[0:11] At this time. I call the City Council meeting on August 10th at 530 to order.
[0:42] Would you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? S1:
[0:51] Here. Thank you. At this time, there are no minutes to approve. We will move on to approval and amendments to the agenda. Does Council have any amendments they would like to put forward this evening, madam mayor? Councilman Davis.
[1:06] Madam mayor, I moved to amend the agenda to add an item under new business adopting a resolution honoring the many fallen youth we have lost in what in recent years in the city of Washington.
[1:20] Is there a second from council?
[1:27] I'll second it for conversation.
[1:29] All right. At this time, we'll move into discussion. Councilman Davis, do you want to provide more context for the board on this matter?
[1:40] Over the last the last few years, there's been a lot of a lot of young people that have, uh, have passed away, and even this week has really hit our community very hard. And so I just want to make a quick, simple resolution just to honor all the young people that have lost for a variety of a variety of reasons. I think there's been 11 in the last three years. Um, so I just that's that was the purpose of, of, uh, trying to add this to the agenda.
[2:13] I'm sorry for clarity. What were you.
[2:22] What are you adding again? Can you repeat that? S2:
[2:34] Do you have a handout that you've prepared to provide the board this evening with this new item? I don't know.
[2:40] So what.
[2:41] Would.
[2:42] That benefit us more to look towards? Maybe a proclamation that will have the city kind of maybe a day to stand down, to kind of do exactly what you're saying. Um, not not trying to do away with the entire thing, but I just think for process, would that be a better idea for a proclamation to kind of identify one day to proclaim, this is Washington? Um, taking a moment to step back some silence to honor our fallen youth over the years. Mm.
[3:16] Counselor. Okay. All right, so we'll work on putting together a proclamation. Councilman Davis, if you have language you'd like to share with the board as to what you'd like to see included in that. Awesome. All right, so, all those in favor on amending the agenda with the resolution. If you're in favor, please raise your hand.
[3:37] Well, one second. We're not doing a resolution, though. He said we're moving towards a proclamation, so.
[3:43] Correct. But we have a motion on the floor, so we just.
[3:46] Would it be easier to say no to the resolution to move forward with a proclamation? Would that be okay with you?
[3:58] All those in favor?
[4:02] Okay.
[4:07] All those opposed? S1:
[4:21] So are there any other amendments we'd like to make to the agenda this evening? S1:
[4:28] Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? S3:
[4:29] Is there a second?
[4:30] Second.
[4:31] Okay. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand. Motion carries. At this time, we'll move on to the consent agenda.
[4:47] Do I have a motion from council? S3:
[4:48] Is there a second?
[4:50] Second.
[4:52] All those in favor, please raise your hand. Motion carries. At this time, we'll move on to comments from the public.
[5:15] All right. First this evening will be Jennifer Mont Singer.
[5:41] To the proposal to designate the city of Washington as a sanctuary for the unborn. Like most of you, I assume all of you. I believe in the sanctity of life. Unfortunately, however, there are times when the unborn child, and possibly even the parent are likely to be placed at risk for their safety and in even their very lives. Think about the infant born to drug born, drug addicted or with fetal alcohol syndrome. Who is going to nurture and care for that child? Certainly not the parent who is abusing substances. Cases of incest or rape or domestic violence often leave a child without a safe place to grow up, or a parent to care for them. My question of you is who will provide for these children after birth? We as a community have a responsibility to provide for the well-being of our most vulnerable inhabitants. If that can't be done by parents or families, Then who? How many of you are foster or adoptive parents? Does the city provide any funding for homeless women and their children? Right now in Beaufort County, there are 101 children in foster care and only eight licensed foster homes. Where will those children go? Another 13 children have no families to return to and are waiting to be adopted. Should we not focus our attention on these innocents, or do we just leave them behind? Certainly, Beaufort County can do more to provide sanctuary for all of our children. And if I may be quick to remind you that the Beaufort County Department of Social Services licenses foster and adoptive families, and they have a training coming up. And anybody who is interested in learning more about being a foster parent or an adoptive parent is invited to attend in September. Thank you so much for your time.
[7:55] Thank you.
[8:01] Next this evening we have Marsha Schroeder.
[8:22] Good evening. I'm Marcia, another 604 Gladden Street here in Washington. I moved to Washington in 2013. My Jim died three months later. And despite my family's concerns, I declared Washington my forever home. I stayed here alone because I trusted this community. That trust was there. earned in October of 2018. I hydroplane into oncoming traffic. I spent a month in ICU and two months in rehabilitation. A week after the accident, there was a banging at my door. My daughter, who was visiting opened it and it was the Washington police. They were conducting a wellness check because a senior who lived alone, me, hadn't answered three checking calls. That moment is when my daughter knew that I was safe in Washington. Not because of a formal program, but because the specialist cared enough to notice, cared enough to call, and cared enough to come to my door. And that care continues today. Yesterday I received my welfare check on a Sunday instead of a Wednesday or Thursday. Not because I had needed emergency help, but because our want you to dispatch. The unit is understaffed, and the people who look out for seniors are squeezing calls in whenever they can. The elder check ins aren't funded service. They happen because dispatch is care and that care is being stretched thin. This council knows the value of that work. You looked into the I live alone program yourselves. You saw it was viable. You saw it worked. You saw it protected seniors. And even with that knowledge. Staffing has not improved. The service survives on compassion instead of support. At the same time, I'm hearing community outreach, the group securing the private sponsorship that fund the Senior well check program, as it's called now, Juneteenth and Hispanic Heritage Month is being dismissed as D-I hires. Such a nasty term. That label is accurate and it isn't safe. It threatens the very people who bring in the money that keeps these programs alive. And when you undermine the people who secure the funding, you undermine the programs themselves. All of this is happening while this council splits this limited time on symbolic resolutions.
[10:59] These resolutions don't staff dispatch. They don't check on seniors. They don't bring in sponsorships. They don't keep Washington running. The people doing that work are doing it out of compassion, not funding, and they're doing it with fewer hands. So I say this plainly. Seniors vote. We show up. We vote for the people who take care of the services that take care of us. If you want to keep your day job, focus on the work that actually affects the people who live here. Thank you very much. Have a good evening.
[11:33] Thank you.
[11:33] Ma'am.
[11:40] Next. This evening we have Dawson is the last name.
[11:50] Good evening, mayor and members of city council. My name is Dawn Dolson. I live 920 Park Drive, and I've been a resident of Washington for over 15 years. I am here to ask you to reject a proposal declaring our city a sanctuary for the unborn. I want to be clear. I respect that many people hold deeply sincere religious and moral beliefs about abortion. I also respect the right of individuals, churches, and organizations to express those beliefs publicly. But as city government is different from a church or a private organization, city government represents all residents, including people of different faiths and people with differing views on pregnancy and reproductive health care. When the city adopts language based on one particular moral or religious viewpoint. It risks crossing the line between personal faith, faith and government authority. The First Amendment protects religious beliefs, but also protects citizens from having government impose a religious doctrine upon them. Local government should not decide that one theological understanding must govern everyone who lives here. This proposal also appears unnecessary from both a legal and practical standpoint. Abortion law is determined by primarily by state and federal law, not by City Council resolutions. If this measure cannot change, the law, then is largely symbolic, but symbols still matter. Passing it would tell many residents that their government does not fully recognize their dignity or autonomy, or a place in this community. If this is only intended as a symbolic statement, then the city is using public resources to endorse a diverse, a divisible belief that rather than addressing practical needs of its residents. If we are going to issue proclamations supporting families, then there are many other critical areas deserving of recognition in their own right expanding prenatal care funding, Head Start and child care, ensuring school lunches, investing in books and teacher salaries. Our community needs a government focused on matters within its proper scope safe streets, clean water, emergency services, schools, housing, economic opportunity. We can disagree about abortion while we still treat one another with compassion and respect. Please remember that representing the public means protecting everyone's rights. Not endorsing one one group's religious or moral beliefs. I respectfully, as a council, to vote against this proposal and keep our city welcoming, inclusive and religiously neutral. Thank you for your time.
[14:34] Thank you. Next. This evening we have Shannon Russell.
[14:49] Shannon Russell, 746 West Main Street. Over the past several months, we have watched personnel changes, numerous special called meetings, budget decisions, uncertainty surrounding essential services, and what can only fairly be described as chaos in our city. But here's the part we shouldn't forget. This chaos didn't simply happen to this council. Much of it was predictable as a result of the campaign that brought many of this council to power. When you campaign by telling people their government is broken, that employees are the problem, that taxes can simply be cut and the complicated problems have easy solutions. Eventually, you might have to govern the government you spent months tearing down, and you can't simply stand beside a dumpster fire complaining about the heat of the flames while holding the matches. Governing requires listening to the subject matter experts within your professional staff. It requires understanding budgets beyond cute campaign slogans. It requires recognizing that police officers, firefighters, dispatchers, utility workers and every other city employee are not political props or pawns. There are people who make this city function every day. Now, reasonable people can disagree about taxes, spending, priorities, and policy because disagreement is not dysfunction. Good government requires people who can disagree without destroying institutions, dragging employees online, launching personal attacks and official meetings, or treating compromise like surrender or a political party betrayal. And less than a year, candidates will begin stepping forward, asking the people of Washington to trust them with these seats. So, my fellow citizens, if you've watched what's happened this past year and thought our city deserves better, then start preparing now. Learn how municipal government actually works. Attend these meetings. Volunteer for committees. Read the budgets and balance statements. Understand the responsibilities of the office before asking people to elect you to it. And most importantly, be sure to hold yourself to the same standard of integrity, transparency, civility and accountability that we should expect from this council and don't campaign on destroying people's faith in their government, and then act surprised when you're elected to govern the wreckage. I believe our elected officials usually have the term they deserve based off of the campaign they ran. The people of Washington deserve better. Thank you.
[18:00] Thank you.
[18:03] Next we have Julia Conca. I apologize if I mispronounced that.
[18:17] Hi.
[18:18] I'm Julia Concha. 1105 North Market Street. Um, as a whole, I disagree with the resolution to declare Washington a sanctuary city for the unborn. That being said, I would like to discuss where the resolution states that the Council recognizes the inherent dignity and worth of every human being. Now, I can agree that all humans deserve dignity and respect, regardless of who they are and what they've done. It seems to me, though, that not everyone on this council sincerely believes that. Joe, I've heard you speak poorly to the other council members here.
[19:05] You've spoken to them with extreme disrespect, and you vilify them. You've spoken poorly about those who dare to disagree with you. You behave as a bully and in that you show your weakness. Our city deserves a better representation of who we are. We deserve a city council that strives to unify us and lift up those who need it. Joe. You are worthy of love and respect, but you are not acting in a manner worthy of this position. And I ask you to either do better or resign. Thank you.
[19:40] Thank you. Next, this evening, we have Chris Adams.
[19:56] Adams I'm also at 1105 North Market Street. I rise to address the resolution concerning the unborn. Setting aside the unscientific claim that life begins at conception. It's become a storm. A lightning rod that has eaten up time and attention from even the most basic of tenets that is shared by most faith traditions. To love our neighbors as ourselves. For some, this resolution is an act of neighbourly love, but for others it's an overreach, a gesture of inhibition at odds with science and seemingly a play for the autonomy of women to be denigrated. It has ensured a division based on an insubstantial declaration that will accomplish nothing. Being what Shakespeare called full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Can you, Jo, claim to have loved your neighbor as yourself? Because I actually am your neighbor across the street? And yet you've questioned my own call and my religious commitments on your social media page. Can you claim to, as Paul suggests in the book, that I know you love, be doing your best to live at peace with all people? Your public behavior in this council says otherwise. You call for a resolution recognizing the trauma of our fallen youth, many of which were death by suicide. And I bet you know full well that bullying is a contributing factor to such things. And yet I've seen you slander your fellow worker from that very seat. You clearly have power and influence. You are clearly a man capable of making things beautiful. I've seen your home. I watched you restore it. A testament to beauty. I've seen something of the greatness that you are capable of. I've seen the joy you bring to people and one of the most meaningful and crucial moments of their lives. As this council suffers from an unfulfilled seat, the opportunity to seize greatness is here for all of you at your doorstep. And that goes for you too, Joe. And my friend, this might surprise you, but I do believe that you, Joe Davis, are capable of greatness, even if you don't believe it about me. And that's okay. I'm still going to believe it about you. I'm going to always believe in your unending goodness and your potential for greatness. Can't you help build this council, this town, in a manner befitting the gracious Lord that you claim? And if you can't do better with them, with the whole community, with me, your neighbor, then I ask you to resign. Thanks.
[22:51] Thank you.
[22:54] And next. This evening we have Debbie Farrar.
[23:04] Good evening. My name is Debbie Farrar, and I am president of Moss Landing phase two. You've seen me here before. I've been before you. November 23rd, 2023. April 13th, 2026. And tonight, August 10th, 2026. I have had almost 20 meetings over the past almost three years regarding the street transition of Moss Way to the city of Washington. I've met with three city managers Jonathan Russell, Bobby Robinson, John, Jonathan, Rory all saying this shouldn't be a problem. We should get this before city council quickly. No problem. Well, I have a problem. Perhaps right now on record, you can tell me who I need to deal with and what I need to provide to get this council to get this transition completed. This morning, I found out I needed to provide a survey. Why was I ever told of this? Who knows what to do here? We've had core drilling done, which, by the way, exceeded city Limitations. Is there anything else we need to provide to you? We, as residents of Moss Landing, are getting ready to give you almost a quarter million dollars in taxes. I'm sure you're going to accept it. We live in the city limits. We should be getting city services. It really is not fair that we maintain a road that's used by the general public. So I'm asking you right here, right now.
[24:51] Who do I call? S12:
[24:58] But I would like you to tell me, who do I call next? S8:
[25:07] And. And maybe.
[25:09] When would that be? S8:
[25:10] It's been almost three years now. Understood. I do understand the frustration that we have.
[25:15] Yes, absolutely. We'll make sure someone responds to you tomorrow. Okay. Thank you.
[25:35] All right. That concludes our comments from the public. This evening, there are no scheduled zoning hearings or other public hearings or scheduled public appearances this evening. At this time, we'll move on to correspondence and special reports. First up this evening is a special report on the drainage update.
[25:54] Hope Woollard and Wayne Black will be doing that.
[25:57] So.
[26:01] Good evening mayor.
[26:02] Good evening.
[26:05] Let's see if I can figure out how to work this thing. Uh.
[26:12] Help me on the presentation. What I've given the recent rains we've had, what I've been asked to do is put together a little presentation about some of the things and improvements we've been doing and consistently manage and upkeep for City of Washington in respect to stormwater and drainage.
[26:36] The City of Washington is located on the Tara River. Tara Pamlico Rivers in eastern North Carolina is recognized for its historical and picturesque views. The resource, however, comes with many obligations. The city and many parts of the surrounding areas are located at or near mean sea level. This circumstance requires proper drainage, as you can imagine, to maintain the city's infrastructure. The City of Washington Public Works Department oversees the maintenance of the drainage system. This. This system helps transports water up to From where it originates and across the city during events during the storm events mentioned above. Departmental responsibilities include the maintenance and management of Jack's Creek, the pump which is the pumping station, maintenance of ditches, and adherence to state and federal requirements in the watershed area.
[27:33] Uh, the City of Washington, and annually budgets for the maintenance of the pumping facilities at Jacks Creek and the upkeep of the 32 miles of storm drainage. This would include cleaning pipes and cleaning out ditches. Uh, 12 miles of of that system is open ditches. The funds typically focus on projects to ensure the system operates and improve the efficacy of the drainage pathway. Just making sure things are clean sediment is not. There's no blockage and stuff like that. Uh, and what I'm going to go through now is there's a number of grants that's come up through the soil and Water division. We have participated in the first two rounds. There is a third round that's going to be coming up in in 26, which was starting to follow this year, but unfortunately, well, fortunately for the folks out West, due to Helene, there's a lot of rebuilding and infrastructure that needs to be repaired out there. So most of those funds are going to go there for this this cycle of the of the grant. However, we have we have participated in the first two cycles. I'm very pleased. It seems to be a great program and I'm going to cover some of that here. Uh, I know it's really busy, but if you look at at the pinpoint the pinpoints on the map here, these are all segments that we participated in cleaning out during this first round. Yes, sir.
[29:00] Excuse me. Could could you kind of orient us to the map? If you could just tell us what the dark yellow roadway or a pathway is.
[29:08] The the.
[29:09] The yellow.
[29:10] Are.
[29:11] The actual strap segments. And you've got the numbers and I, I, I want to I will I will explain that I.
[29:18] Don't know what's, what's what's the road going through there. That deep yellow road that.
[29:24] That railroad was going through their best, that stitch. That's all. That's a history there.
[29:32] And okay.
[29:33] And you see Jack Street as it goes to lock. So that main road good for their attachment history.
[29:39] Fifth.
[29:39] Street okay. Thank you.
[29:40] So you see we we we built all the way up uh, airport for the hours at the top. And, and I'll get to that in a minute. We had people put in at all. But if you look at yourself, you've done it's a work in progress and you live and learn. So we learn a few lessons from this last round. And so. Yes.
[30:03] Uh, this is the north gate, Mr. Branch. Uh, the picture on the left.
[30:11] Is before. And of course, after we cleaned that out, you see. And the one on the left that runs right there through, uh, right. Just just kind of north of Ashburn Drive. And it it drains a good portion of that property out there.
[30:31] This is Airport Canal. If you look on the top left, you can see there's a lot. We had actually there was a beaver dam in there too, that we had to remove. Uh, the, the picture as you move clockwise to the right of that. It's not really hard. It's kind of hard to tell. But the other end of that canal is cleaned out. And as you move to the first top, top right there, you see where that's been cleaned out? Uh, really clear, free of obstructions down in the bottom left. That's another segment of of that streambed airport canal. And to the right of that is where it's been cleaned out. Then you have it as you make your way down towards 17 by Pizza Inn, down that way, toward the end of it, you see where you've got a lot of debris in it. And the picture to the right is where it's been cleaned out. And the bottom picture to the left is the one coming from outer Brook. It kind of looks odd because the pictures were taken at different points. One of them was taken from one and it's taken from the other. But you'll see in the bottom right when we had it cleaned out, you'll see the debris where we left was removed and we had we let it dry. Uh, speaking to that, we had some flooding the alter Brook during this last go around with some of these storms, and we have since cleaned out airport canal once again, saints to the same instance. And I think that's really in the subsequent storms we've had since we got that done. We haven't really had an issue, so we're hoping, but we wanted to live and learn moments because this was cleaned out in 2022 and we figured, you know, about five years you will have to go through and do a lot of work on an individual stream. But this stream has a lot of interceptors and tributaries that come into it. And I think, like I say, we live and learn. I think this probably needs to be moved up to where the major interception, canals or drainage ways to the city probably would probably be. Somewhere around 2 to 3 years is probably an expected, uh, upkeep and maintenance on those.
[32:48] And, uh, we we did have some flooding, uh, around third, third kind of some of that water comes back toward Jacks Creek, through the rock ditches. It goes through the church they're off of, uh, uh, Van Norden and it all it also originates from King chicken down there with sheep flu and all that makes its way back to Jack's Creek. So if you see it at the top left there, that's where that, uh, that's where that canal is running from. King chicken. Uh, and we cleaned it out. It's kind of hard to tell there. Um, on the top. Uh, this is not a test, and I apologize for it. I was trying to get as many slides as I can and not make this too long, but now we're not going left or right. We're going top and down. So, uh, top was was where it was impeded. You see where we cleaned that out there. That was won by King Chicken. It's got if you ride through there, it's got an actual, um, bulkhead there. And the bottom is where it's cleaned out. Um, same through all of those all the way up to where fifth and rescue is, and it goes right on out to Jacks Creek under John Small Avenue.
[34:06] Pen and Haven over there on the other side. Switching that same. Same. Uh, not the same concept here. The first two on the top are for its overgrown. You can't even hardly tell there's a waterway there, even though you got a little bit of water. Uh, the path of least resistance there. It's ate a little hole through there, but we've got all that cleaned out, if you can imagine. That's quite a bit of material that's cleaned out right there. If you look at the far right picture and then that's the interceptor coming off of a Haven street, and you're looking from the curb back toward that. And on the picture where it's finished there, you're looking from the office and in because it's better to get a, you could show more detail of what we've done, but we cleaned that out. It was. And that after it goes under Pennsylvania Avenue, it comes out. Our stormwater does comes out on the side. It heads toward Runyon Creek. You'll see that the picture on the bottom bottom right is where it's been cleaned out. And that was before.
[35:13] Same here. Seventh and Harvey, uh, up there right by, uh, uh, Bobby Andrews. Top picture you see is a lot of sediment in there. I apologize for the picture being kind of crooked, but, uh, cleaned out on the bottom. I actually got some waterfowl in there. The picture in the middle. It's easy to show it like that because, you see all that sediment is built up in there that's coming out of Smallwood that drains Smallwood. And the bottom two pictures of where it's been cleaned out. We even uncovered a sewer pipe that had been that was under the under the sediment. Uh, last but not least, uh, it's hard to tell from the top right Picture, but that is. Willow Street is coming off the canal. Willow Street goes into Jack's Creek, handles a lot of water comes through there. There's a lot of sediment you can see. It's hard to tell from the picture, but it was filled up with sediment and we cleaned it out. As far as the Army Corps and DEQ would list.
[36:16] This is busy to this main, this main street right here. I try to divide it up.
[36:27] If you're looking that's that's the thing I'm trying to send out to the city. I'm kind of trying to get we're going to find it in the first round of this trap. We have about 30 some thousand dollars per month, uh, on the second round of this system. So I'm hoping the next time. That is good. We can deal with those on time. Uh, because this is everybody kind of hold of office? Uh, starting with this.
[37:02] Uh, by their company. I have it all the way down to file. Right. That's what the.
[37:07] Number five.
[37:08] Is.
[37:11] But those were those were a number of the ones that's basically north of Market Street. Now, you got all of these on the southern side of Market Street. Uh, and basically what we did was we, we kept working with a grant agency. It's a we're funds available and left. We resubmitted. That's why some of these have our trapped segment one. And then you have some of them that are like AA because it's an addendum. We added, we added, we added uh, work to be done. And you'll see this large arrow there, all that work that we've done. And sometimes, you know, plan comes together. We cleaned out from between 13th and 14th. Cleaned out between 12th and 13th. Kind of worked our way back to 10th Street and then worked out to Brown Street, which ties in with the Medical Drainage District project that we have. So I think it's all complimented. All the work that we've done is kind of coming together and compliment each other. Not that there's still something to be done to finish some things out, but I think it's really, really worked well. And I'll just go over this. This is ninth and 10th. You'll see where a lot of debris there. I just one picture kind of says it all. And the other three, the one on the top right and the bottom right and the bottom left are all. That's where we cleaned that segment out West 13th. Everybody knows for that familiar with that we that's how it looked on the left. And that's a it's kind of hard to see from the shade, which is pretty evident in the top right picture, how that was cleaned out as well. East 13th and 14th. Very noticeable difference there.
[39:02] 12th and 13th. Uh, you see it kind of filled up with debris and obstructed. We got we got it moving there. We're going to clean out East ninth and Nicholson. Uh, the the top left picture is where what it looked like before. And it was to really show the detail. We had to get it in a number of segments because it turns. So it should show up. Cleaned out Bennett Street, which is, you know, one of the one of the the drainage, uh, pathways that go to Airport Canal. So and there's some grass as soon as we clean it out. It doesn't stay wet that that option on this particular ditch. So it did grass back up. But you can see there there. We did get that, uh, cleaned out. Uh, Fleming and Washington Street kind of look there on the top left and the top right. And then all of those are there's one segment in there where it straightens out and turns and you can see, uh, really one of our better outcomes there really looks nice. Um, this is another one I, I'm really happy that we've done from Colonial Heights. Uh, sometimes getting that water out there on the other side of Ashburn. Um, but you've got starting at Van Norton. That's what it looked like. And that's what it looked like looking at it from Rodman Road back toward Van Point. That's where we the bottom left pictures, where we started. We we redone the wrap and clean out that long stretch of ditch. As you can see on the bottom right. All the way back to Rob Rodman Road. Then once you get at Robin Road, it has to go under there. There was one of the culverts. There's two under that road. Was not working correctly. We got that cleaned out. And in addition to getting that cleaned out, we cleaned out that run to the rest of the street where it makes its way back across 15th Street and eventually heads back toward Jacks Creek.
[41:18] Uh, 12th and Brown. This is one of those, uh, for all of those segments that we are doing upstream kind of made its way to Medical Drainage District. This is one of those as well. And I apologize for pointing and taking my time, but y'all can see that, y'all. If you have any questions, just let me know. This is 13th Street, which is part of that too. Like I said, working in thee. I'm really proud of some of the things we've accomplished because, uh, it takes a coordination between the landowners and whoever in the contract and whoever's doing the work and making sure that, you know, everybody benefits from the process. This is, uh, East 10th Street as well. This this is a pretty fair. We we cleaned that out, actually, between 10th and 11th, but, uh. Yeah.
[42:18] Uh, this is another one, uh, that will probably require more frequent work than what we once estimated. Uh, but coming from Pontiac down to Tarboro Street, you'll see the top left picture. It's kind of overgrown. Then that's looking at it. That was after a rain events. But, uh, you see, you got some water in there, but you got to cut a bit of grass. We got it cleaned out on the right side. That's looking back from Tarboro Street. And the other one's looking from Pontiac down.
[42:57] Tarboro. Uh, we continue on with this ditch, uh, all the way out to Hackney Avenue. Uh, the top left is is the right there at Tarboro Street. Bottom left is where we cleaned it out as it makes its way down those apartments. Um, and runs along foul drive. Uh, top and the bottom was cleaned out. Uh, the third, third set over from the left is right there, where it makes a turn and goes under foul drive and heads out to Hackney Avenue. Uh, the last pictures on the right there is before where? It's going toward Hackney Avenue. And the bottom was where it's cleaned out. And that's all of God.
[43:46] Anybody got any questions? S5:
[43:54] I'm sorry. I.
[44:00] Know some of this was done by city employees, but the majority of it was done through a grant program where we have did have a.
[44:08] Contract on.
[44:09] It. Okay. Understood. Well, I think it looks great. I appreciate you coming and giving a report for us tonight, because we've gotten a lot of, um, concerns about the drainage and flooding recently, and.
[44:21] We do as well. And we appreciate your support, because none of this would be possible if we didn't have the support of of the council to make it happen.
[44:36] So I do have a couple of questions. A couple clarifying questions. Um, for the team. So, um.
[44:47] You spoke about the Army Corps of Engineers, right? How what's what's the significant what what's the point of bringing them up in the conversation?
[44:56] The Army Corps of Engineers, anytime you're doing any type of work on a blue line stream, which at one point in time in litigation, was considered a navigable waterway. Uh, now that definition has expanded quite a bit, but they they are involved. And also the Division of Water Resources, which is Diener the Department of Environment. Uh, for wetlands are regulated for or for by the Corps of Engineers and uh, riparian buffer. Riparian buffer is for one and that that's Widener.
[45:36] So are all of those locations that you guys have done this, this work in all of those locations considered flood zones?
[45:46] Um, not sure I don't.
[45:49] Oh. Could you? Yeah. Yeah.
[45:52] I'm not 100% sure because I don't have a flood map, but I don't think all of them are considered to be in the flood or in a flood. The flood zone.
[46:00] Okay. So the reason why I was asking them that question is a lot of conversation comes up that we live in the city of Washington and we live on the water. So it's it's technically a flood area. However, that's not how it works. And that's the importance of the stormwater piece of what we do and what we budget for, because we have to go through these pieces. And a lot of times people don't see what you're doing. People have no idea what like at one point a lot of folks thought, think stormwater is just pumping out the pumps in the road and backing up traffic. But as you've kind of shown in the map, When the rain comes down, it can come down in a field behind something, and when it flows, it's not flowing from the river, it's not flowing from downtown, it's flowing from a field. And the water has to go somewhere and then. But, um, so for my colleagues here, a lot of this started well, not the work started, but some of the focus that has been kind of pointing out to things that we heard that were once five years is now maybe 2 or 3 years. Um, we had a family that was kind of caught in a water issue. And for a lot of people, I've, I've never dealt with fire before, but I've been in the middle of a water issue before and it's not. Okay. So, um, the city was notified and Hope and her team, they jumped on top of it just to see what could happen. Not saying we're going to fix flooding across Washington. That's not the thing. But what that did do was it alerted the team like, hey, there's some other things here that we need to focus on. So that's that's kind of how this flow came in. And that's why I was asking you to kind of explain the difference in a typical flood zone and actual stormwater issues that we have here in Washington.
[47:44] So and a lot of the stormwater runoff has, has to do with impervious surface to and with the ground being saturated, it has it can't go in the ground. So it has to run off somewhere. So we try to make sure all the conveyances are clear as best we can of any debris, to keep all the water flowing to where it needs to go, whether it's Jacks Creek Airport Canal or Cherry Down Cherry Run, any of those conveyance areas. We try to make sure they stay clean of debris, but sometimes things just kind of clog them up, especially things that are flowing with the stormwater runoff. Um, so we do the best we can and we appreciate any, um, any calls we get and any areas that we're notified of that need further looking into. We try to address those as fast as we can.
[48:27] And to to add something to. I don't believe that area, I'm not sure, but I don't think it's. It would be in a flood zone. But I do appreciate. As I said, the live and learn part of this because what we we found out when we went back into it. It didn't it looked like the ditch was clean. Well, the ditch was clean. Hey, it looks like it was at the bottom of that grass. But the sediment that was over there with a dry spring we had the grass grew up and basically impeded part of the waterway because of the sediment that was in it, which that's why I say live and learn, maybe had to do it more often and take a closer look. But that calls for us to get out there and look, because it was a concern to us as well. And we definitely don't want to have that happen.
[49:14] But we were measuring to 4 to 5in of rain, I think a couple of days. We had a lot of rain in a short period of time. Um, so it kind of it kind of makes it hard for us to keep the drainage flowing if there's any kind of obstruction there at all.
[49:30] Well again thank thank you guys from from this side of the table too. And um, and yeah, you know, this this is what the city of Washington is really about, where the folks who work in the city love the city and don't mind getting out there and putting boots on the ground, and let's see how to make water flow, you know. So thank you guys.
[49:51] You're welcome.
[49:52] Thank you.
[49:53] I got a quick question. Um, my question is how often do you guys have to maintain each drainage?
[50:00] Um, and as I was saying about the, the years and intervals in between, I mean, we maintain those ditches, we go around and we just do them probably once every two months. Okay. They're cut.
[50:19] Uh.
[50:20] We don't we don't perform actually excavation, but we go out there and cut them, remove big debris, something that we can see like a trim or tree limb or something blocking water flow. We got we have a stormwater crew that goes around and does it. Unfortunately there are limitations, but um, as far as what they can do, but all the routine maintenance is performed by, uh, folks on the side of the city.
[50:47] Yeah. And I also kind of wanted to add to that too. Part of the routine maintenance is also cleaning the catch basin. So we have we have staff going around pre events after events, cleaning catch basins, making sure that there's no debris blocking them and so that the water can can drain.
[51:01] Can can you explain the catch basins how often that's done. And, and.
[51:06] Well you uh basically you have a number of different types. If you, if you go down the street out here, you'll see one that's kind of in the side underneath the curb. That's a drop in it usually that drops into a catch basin. Or you could have a yard. And basically that's a structure, maybe square, maybe maybe different sizes. But choose a concrete or brick in nature and then the infrastructure of the water, the piping, the stormwater piping that takes it off, uh, wherever it is going to the effluent is going to come out. It all goes into that collection port, the stormwater basin. And when those collection, the inlets block up, it floods the street because it can't go anywhere. So if you keep those clean.
[51:51] So to, to, to address kind of your question of how often we always do it before events, we do it after events and also routine maintenance. Our street sweeper also. That's part of what he does when he goes around the street sweeps, um, he catches and cleans to stuff in in the curb and gutter and along with the catch basins as well.
[52:09] As.
[52:09] The the machine cleans out those catch basins or yes, to manually do.
[52:13] It. Some of it we do we have to do bags.
[52:16] It does have the capability of doing it. Okay cool. But the sweeping. And that's why it's so important that we maintain our streets too. Because the gutters on the side. If we can't sweep them correctly, then it leads to, you know, a problem. Build up. Say.
[52:32] Are you having a jet? The jet, the lines, the storm water lines. Do y'all do that? Or is it to to help keep it clear? Or does it just kind of automatically flow.
[52:41] Out.
[52:43] The cleaning? Yeah, most of the cleaning is handled in in house. We will send a crew out that will do that. And if it's a problem, uh, where it's got a lot of debris or sediment in it, uh, we can use the street sweeper, but it's not, uh, our water and sewer group. I mean.
[53:04] We have the tools in house to to if there's a cave in in a sewer or storm drain, we have a, a camera, a camera that'll go a short distance. And we also have a backdrop that we can use as well. If there is some obstruction in, um, a, um, a drainage pipe.
[53:20] Yeah. We cross I mean, we we use each other's resources.
[53:27] I also heard you speak about grants. So there's floods and there's stormwater grants, right. When it comes to where we live, we know there's water around us. Do we contact the state or the federal entities who provide those grants and tell them how much we need? Or do we just have to wait and see what they're what they're offering us and then kind of compete for it?
[53:50] We apply for grants as we can, and one of the big grants we're working on right now is for stormwater is our air. So we're trying to and we should have that done in a few months that will look at all of our stormwater assets and inventory them, as well as look and see what our needs are and put together actually a CIP for us that will outline priority and give us an idea of price or cost of the project. So that's one big, um, big asset to do in the air. Um, other grants and opportunities that we hear about or that we see come across. We get emails were involved in groups and organizations that make us aware of opportunities that we apply for whatever we feel like that we, um, can actually apply for and possibly get the funding for.
[54:35] So if you don't get the grant, because there's a possibility and the competition phase of a grant that you may not be successful, that that cycle. Um, these jobs still need to be done.
[54:48] Um, where does the money come from? S17:
[55:22] Thank you.
[55:24] And you know, and I praise y'all for the money that's put up for the management of our solar systems, because and the Strat program where we initially got involved in that grant, it was because we were trying to do something on our own too. And they looked at how much money that we put forth and some of the we've done quite a bit more than just what's up there tonight. That was easy to show you because I had it on maps. But, uh, we, we put a lot of effort in. Sometimes it's with a third party, we get somebody come in and help us out. But a lot of times our our guys out there.
[56:02] Knowing and.
[56:03] We say.
[56:04] Thank you both and thank you to your teams at this time, we'll move on to purchase orders greater than 50,000.
[56:37] Did council have any questions for Miss Swindell? S5:
[56:40] Um, right now just purchase orders. If there's no questions, we'll move on to the next. All right. Next.
[56:52] Are there any questions from Council on Budget Transfers? S5:
[56:54] Councilmember.
[56:55] Um, when I was looking through the agenda packet earlier, I think I was maybe a little bit confused on some of these items. Um, I think it comes out to around $2 million in transfers. Is this money being added to the budget, or is it money getting moved from one account to another? What does it all encompassed. Like looking at, you know, we're transferring.
[57:21] A little over $180,000 from the admin to the city manager's office and a couple of other different examples similar to that.
[57:33] So the transfers or transfers that are are it's funds that are already budgeted. We're not adding any more funds to the budget. It's just transfers going from one department to the other.
[57:43] Okay.
[57:43] That's all that is. And we report that to cancel monthly. But it's money that's already in the budget. We're just moving it maybe from fire to police or like you said, city manager to recreation.
[57:54] Okay.
[57:54] Why the general fund?
[57:56] Why is it so much being moved from the rec department to the city manager?
[58:01] So that is where, um, reporting changes took place. So, um, we moved certain people into certain departments and then moved him back. I see. And we move all of the funds that go with that. So you see a lot of activity.
[58:21] Okay.
[58:21] Thank you.
[58:23] That's it.
[58:24] Yeah, I just wasn't clear. Thank you for clarifying it.
[58:26] Okay.
[58:27] Any other questions from council? Okay. Um, next is bad debt write offs for FY 2026.
[58:50] Are there any questions from counsel for Miss Swindell? S5:
[59:02] Yes. So let me just talk about the write offs a little bit. Um, so we can all understand how these work, because I know these are big numbers and I would have questions as well. So annually, as part of our year in process, um, finance will do yearly write offs. And then we report those write offs to cancel. That's just part of our policy. Our policy has different mechanisms for writing off, but pretty much what we write off as anything over five years. Because if we don't write off these accounts, then we're overstating our what we're expecting to receive in our AR funds. We don't want to do that in our financials. We don't want money on our financials. That looks like we're going to get that. We're we're probably not going to get, um, so we write off anything five years or more older. So and that's what you're seeing here today. These are, these are accounts that are over five years old. Um, with the exception of EMS, that does have us a separate write off policy because it's contracted out and those are contractual obligations as far as writing off, um, the city does continue collection efforts even after the accounts are written off. We utilize a debt set off, we utilize online collections, and my staff continues to try to collect the funds. Even after it's written off, we can still see all of the accounts that our subsidiary, um, did set off for the prior year. We collected about $72,000 and then online collections was about $3,900. There is a fee for that is about 35%. And then city staff and all of their efforts collected about 20,000. So we do that as well as if you leave our lines, our utility lines, because a lot of this is utility debt and you come back on our system, we will also make you pay any debt that, um, you left the city with before you can come back on our line. So yeah, there's a lot of efforts put into this. Um, like I said, I know these look like big numbers, but in the scheme of things, most of this debt is less than 0.2% of our revenue in these funds. And so that's kudos to staff for, um, for doing that. And um, the, uh, the, the write offs are actually down about 43,000 from last year and our EMS revenues are up. As you can see on this memo about close to 175,000. So I hope that answered your question.
[1:01:37] So all of it's a five year write off except for EMS is what you're saying though.
[1:01:42] Um, the EMS. Yeah, except for EMS. Yes. And EMS, they pretty much they try to collect it for three months and then they do a write off. And that's just part of the contract. That's how that.
[1:01:53] Works. Okay.
[1:01:54] Do you think the write off of uncollected accounts receivable policy, um, needs to be reviewed or maybe updated just since it's six, almost 16 years old.
[1:02:07] Um, I don't necessarily think it needs to be reviewed. There's other ways we can, um, write off that. This is just the typical standard of what we write off, because we do we do try to keep collecting. Um, but that's not the only mechanism for writing off. Um, I can get you the policy if you want to look at it, but there's other avenues to writing off. This is just what we follow to be consistent.
[1:02:30] Okay. Thank you. Uh.
[1:02:32] Any other questions from council?
[1:02:35] I do have a quick question. You may you may answer this, um, previously, but, um, I know with housing that if, if they, if any tenant wants to go somewhere and if they left in bad standing, they'll go somewhere else and they wouldn't be able to get like housing.
[1:03:10] So do we have a policy like that or do we have anything like that in place where if a tenant, not a tenant will if somebody were to leave Washington and bad standing like Utilities, would they be able to get utilities somewhere else? S15:
[1:03:11] Us.
[1:03:11] Off, or whether they can get utilities anywhere else? Um, but if they come back on our lines, they do have to pay the debt before they can come back on our lines and we will work with them. I mean, okay. Um, but I don't know about anywhere else. I'm not aware of us being able to stop them from getting utilities somewhere else. Um, I'm not aware of them calling us and us giving them that information now.
[1:03:33] Gotcha, gotcha. Because we want our money.
[1:03:39] All right. Any other questions? Okay. Council has before them in their board packets the quarterly reports from all of the departments. Lots of good information in there. Thank you to all of our department heads for putting those together for us. Um, there are no reports from boards, commissions or committees this evening. So at this time, we'll move to appointments for the Human Relations Council, the Recreation Advisory Board, and the Airport Advisory Board. I yield the floor to Councilman Tyree.
[1:04:16] Madam mayor, I move to that. The city council appoint Danielle Brinson to the Human Relations Council to fill the vacant position. Term to expire June 30th, 2029.
[1:04:32] Council? Is there a second?
[1:04:33] Second?
[1:04:34] Any discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand. Motion carries.
[1:04:42] Madam mayor. That's all my appointments for tonight.
[1:04:46] Okay. Thank you. Um, at this time, I yield the floor to Councilman Perrault.
[1:04:55] Madam mayor. Move that the City council appoint Trent Midget to the airport advisory board to fill a vacant unexpired position term to expire June 30th, 2027.
[1:05:06] It was that Mister Trip.
[1:05:27] Trent midget Council, is there a second?
[1:05:32] Second.
[1:05:32] Second.
[1:05:33] Any discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand.
[1:05:42] That's just person on this page.
[1:05:57] Motion carries. Councilman Tyree. Did you have appointments for the Human Relations Council this evening?
[1:06:03] I just did the one I'm going to do tonight.
[1:06:05] Oh, sorry.
[1:06:05] So, recreation.
[1:06:07] No other ones? S15:
[1:06:08] So what? Um, to that question, madam Mayor, since we do have an influx of, um, applications for those boards, I do want to take some time out and speak to the chairs of those boards and go over these together, and then we'll make an appointment from there.
[1:06:27] Okay. Thank you, Madam mayor.
[1:06:31] Councilman Perrault.
[1:06:32] Uh, I'm not going to be filling the second vacancy for the airport board. Um, just due to the fact that we do not have a inside city resident application for that vacancy.
[1:06:43] Okay.
[1:06:44] Thank you. For those who might be interested, as Councilman Perrault has said, we have an opening for someone that lives in the City of Limits on the Airport Authority board, if you might be interested in applying.
[1:06:56] All right. That concludes appointments for this evening. We'll move on to old business. First up is the adoption of the purchase order carry forward carry forward budget ordinance amendment. Miss Swindell.
[1:07:09] So this is another year in process. These are outstanding purchase orders from the prior year that are still ongoing, um, at year end. And they need to be need to be brought forward into the new year. Um, these are obligations that the city needs to satisfy. They are just crossing fiscal years as the, uh, Pos are not complete in last fiscal year. And so that you have a list of those here and, um, it does require a New Year appropriation, but the funds are closed in last year and just brought into the into the new year. So it's really a wash.
[1:07:43] Any questions from council?
[1:07:47] What is considered $188,000 for economic development in the General Fund from last year?
[1:07:58] Let me get to that. Hold on just a second.
[1:08:09] That is the industrial Park grant. That council approved. That payment didn't happen in last fiscal year. So we're we're bringing it forward into this fiscal year so that that money will close in last year and just come forward in this fiscal year. So we don't have to because it's not part of this year's budget. It was part of last year's budget.
[1:08:26] Very understood. And that's for not the proposed industrial park at the airport. It's for the current already established one. Right.
[1:08:35] Excuse me.
[1:08:35] It's for the already established industrial park, not the current proposed additional one at the airport. Correct.
[1:08:41] I think it's for the roadway. If I recall what that grant was for. I think it's for looking at the roadways out of the industrial park. Yeah. The the current industrial park, the Beaufort County. Yes.
[1:08:51] Thank you.
[1:08:54] Any other questions?
[1:08:58] All right. Hearing none.
[1:09:02] Is there a motion? S3:
[1:09:10] Is there a.
[1:09:10] Second? Second.
[1:09:12] Any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please raise your hand. Motion carries. At this time, we'll move on to adoption of Project Carry forward budget ordinance amendment. Miss Swindell.
[1:09:27] So this is similar to the carry forward, except for the fact that there's not an actual P.O. issued because we don't have a vendor. So these are projects that were budgeted in last year's budget that didn't start for various reasons that need to come forward in this year's budget. An example of that would be am I? We started that, but we didn't complete that project, so there are some funds that need to come forward. Um, for that project, we just don't. Necessarily. We're not far enough along in the project to set that vendor. So this is similar to that, except that it doesn't have a Po. And we just we need to bring the money forward in what we call a project carry forward.
[1:10:07] Thank you. Does council have any questions.
[1:10:10] Can can you explain that where we are on the am I.
[1:10:14] Um Shane would probably be better to explain that I know that that project has started. I think the water meters are in the ground.
[1:10:25] Okay, so according to Hope, the meters are here, but they haven't been installed.
[1:10:36] Um, Shane, can you come up and give an update on your project, please? S5:
[1:10:45] This isn't a new expense that we're taking on, though, correct? S13:
[1:10:55] Perfect.
[1:10:57] Just to give you a little update on where we're at, we do have the the residential water meters in for um, the 5006, about about 6000 water meters. We've got, uh, most of the residential electric meters in stock. Not in in service. We've got a couple of meters electric meters out and about, and we've got three of the collectors put in at different sites across the city's network so that we can start the process of testing. Um, right now we're in the testing phase. Um, we're beginning to get the testing phase. I think we only got two electric meters in. Um, we're working with sensors to see if we can get a, um, the group that's going to come in, the contractor group is going to come in and start replacing the meters. They're going to go in and take out the old electric meters and old water meters and put the new ones in. And, um, that hasn't finished up with them yet. As soon as that gets done. They're going to run a, um, a test program to see make sure we've got enough collectors to collect all the data from the meters.
[1:12:17] Um, S19:
[1:12:21] I have two quick questions. Yes, sir. When the electric meter is replaced for the new one, is there any service disruption during that process?
[1:12:29] There will be a momentary service disruption.
[1:12:31] Okay. But it would come back on right after it's connected again. Okay. And then for the for the testing group, I know you and I talked about this, but the city is currently looking for residents who are willing to be part of this test group for the electric.
[1:12:45] Am I meters correct? S19:
[1:12:48] Okay.
[1:12:48] But we do have some, um, some residents. The biggest part is finding them further out. Okay. Because we've got, um, we've got quite a bit of infrastructure in here that we can test with, but, um, yeah, I think that there's some, some folks that would be interested in it. We definitely like to get them first on the list, but our plan is to go, um, in routes that we read, meters so that we don't have a set of army meters. In the same time, we've got our regular Amr meters, and then our everything starts crisscrossing. So we want to do it in, in routes. But yeah, there's going to be some some test items out there. Somebody was really excited about it. We could probably make that happen.
[1:13:35] Thank you.
[1:13:37] Thank you.
[1:13:40] All right. Is there a motion from council?
[1:13:46] I move that the City Council adopt the budget ordinance amendment to appropriate funding for prior year project carry forward.
[1:13:56] Is there a second?
[1:13:59] Any further discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand. Motion carries. At this time, we'll move on to the resolution declaring the city of Washington a sanctuary city for the unborn. As this was an item brought forward by Councilman Davis. I yield the floor to him.
[1:14:23] Madam mayor, I moved to table this item.
[1:14:27] Is there a second?
[1:14:34] I want to make sure that's a legal motion to to move the table, the item, when it's already on the agenda. Um, Mayor. If we could get France to weigh in on that.
[1:14:46] You can make a motion to.
[1:14:47] Say, okay.
[1:14:48] Cool.
[1:14:57] All right.
[1:14:59] Okay. There's a.
[1:15:00] Motion.
[1:15:00] On the floor.
[1:15:05] Is there a second? S8:
[1:15:43] Madam mayor, I moved that the Washington City Council approved the resolution declaring the city of Washington, North Carolina, a sanctuary city for the unborn.
[1:15:55] Is there a second from council?
[1:16:01] All right. Hearing none, the motion dies. At this time, we will move forward to new business.
[1:16:09] Can I? Can I ask a question?
[1:16:10] Sure.
[1:16:10] Councilman Horton.
[1:16:11] Okay. So, um, my question is to Councilman Davis. I'm a firm believer that, um, anything that we're having a passionate about, that we'll do it without. We'll do it without anybody noticing. We're doing it in the dark.
[1:16:46] So my question to you is, um, how was your experience with the Coastal Pregnancy Center or even working with social services on, um, on this matter? your personal experience? S2:
[1:17:00] All right. At this time, we'll move on to new business. Um, first up is the approval of the final adjusting change order for the medical district project and authorization for the city manager to execute said change order. Miss Swindell.
[1:17:15] So this is just a change order. That's changing the line item where the items are charged to. Um, some went up, some went down, but the overall it was decreased about $297,000 for the project in total.
[1:17:29] Yes. Council.
[1:17:33] Have any questions? S8:
[1:17:36] Is there a motion? S5:
[1:17:40] Is there a second?
[1:17:41] Second.
[1:17:42] Any further discussion from Council? Hearing none. All those in favor, please raise your hand.
[1:17:51] Motion carries. All right. Next up this evening is the adoption of the budget Ordinance amendment for audio visual in the City Council chambers.
[1:18:01] So this is action to appropriate money from the Peg channel funds. It is going to be to upgrade the sound system in council chambers. It will replace the speakers, the microphones, monitors at each station. Um, so you can see the presentations at your station. Um, it will fix the issues with sound quality. It will include three new 4K cameras. Um, that will improve the video quality as well as the sound. All of this is being paid for by revenue that we receive from the state. Peg channel money, and this project qualifies for use of the peg channel money. Um, so it will be appropriated from fund balance for Peg channel. It will not have anything to do with appropriating the general fund fund balance. So there won't be any, any impact to the general fund fund balance.
[1:18:54] Thank you. Does council have any additional questions?
[1:18:59] All right. Hearing none.
[1:19:00] Councilman Terry.
[1:19:02] So this makes the approval the the improved sound. And people can hear and be able to interact with council if they see fit or what have you. That's where we're going with this. We don't have to do this.
[1:19:16] We can get Chris to speak more about that if you want, but that's that is the intent. Yes.
[1:19:21] Yes.
[1:19:22] Um, Chris, if you could give us a little bit about what we got to do.
[1:19:38] So as you.
[1:19:40] Guys can tell, the mikes in this room are not great. Um, so this is basically just to get brand new, higher quality microphones at each of your guys's stations, plus some here, there. Um, it's going to be three panel zoom cameras. Two that will be in the rear, one that will be there to look at this counter here, because I've seen a lot of complaints while running the streams of people saying, you can't hear anything, can't see good. This will all make that. Hopefully most of those complaints go away. Um, and if you guys have any specific questions about what is entailed in this, let me know.
[1:20:18] I just want to say really quickly. I, I know when, um, he was still on our board, uh, Nick and I asked a lot about getting this done. So I really appreciate you, you know, sticking, you know, nose to the ground to get us some fair quotes with, you know, the different companies that you looked at to, you know, bring this to us as quickly as possible. So thank you for the work.
[1:20:38] I appreciate it. Anyone else? Any other questions?
[1:20:41] Thank you Chris.
[1:20:43] You said you said a state. State funds are going to pay for this.
[1:20:47] Yes.
[1:20:50] Yes.
[1:20:52] From the the television stream.
[1:20:55] Yeah.
[1:20:55] So we, um, for running a TV channel, which we do both online and through cable through the city. Um, we get funds from the state every month. Oh, sorry. Um, we get funds every month from the state for running our TV channel, and that money goes into a fund balance that was.
[1:21:14] Called the fund balance reserve.
[1:21:16] Sorry, I'm an IT guy. I'm not. I'm not great with finance stuff. So that's why I lean heavily on Tammy. Um, and that's just been accruing for years. And this is now a great opportunity to utilize that money that can only be used for pay channel expenses, which this qualifies under. This can't be used for any other kind of expenses.
[1:21:39] Yeah. So that's that was kind of the the piece that was missing, I think when the questions were asked before about how do we ever look into sound and this and it was about where's the money going to come from? And we had to continue to save it so that that was going on way before I ever took the seat. So, um, thank you guys for being great stewards of the money as well too. So we can get some microphones and everyone can hear us.
[1:22:07] Thank you.
[1:22:08] Of course. Thank you.
[1:22:09] Thank you.
[1:22:09] Chris.
[1:22:11] One more question. You don't have to say, um, this the state is funding is fully funds. The TV station that we have.
[1:22:19] That is correct. I think it's channel nine. Yes, yes.
[1:22:24] That's that's on what's suddenly or optimum cable or something. Or suddenly when? Now it's optimum.
[1:22:36] And it's on the internet. Yeah. I mean, John, Rory was really excited to find out we had a TV station.
[1:22:43] All right.
[1:22:44] So what's the email.
[1:22:44] About.
[1:22:45] It? Are there.
[1:22:49] Do we have a motion on the floor? Sorry. Me in motion. Do have a motion in council.
[1:22:52] I move that the City Council approve the budget ordinance amendment to reallocate funds from a FB reserved account to for Peg channel to the IT budget to fund upgrades to the AV in the Council chambers.
[1:23:07] Second.
[1:23:08] Any further discussion? All those in favor, please raise your hand. Motion carries.
[1:23:19] Any other items from the city manager, Miss Swindell? S13:
[1:23:20] Okay. Are there any other business from any other business from council this evening?
[1:23:25] Madam mayor, I just have one thing I want to want to mention really quick. Um, I should have done it during the reports from boards, commissions and committees, but I had the chance to go to my first incomplete meeting, um, last month with our electric director, Shane Lewis. It was a great time. A lot of communities out there. One of the. Well, two of the things that we talked about, I think are just important to bring up now, just to get on everybody's mind and start thinking about it in the future. Um, one of them and Shane, correct me if I say it wrong, but there is a true up cost for the purchase of power from last year from Duke that is getting passed down on the members. Um, it's going to come out to around $180,000 a month over the course of the next year, starting January 1st. Um, and the reason I bring this up is just because when we talked about this after the fact, there isn't a current structure in place for how the city deals with those costs. Um, as the liaison for the Electric Advisory Board. That's something that we're going to begin to talk about. How do we address that challenge so that we're not continually pulling money out of our fund balances, but just something for the board to be aware of. We're going to have a $2.2 million bill over the next year on true up cost. The second thing is that there is a House bill or Senate bill that will be introduced next year as well, similar to what happened in Rocky Mount, where the state is going to be dictating how much municipalities are allowed to pull from their public utilities. But it's going to be ran statewide. So as a board, I think we need to determine if that's something that we're in favor of or something that we want to go to Raleigh to fight against so we can regain or keep control of our own utility and how those funds are managed, as opposed to having the state dictate those terms. But those are two updates I wanted to give to the board about what's been going on.
[1:25:18] Thank you, Councilman Perrault.
[1:25:26] Any other business from council? S8:
[1:25:34] Do I have a motion for closed session? S14:
[1:25:46] Bravo versus city et al. United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Eastern Division. Number four colon 25 dash cv cv 00207 dash, bow and A-6 personnel. Um, I anticipate that those would be two, so someone would move in second if you're inclined to do that. And I anticipate that that would be a bifurcated sessions that um, uh, and so y'all need to decide which one you want to do first. I would suggest that you do the lawsuit first and do the other one second, but it's obviously your prerogative.
[1:26:35] Um, for the update on the lawsuit, would the other party be prepared for us if we did it first, or would we have to wait for them to come on screen?
[1:26:46] I just texted someone and told them that I thought we were almost there, and they said, thumbs up, and I believe that she is. I believe that we're prepared for a zoom call.
[1:27:08] So do you. Did you give it to us jointly or are you separating it for us?
[1:27:18] If you want to separate it into two motions. We can do that. So the first motion would be, uh, doing the closed session under S14331811A3.
[1:27:32] Um, that's attorney client privilege for Bravo. Bravo. I'm sorry versus city et al. United states district court for the eastern district of North Carolina. Eastern Division number four. Colon 25 cv 002070 PM.
[1:27:49] So moved.
[1:27:50] Is there a second?
[1:27:52] Second.
[1:27:52] All right. All those in favor? All right. We're now in closed session.