded to, you know, it's just
far down the road to just be kind of thinking that far ahead, but it isn't a
to answer some questions we heard earlier about why it keeps coming up is because the project has been approved.
And so periodically there will be some movement on the project.
And as I said, Mr. Keyes explained it, you know, about how it will be financed.
We received a lot of emails using the word loan.
And Mr. Keyes, it was debt service right, so he described it as debt service.
And I know that it's not popular, but again, we're always listening when community speaks about this project, but it is an approved project.
And so periodically there will be money spent on this project.
Anyone else?
I see two hands.
Can Frey and Palmer?
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Um, just some brief notes to fill in the holes between things that have already been said.
Um, the project remains popular, as best I can tell, you know, we know that the comments that we receive in person are a small subset of the expression of public opinion to this council.
Um, that doesn't mean that they don't matter.
I'm glad that you're here to give them to us.
You know, they say if nobody around you is telling you that you're wrong,
then you're in a bubble.
I am glad to have all of you to tell me that I am wrong frequently in it volume.
But when we talk to members of the larger community,
not just the folks who are able to show up to these meetings,
we continue to find that this project is popular.
As folks have noted, it is also slow.
So, just a note for anyone who is listening at home, who has been getting communications saying that
the bulldozers will roll through, born and born forest next year, should we approve this?
The next year's budget is for a crossing study, and that's it.
This is just the very slow progress of a very large project.
Thank you.
That wasn't for you.
Councilman, we're full.
All March.
Thank you.
I just, I did want to clarify one thing, and that is specifically the word amenity.
A range of folks did run to us, and it's actually less than in previous years,
and they
may think that it's not clear that a very small group is feeding them a misreading of public
documents, but it is extremely clear when you reuse words like amenity, which have a technical
meaning.
I want to be super clear, bowing greenway is not amenity.
It's part of our transportation network.
It is an approved plan to be part of our active transportation network.
It may also serve as an amenity, but that's not why it's an approved project.
I'm
angry tonight, but I'm not angry at you all.
I'm angry because we are downstream of, one was mentioned from podium, we are downstream
of two things at a national level that directly affect our budget.
The Medicare Medicaid snap benefits, all of those tax changes that were passed July 4th
of last year.
That's why human services funding requests are ballooning.
When we January 1, a lot of people are going to have a lot more need.
Direct line from federal changes to our budget.
A war of choice.
Freedom of navigation has been a priority for this country for an absurdly long time.
And the current occupant,
anyway, it's directly downstream of decisions at the federal level.
I'm mad about that. I don't want to be mad at my fellow residents.
And so I do want you to hear it from me, but I do take personally an accusation that we don't respect open meetings.
That's the law. We take that extremely seriously.
If we accidentally show up somewhere, and there are four of us, one of us will leave,
because that's a quorum.
We take this very seriously.
We either swore an oath or solemnly affirmed we all take this process extremely seriously.
I deeply respect all of my colleagues.
I deeply respect the work of our town manager.
And I want folks to hear that from me.
Thank you.
So I think I have heard from everyone about everything.
And so colleagues, I think what I want to know,
and maybe I should ask Nick, we can go ahead and pass the amendment
for human services to fund that.
Go ahead and pass that first.
You can, why don't you just go ahead and do that,
And then go through the rest of the adoption of the budget if it's the council's pleasure to do that tonight.
So the question is on the floor already.
I believe the motion that's on the floor is to approve the entire budget with the amendment attached in one motion.
We could also do that.
That was the intent.
Yes.
So it's okay to put A, B, C, and D, and just all together.
Your California phrase right I just I didn't hear Danny say anything about the main budget
Just clarify. Yes, I would like to improve move the entire budget with the amendment
All right, along with along with your motion for the funding gap and I'm still happy to be the second with that clarification
Okay, all that's on the floor council members. Are you ready for the question?
All in favor, please say aye
any opposed? Motion carries seven o'clock. Our budget is adopted for next
physical year. Thank you so much. Town manager Tony, our award-winning budget and finance team
led by Chaz. Just thank you so much and all the department heads for the hard work that went
into delivering a balanced budget with no property tax increase. But just so grateful that we were
able to come together as a council and fill that funding gap for human services which
could not be more important than it is right now.
Thank you so much.
Next item, Action Item, Town Manager Tony.
Thank you.
Yes.
Second, Action Item is consideration of the North Carolina DOT ordinance and subsequent
Harboral town code amendment to change the speed limit of homestead road to 35
miles per hour and Christina Moon is going to review this item.
Thank
you for the introduction.
Looking at the clock and you've already received this if it's okay. I'm gonna hit the highlights and keep moving and then we can circle back for questions if you have them
The principle purpose of bringing this before you tonight is for you to review and vote on
or two concur with NCDOT's ordinance, which is to lower the speed limit from 45 to 35 on
a portion of homestead road. This is a little small, I thought the yellow line here shows homestead road.
This is a project, we'll talk about it in a little bit more depth in just a minute.
But this is a project which involves both Chapel Hill,
Corburo and NCDOT together,
or just like the crossings on 54 we talked about earlier today.
This is a great example of all the partners working together
and to take advantage of a resurfacing project
to put in place other improvements
and particularly reducing the speed limit.
This is an extra slide.
I think we've all been on HUMSTED Road,
but sometimes seeing it again is a helpful refresher.
when you're talking about it. So what you can see here is this is a road that used to be relatively
world that's now experiencing quite a bit of growth. It is used heavily by vehicles as well as some
cyclists. There's very little in the way of shoulder. And so this is an effort to try to get a little bit more
shoulder in as well as to make the the travel lanes a little bit more narrow.
And so the important element here is
And I've included on the right hand side the image of attachment C in your packet.
This is the actual ordinance that DOT has provided for us for the clerk and the manager to review and complete following your discussion this evening.
And so all DOT speed limit changes involve the approval of an ordinance for those speed limit changes that go through a municipality or so the town limits
concurrence with that board is the elected officials, the governing board is also needed.
And those places where the road simply goes through the county that concurrence is not
needed. So that's why we're only looking for this one section. There's some other sections
along, Homestead Road, which are technically part of the town's planning jurisdiction, but are
not part of the town's limit, so that's the distinction.
And the inclusion of that last slide. So you can see those little segments. Should you move forward and concur with your T's ordinance and nay formally approve it? The subsequent step would be to make sure that the town code, which is where the town list, fee limits, that that would be an alignment. So a subsequent step would be to update the town code, rather than bringing this back to you in the fall.
we're providing that second attachment, be town code amendment, if you'll notice that
language on the bottom, that would be subject to move forward only if DOT approves the
ordinance for the SB limit in their office first.
The piece that you might find a little
bit more interesting is the resurfacing. And so while this is not a decision item, I wanted
to take advantage of the opportunity to share it with you.
And I realized it is a little bit small.
You can see it perhaps a little bit better
in the handouts.
But what we are essentially doing, and again,
this is partnering with Chapel Hill.
The resurfacing will go the entire length of homestead
from Martin Luther King, Jr.
or airport road all the way to old NC86.
So Chapel Hill's going to focus a little bit more on
trying to squeeze it by-clans.
They have a little bit more right of way.
We are going to focus here in Carbero on slowing traffic, so the portion in Carbero where
there isn't quite enough space to add more that just a little bit of asphalt lane widths
will become more narrow, so they'll go from about 11 feet to 10 and a half feet for travel lanes
and about 10 feet for turn lanes.
Again, this is just a small segment just to give you a sense
of this is what a pavement marking plan looks like and you can see this section right side
of Claremont, no real change to the existing configuration other than making the lanes a little
bit more narrow.
So again, in terms of procedural notes, this is the, that first bullet is the, the description
of the section, the segment that we're talking about, and the actual action for the resolution
which is provided as a attachment one is to vote in approval of concurring with DRT's ordinance
to repeal the 45 mile per hour segment and then subsequent to that would be the adoption
of the town code. So I'm happy to answer any questions if you haven't.
All right. Thank you so much Tina for the presentation. Council members.
Looks pretty straightforward to me, but you may have some questions or comments.
maybe. I just had a question about the lane marking. Can we go back to the slide?
Just didn't know if there was any, I noticed on Claremont Drive it's there's two different types of crosswalks there.
One's hive is one's just kind of a line. I don't know if there's any consideration for that as part of that or is this kind of the wrong part of the process for that or
Generally speaking, where there's an opportunity to go to Hibis, we're doing that.
That was really my only question.
I don't know.
I'm a little skeptical of narrower lanes and lower speed limits, as you know.
Yeah, so we know.
Bad joke.
I think it's great.
I love it.
Can I make the motion?
Go for it.
All right.
I think they're really close.
I don't know.
So I haven't had it.
Well, yeah.
The motion to do this.
I don't know.
I don't know if you hear me.
You should do a little more than that.
All right.
Some of you feed me my lines motion motion to the top the attachment A and B
Second
It's been moved and properly second
All in favor, please say aye aye aye any opposed motion carries seven. Oh, thank you so much. Tina. I was joyous to fix y'all
It was real easy. Did you get a mess?
You're not public policy.
I'm going to get going now.
We have a budget.
Tom Manager, Tony.
We have two information items.
Yes.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
I would like to present both of them.
Together, if you don't mind,
They will be both presented by our Economic Development Director, Mr. John Hartman Brown.
First, he's going to discuss the impact of Savannah Bananas impact on the community
and then explain a little bit about local tourism agencies that we probably hadn't really heard much details about.
Welcome, John. We never see you. How are you?
Oh well, I'm well, how are you guys doing?
We're good, you're just good.
We have a budget, so that's the least.
We are.
So good evening, I just wanted to go over a few things.
So we're going to go over some information on the Savannah bananas, results from the event that
they came.
And we'll also talk a little bit about the tourism development authority as well as the
kind of visitors bureau and some of that dynamic.
So I do want to qualify some of the information we're going to see on the Savannah Bananas
presentation.
We're still kind of finalizing or trying to narrow down more specifically the impacts
for Orange County is ideally specifically Carborough and or Chapel Hill.
And the reason for that is a lot of these economic numbers we're going to be looking at
are region wide.
So they're taking a kind of the think about the whole
Durham Chapel Hill area, and so they're not going to be
a direct impact to Carborough unless we specifically say so.
So just a heads up on that.
So setting a stage, as many of you know, this was a really good
opportunity for us to do some multi-juris-dictional partnerships.
We worked at the Carborough TDA, the Orange County Visitors
Bureau, UNC athletics, the town of Chapel Hill, economic development department, and the
carbo economic development department, all work together to really leverage this opportunity
to bring additional tourism and more specifically those tourism dollars into our community.
And on April 11th and 12th of 2026, the Savannah Bananas came to Kenyan Stadium and conducted
to performances, to games there, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.
So, talking a little bit about the impacts from their event.
We had over 88,000 people that visited unique footprints that visited downtown Carberon,
Shrepa Hill during the weekend of the event.
Direct spending impacts, again, this is the direct dollar input.
This is not kind of induced and implied economic numbers.
and this is a regional number of $17 million that came in to our region as a result of this event.
And we reached over 30,000 travelers that traveled more than 30 miles away to Tendigaine.
And the map here shows a little bit about where folks came from, so we had representation from over 36 states.
And I also want to note that what you can't see on here is we cannot track international visitors.
Although we do know we had some Canadians that came to the event as well.
So unfortunately the data that we use doesn't track international travelers.
So how do we really kind of apply this on a local level and see the impact to our local community?
So we focused on specifically the the economic development department's really focused and drilled down on
Visitor spending and how do we drive those visitors to our businesses so we developed
Promotional and fan and set of collateral for businesses so as you can see we had brochures that really talked about
Eating and shopping opportunities within downtown Chapel Hill and downtown Carboreau as well as the pins
which I think you all have received some of those pins as well,
so we put those at various
businesses throughout the community and really kind of incentivize our fans to inquire
and ask, hey, where can I get one of those and then of course we tell them, hey, you
got to go visit a business if you want one. We also work directly with our business owners
and the managers to implement special promotions.
So you might have seen if you're kind of popping around town,
different specials at restaurants or maybe unique things
that you could get at a retail shop that you wouldn't normally be able to get,
that we're banana-themed in an effort to really encourage the fans
to visit our local businesses and take advantage of those unique things.
We had over 30 different local businesses between
Chappel, downtown Chappel,
the Hill, and downtown Carboro that participated in these programs.
So some of our local business impact here in Carboro.
I'm not going to read through all these, but as you can see,
Carboro or Ray Mosher from Carboro,
he had a great day.
The hotel was full, almost full.
We had a lot of businesses that were also reporting dramatic increases in sales from year over
year during this weekend.
So, all in all, I think we would say, most of our business community would say this was a great success.
So, some of the lessons learned and things we're going to take away.
uh... synergy is key
uh... going forward the coordination that we have between the tourism agencies
the economic development departments
uh... you and see and the athletics
uh... really we all stepped up to the plate and uh... i think we hit a home run
thank you thank you
john are we gonna are we getting a are we getting a back flip out of you is right now
So back to the slide. Are you an ad yet?
So I think that's something that we're definitely going to be taking away, is that it's really economic development at tourism is a team sport.
And so we're going to really have to make sure that we're all working together to make it a success.
The other thing, of course, was direct engagement with our local businesses, making sure that they had opportunities, we were months out from the event, we were reminding them, hey, don't forget this is coming up.
How can it figure out how you can engage, so really making sure that we were engaging a business community to find encouraging them to find ways to engage as folks were coming into town.
And so going forward, I think this is a reproducible model, something that we'll look to our colleagues in Chapel Hill, the Visitors Bureau, as well as UNC athletics, all agreed that this was a great success and so we look to replicate this for future events.
And we also want to continue to support regional event attraction efforts going down into the future.
So with that, are there any questions on the Savannah Bananas presentation before we go into the tourism stuff?
I don't, sorry.
Hold on, let me get to the next presentation.
All right,
so this is just a little bit of an outline a brief overview of some of the tourism agencies and structures we have.
In both Carber and Orange County, I'll talk a little bit about the similarity since
some differences and if there's any questions we can address as well.
So we'll kick it off with the Orange County Visitors Bureau.
So the Orange County Visitors Bureau is a department of the Orange County Government.
And it is primarily mostly funded by the occupancy tax that Orange County collects.
It's Governor's model is technically under the,
technically under the county commission.
However, there is an advisory board that is made up of very
stakeholders, composed of staff, and elected officials from
Arch County, Carbore, Chapel Hill, Hillsborough,
and other tours and business leaders within the community.
So from Carbore, we have Councilmember Joyner sits on the
Orange County Visitor's Bureau as well as myself from the staff side.
For their legal framework, they operate under a special private act in Orange County that allows them to collect the occupancy tax.
Generally, this does not conform to kind of the standard statutory guidelines that the state has more recently adopted under the tourism development authorities.
So they're still, they're legal, they're legally operating, but it's a little bit of a different structure and how they collect and how they can spend those funds as a result of their private act.
And the Town Chapel House has supported the Orange County Visitors Bureau in the past.
And I should also note that Chapel Hill also has a private act in its function similar to Orange County Visitors Bureau.
So, the Carboard Tourism Development Authority organizationally is a separate and distinct entity from the town council, it's a component agency of the town, so they have their own spending authority, budgeting authority, the town council does, however, a point, as you all know, or may know, that the town council.
So it does appoint the members of the carburetorism development authority, but they do have their own kind of entity, they do their own auditing and all that kind of stuff.
Legal framework, they operate again within the kind of modern North Carolina state statutes regulating tourism authorities.
So the generally fall under that category.
And again, the governance models, the same, they're by the state statutes, and they also have the financial kind of ability and board composition is regulated by the state statutes also.
The TDA does not maintain any of its own staff, dedicated staff.
We provide at the town operational support for them, so the economic development department and the
finance department provide staffing to the carburetors and development authority to carry out and
help execute their desire.
They currently provide funding for the carburem music festival, the film festival, poetry festival
for tree and blues, concerts, and they also pay for approximately half of the Hampton
in Parking Deck, the general fund pays for the other half of that.
So some key structural differences as we just discussed,
the legal foundations, Orange County Visitor Visitors
Bureau operates under a special private act.
The CTDA will also operate an operating under a private act
that private act conforms to generally conforms
to the modern statutes regarding tourism development authorities.
The taxing jurisdiction, obviously,
Carbero is within the Carbero town limits, and Orange County is countywide.
Operationally, the Orange County Visitors Bureau is a department of the county, and the
CTDA is a separate entity supported by town staff.
And as we discussed a couple of times, the CTDA structure adheres to modern state regulatory
standards.
Again, kind of just running through some of the regional looking around the area, Chapel Hill
operates, as I mentioned before, similarly to Orange County Hillsboro, TDA operates similar
to Carboro, again, following that tourism development authority standard under the state
statutes.
And the CTA and Orange County Visitor Bureau worked together financially on various marketing
activities and promotions, so there is cooperation and collaboration between the two entities,
but they are separate and have the ability to kind of do their own thing when necessary.
So with that, are there any questions on visitors bureau or tourism?
Any questions or comments for John?
Uh-huh. May I put some on the spot?
I think you were, thank you for that, and for the dad jokes that were great.
You were talking about kind of doing some similar events.
I heard somewhere that was a potential to bring the banana people back, is that something,
what do they call the banana?
The banana.
Like, do you have any kind of idea like what are some of these potential future events look like?
So we are not the primary recruiter of those, UNC athletics is, so we work with them.
This, the Savannah Bananas recruitment effort was initiated by UNC athletics.
When there was more security and a clear understanding of what was needed to bring them to Kenan,
that was when they came to the communities and said, the visitors bureau, the CTA, and said,
If we're going to do this, here's kind of what we need to be able to have to do that.
And so for example, bid packages, you know, doing bidding on events is not an uncommon thing.
And so that may be a thing that we will consider in the future.
So those are those are the types of things that will be necessary to recruit larger events.
What do you think?
Sounds like a pretty strong rotation came together to close out the save.
Come, come, come, come, come, come.
I don't know if I'm not a sportsman.
I don't think we're out of time.
We're a part of a rotation.
We got the save, but anyway.
to be blinded by pitch first.
Probably speaking his works.
Yellow stretch in this mind of four.
Yeah, the metaphor is gone.
Yeah, it's too far.
So I have one question.
So it refers to the hampton and parking,
deck lease and light of the fact that, you know,
we have our parking deck with the Drake for library complex.
And so is are we still holding on to the Hamiltonian parking deck lease or still need it?
But yeah, that will be coming up for renewal and so we'll be looking at that.
So you're going to look at that?
We're looking at potential for leasing fewer spaces.
There is some wiggle over and there in the last parking counts.
So they weren't the deck that deck was not completely full.
So that's there are some areas that we'll be looking at in that least comes up. Yeah, yeah, that was my question
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much Tom
colleagues, we are
At the
Give me a second
We're at the end of
We end of our agenda for the evening
So, you know, we always want to entertain emotions
move to adjourn.
Yes.
Everybody.
It's like we're just making a wait.
So about that, Savannah Bananas.
I don't know, Dad.
It's so about that.
It's in the item.
So it's been moved in properly seconded
that we adjourn the meeting.
Colleagues, all in favor, please say aye.
Any opposed motion carries seven o.
We are adjourned in.
Go Cains.