Regular Meeting June 8, 2026

All right. We will call this meeting to order. Good evening, everybody. Good to see you. We'll begin the evening with a moment of silence. We can pray and meditate. Just enjoy a moment of silence to yourself. It's a little hot, I'll be right back. the evening we don't have anybody signed up as anybody that wishes to speak during the public comment hearing and seeing none moving on to the approval of minutes counseling corrections additions or deletions to the minutes presented hearing seen as the motion to approve the minutes has presented now much your emotion up with the minutes is there second okay motion is second to approve the minutes there any discussion here now I was a favor of approving the minutes say aye aye those opposed okay motion carries and the minutes are approved moving on to updates from council if there's any updates more things okay moving on to the consent agenda there's one item that I think the reappointment of John Brown also was at it for this consent agenda correct yes okay - And the approval of the letter. - And the approval of the letter, yes. - But it's on there. - All right, any questions, comments? - Essentially the same language as presented before. the town of Fletcher. We have Ms. Carrie Bain here this evening and thank you for being here. You can take the podium. Thank you. Are those for us? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. No, it's just on the flash drive there. okay terrific good evening everyone I am the chair of steep which is storytelling education and arts programs my name is Karen Eve Bain and I have the CFO with us on our board we have done a project in the past here we sponsored a storytelling series a number of years ago go at feed and see. So we are a nonprofit that was established 14 years ago, a nonprofit in very good standing. We've received a lot of grants from the Community Foundation, Arts Council, private donors, et cetera. And in 2020, because of COVID, we started doing, quote, storytelling digitally, creating films, but also murals around Henderson County. And so you're looking at one that we did. that is the welcome to Hendersonville sign that's on East Allen Street and every time I come through Fletcher I imagine a beautiful mural in Fletcher welcoming people to this lovely community and I decided that I would approach you about the possibility of putting a mural here I mean technically we work with private building owners and a private building owner can generate really put up most what they an image that they'd like if it passes through zoning but I always like to go through the council or the local government because of course this is a piece of public art that represents your community so what I'm proposing is that you consider having a mural in Fletcher probably on highway 25 somewhere that would get a lot of visibility and as see here these are a couple examples of the murals that we have already done in Hendersonville and Henderson County and these are examples there's the one on the left that says Hendersonville MC that one is about to be unveiled on the side of the medical loan building on 7th Avenue and we employ local artists to do customized painting the one on the right is actually painted on the building at the I am building those are really expensive to do so what we are doing now is hiring an artist to do a customized painting and then we reproduce it on a vinyl banner and it's very similar it's the same kind of banners that for example on in Hendersonville and Henderson County that say artscape that are around on Main Street these banners last 20 to 20 25 years. They're great quality. They're printed by Printville, which is a local company. So I wanted you to see some examples of the work that we do, because we are proposing that you consider agreeing that we could apply for a grant on behalf of the community. And also, you have in your hands a public art tour. That's a free tour that we've also created that people get at the visitor center, around town, businesses and they can go around currently and see 15 pieces of public art in the county and Should you approve a mural for Fletcher? We would add this area and the murals to this public art tour this is our you're holding season one in your hand and that's about 15 murals and And season two is underway where we're going to add another 12, 13, 14 murals, pieces of art, which brings tourists and visitors in. And then we interview a local person and the artist to tell a five or six minute story about what's in the mural and what that represents. So if I go back to the first one, this one, the Welcome to Hendersonville, the community around 7th Avenue at one of their community meetings had three different images that they voted on and they voted on different elements of it so they chose these images to represent that area and we would suggest that something similar to that happens here not necessarily a big community meeting because it's always arts very very specific to people's ideas but we would want to represent the community and what the board some local people would want the subjects and to be identified because it takes quite a while for an artist to imagine what those subjects are and put them into perspective to create a draft so to speak that we would have for you to look at and it'd be very helpful having done this five times to have a liaison from the council who could be our main person that we spoke with about hey these are what the subjects are. what do you think do you want to add any etc like that so we could work with someone from the council who represents the community I would work with the artists and with the people on our board to come up with an appropriate image also building identification the hardest part of this process has been getting a private building owners who are interested in having art on their building and after we put out our first I had a lot of people who've called up in Henderson County and Hendersonville who wanted a mural on their building But we we would like to identify a building in this area and speak with The owners to see if they would agree to let us put this banner on their building We have put these on the YMCA. There's a better on the YMCA in Hendersonville on the Whitted Street side on June 18th there will be the ban or the vote banner on the side of the medical loan building. That one happens to be 30 feet long and 10 feet high so it's quite a long banner and these are generally screwed into the building and the medical loan building for example is a metal building so we couldn't have painted on that because of the nature of the size of that and also frankly it is getting prohibitively expensive it's in the $15,000, $20,000 range to hire an artist, to work in the sunshine on a 300 or 400 square foot painting basically. So we're looking for a building and ideally it would be one around a traffic light so that people are stopping and they would take in the beautiful mural that welcomes them to the Fletcher area. Since we're in the process of contemplating this, we could possibly if funded do two murals at one time. It's much more economical to do that. I mean, if we found the right building, we could put one on each side at an intersection, and they could be different images, so it could represent more aspects of Fletcher. The other thing is to support us in talking with the owners of a building, because any owner is more interested if they know the council supports this idea and approves the images. And that has always made a big difference when a building owner enters into an agreement with us. We have a legal agreement that usually entails about a five to ten year commitment of a building to allow us to put this up. We have a very big insurance umbrella to cover anything that occurs during the time of installation of it. And now that you have the brochure, You're free to listen to the free podcast and what they're about and see the murals around Henderson County, five of which we have produced. The installation of the banner is something that would be great if we go forward with this, if Publix Works could install that, because that gets outside our budget because it usually involves a lift ladder and a few things like that. Hendersonville Public Works has done a couple for us. And they've been very easy to put up. The YMCA did their own, and the Medical Loan Closet, I think, are putting theirs up as well. But help with the installation is great. And then the fun part would be sometime in 2027, I'm saying about a year from now, maybe earlier to have a ribbon cutting to unveil the mural, have a nice article with the Chamber of Commerce, have some great photographs in the newspaper that welcomes and announces the mural. We try to do that with all our murals. And if you happen to be in Hendersonville on the 18th of June, we'll be having one from one to two at the medical lung closet a ribbon home so those are the things that are my request I guess the big the big ass there are you do do you support the idea would you give us the letter of support appoint somebody to work with us and install the banner so that mean that's overall you know what my ass right they must get one and I've gone through what we would do which is we will apply for the grants we conferred the theme with the liaison and with the community representatives of course with the building owner as well because it would be on their building and then bring that back to you so you could look at that and then if funded we create the artwork we create the timeline now of course zoning has to be involved with this so we would complete a zoning application in cooperation with the building owner or generally I complete that and then the building owner signs that I assume that's how it has to be done in in Fletcher because it is in the county of with Henderson and Hendersonville and then you know we would deliver the painting to you as a gift so that would be a beautiful painting that can be put in this building or somewhere else the banner and then participate in doing the PR and everything for the ribbon cutting. so that there's would be other than the public works installation there's no cost to the town of Fletcher because we would receive the grant and we have to match that money somehow with local donations or Arts Council funds or whoever we get the money from we usually have to match the grant and we have a few donors that sometimes will kick in a few thousand dollars to help us to do this. We've successfully done this, as I say, for five murals, and we did receive the Community Foundation 40th Anniversary Grant that sponsored our first two murals. There's an example of that on this final page. The mural you're looking at up there is a fabulous one. It's what we call the Norman Rockwell painting of 7th Avenue. It has some great landmarks in it, so you can always go by and see that. But I wanted to just put the proposal out there for you to think about. Hopefully you can make a decision and then come, excuse me, come back and let us know if you would like us to apply for a grant that we'd put here in Fletcher. If you'll help us with building support and how we might go forward. So any questions? - Questions that we have? - Go ahead. - You said building support. Do we need to get the building support before we do anything? 'Cause if we don't have the building, it's kind of well the first the building support I've started a few conversations with building owners I think building owners always want to know if this is supported of the town the building you know having a building in advance really helps to secure the grant but generally our organization has about six months from the time we get the grant to secure the building however knowing what size the building is makes a big difference on what size banner we're going to put up and therefore what size painting is going to be done and which artists will do it and how much that will cost we having the building is great we don't have to have it on August 1st but if we do have a building that really increases the chances that we would get a grant for Fletcher. well I just a quick comment we're not really out anything if you know they don't find a location or aren't able to secure it how they are on the right and indirect cost is helping installation and just time helping yeah yeah that's very true mark because I mean it would be if the liaisons spends a few hours with us and we refine the the themes that's really the only investment if we well I know council's been from if I remember correctly we've talked about the the feed and seed building but also the building where the foam and fabric is is that what it's called where Fletcher foam and fabric is there's a wall along Hendersonville road yes right at that red light it's a great light yeah it's it's an odd shape yeah and something of to the effect of Fletcher through the years and do some kind of historical from one period to the next That's a great wall. I've looked at that one quite a few times. The Feed and Seed building is great. Our organization would like to be able to do two murals and just knock it out and get a grant that was big enough so that we could do two murals. The historical review is a great idea. That particular wall is long enough to do that. I mean I know that Philip at Feed and Seeds, of course he doesn't own the building is very keen to do this he thought it would be you know great for the area will be great for the two feet and see it and the former fabric building I think that'd be ideal and I guess the quirks of what you need to know is if we're supportive of and I think we we are right and we'd be open to doing a letter now I am I don't know who owns that wall at phone and fabric so I need to find that out be able to contact them that's probably not it's by whoever owns that parcel so we go on GIS and find out now the I doubt that's in DOTs right I don't know if that was something DOT built on like it's possible yeah it's probably private but DOT usually takes about six months to approve something but if we're starting now to make the request that's great because it does take us the better in a grant cycle it takes and three months to make a decision and we have to fund artists and all of that sort of thing because I can't engage an artist until we have the grant money. I guess it would be a question for Mark. Is there any liability you can see that our public works working on the privately owned business building or anything? Yeah, there's some and just being able to put it up. So I know Karen you've mentioned in Hendersonville's public works installed it so we'll probably yeah reach out to them you know any tips on that or if it was particularly difficult or something that we don't have and we'd have to rent a lift already to do stuff like the banners on the way 25 so I I don't know what's all involved in it but I'm sorry to reach out to them then you do property personal profits much trying to think that we can anchor this thing in there. And maybe we can get... maybe we can get a release or something from the property owner if they're willing to provide that but I guess the good thing about the vinyl installation is If they don't like it at some point or there's problems with it You can take it down as opposed to once you have a painting Exactly, and that's one of the reasons we moved to vinyl because they are movable if a building's going to be sold or if an owner's not sure what's going to happen to it in five years or ten years, that investment is something that is movable. And the banners have great triple reinforced edges with grommets in them. So in all cases, just screw them into the brick or the metal or the wood. - How long does a vinyl usually last with the UV? How long does a vinyl usually last with the UV? - 20 to 25 years. I have two of the Artscape banners at my home And they've already even around over ten years they look as good as they did the day they were printed I mean they're so well photographed and printed that you could actually see the fibers in the canvas I mean they're excellent quality wonderful yeah sounds like we just need to work on it yeah I mean I imagine our public works can handle it but we'd probably reach out to know some bill just you know tips and maybe the liability question and stuff like that and so And we also have liability insurance that helps cover that as well. Jamie Carpenter at downtown Hendersonville would be a great contact because we've just given them another banner that's vinyl that they're going to install separately from what we've done. Wonderful. Well, that sounds like we're all on board, and we can put up on a draft letter and get it signed. And, Cynthia, the last question I'll ask, this but does anybody want to be that liaison while we're on the topic you want to do it okay thank you great thank you thank you and so you can just talk with people about what the images are and if we do the historical perspective that you take some research and we would need some input we're currently doing a one that is the agricultural history of Henderson County and I didn't know what was biting off I did that because 51 pages of AI research later the artist passed out almost that that's a huge one and the history we have a couple of artists who are extremely good at taking those concepts and you know creating a timeline wasn't wasn't Bob Davey involved in some kind of Fletcher Historical Association he was and he was also we you know we set up a local committee yeah we read did this seal we you know changed the town seal yeah and he was on that okay work as I said might be able to see if he wants someone from the community if they wanted another yeah yeah we might ought to reach out to Bob Davey to and maybe he could support this project along with you all think he would be a good addition historical if you do if we do a historical you're having some someone from his yeah he knows that stuff a lot of historical of the town and he was on that Faha Fletcher Arts and Heritage Association for a while or he was on their board that's a good suggestion and so I guess the letter would be the first thing first y'all come so we'll send something and I'm someone whether to give me his contacts give it to you Amber which would be terrific thank you well thank you very much yeah one final question I know you talked about it earlier Is it normal you make like two or three different, I guess, images and you had the community vote on it? You mentioned something like that earlier. We did that for a very specific thing. The community foundation had a 40th anniversary grant and they wanted a community vote. It was a community vote of a very small neighborhood in 7th Avenue. So we went to an annual party that they had and put our images out there. I will tell you that makes it very complicated. if you want to have the whole community vote on it. We're happy to do that. It could slow the process down a lot. Generally, we bring a couple of drafts in and we work with Amber and then the council, the town council could see it a few times before we get to the point of going to print, so to speak. And the fact that it's gonna be printed on vinyl, not painted on the building, It's not as they say carved in stone so to speak. That's right. Anything else from council? Good. We deeply appreciate you coming this evening. We're excited about it. You're excited about it. Well, we are too. I think the organizations, the funding groups that said we might be doing this putting a grant forward have been very excited that we were coming to speak with you. So thank you very much for your consideration. Thank you for being here. - Sure. All righty, we're gonna move to item number seven the public here on the proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 2027 mr. Manager Yeah So Mayor and Council and our public here that's in attendance to hear the presentation, I've got as you know and Pat and the past when we get to the public hearing stage it's usually a much more brief presentation all right so this is a much higher level view as you all know and just for the public's information that started back in January and in March we had several budget meetings January March to hear full presentations requests from department heads in early May. presented a recommended budget that provided a lot more detail of everything that was requesting to be funded and on the revenues and then in the middle of May we got updated values and so that's reflected in this final version I did a budget message so that's available if people want a little more narrative background on the proposed budget that came out after that and then it was advertised as required to do on may 27th and then i've got this final version of the budget i'm going to qualify this by you know we had last week henderson county board of commissioners adopted their budget and there was to us unexpected property tax increase in there that was fairly significant and due to that there's some potential implications for us on our sales tax distribution so as you know we receive our sales tax on an ad valorem basis versus per capita and when the different jurisdictions in the county including the county raise their tax rate it impacts the percentage distribution it's based on levy the percentage of each each levy from the jurisdiction. what's ultimately distributed. It's not the only thing, it's retail sales activity, so consumer spending and other things impact that, so it's not the only. And I emailed some with you, our assistant manager Heather Taylor had done some analysis of, and I'll get to that a little later, of what, if the rate had been increased, a couple of last for year and this year at what the commissioners did what might be the impact to us all other things being equal so with that and I got two slides at the end that talk about this and what you may want to consider so with that I'll get into a synopsis here of our proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 2027. Some highlights on the budget. It's a recommended budget for the new fiscal year of $10,553,424. It's a moderate increase from our prior budget of $9,995,316. Increases in revenues are mostly happening through growth in our tax base and a slight rate increase and that rate increase we would be going from 28 cents per hundred dollars of assessed value to 29 and a half cents that one and a half cent rate as you know would be in dedicated entirely to our contracted fire services to Fletcher fire and rescue some budget highlights our largest increase and this This is typical for most local government organizations or service organizations is on the personnel expense side we had just one full-time position or elevation of a part-time to full-time position for a planner position so upgrading that part-time planner to a full-time planner in our planning and zoning department The rest of the personnel expenses are from We typically do a cost of living adjustment and projected that at 2.8% for all staff and then we do merit pay within our performance evaluation system for all employees, full-time employees. One of the big hits in this budget was health insurance. So as you know, we had a notable increase to keep a comparable plan in place and that was 34.7%. on our health insurance premiums, which obviously then impacts our personal expense quite a bit. We've been very fortunate. We've had in our renewals either no increase or a small increase, or we've had some decreases in our premium. And that, you know, we had benefited from some special exemptions on a non-compliant ACA program, has gone away at this point. So we had a loophole that helped us a little bit with that. So the next thing, and these are just some highlights, are recycling. So we have inflationary factors that are built into our contract with curbside management. They look at the CPI, or Consumer Price Index, from the prior year and incorporate that in. So that resulted in a 2.2% increase in our per monthly household fee for recycling services to residences. We also have retail recruitment for the town center project along with our continued marketing of the project and working with prospective developer developers. Few more budget highlights. Again, this is real high level. We have multiple capital needs that are addressed through our capital improvement plan and as you know it's a five-year plan that we set aside a certain amount of our property tax rate for so we moved several smaller projects from the operating side to cip that's because we dealt with a lot of expense reductions through the budget process to keep our expenses down in light of a very tight budget year so The CIP thankfully had some space in it so that amount of revenue we budget for the CIP Allowed us to have a little bit extra extra space to move some of these smaller capital Items that were under the 25,000 threshold from the operating side to CIP And getting into implementation of the capital improvement plan. And before I go through that, I don't more slides but you know I've got all the details here if there's anything comes to mind right now you have any questions and we can dig back into that or the public has questions after this the the budget message is a good summary document to kind of try and put it in plain speak as much as we can but what it means with our proposed spending plan here for the budget but so our capital improvement plan again it's a five-year plan that we identify major capital needs for the town we dedicate a specific portion of our property tax rate towards that it was six cents last year we did reduce it to help with other expenses on the operating side down to five point five cents of our tax rate so So 5.5 cents of our proposed 29 and a half dollars. cent tax rate will be dedicated to the CIP of that five and a half cents three and a half cents is dedicated to projects supported by debt service and then the remaining two cents is dedicated for new projects that are paid with cash or on a pay-as-you-go basis or sometimes say so what's in there on the On the debt service side, we have funded town hall improvements project which is this our ongoing debt service for town hall the land we acquired north of town hall and the reconstruction of old Cane Creek Road that was all part of that project back in 2012 and then the next thing is our loan on the town center property on highway 25 that portion of but copier lease payments are another thing in there and then subscription payments and this is something through IT on the cash side or what the two cents supports our pay as you go we've got our police vehicles in there three police vehicles and this is part of a normal rotation to keep the fleet fresh we use the vehicles for so many years and then they age out get a certain mileage and we auction them off the next project is painting of the first floor of Town Hall here to refresh that parks and rec utility tractor to help with maintenance projects with our park facilities sewer line replacement of Bill Moore Community Park a remodel which is really more a room addition in the unfinished space that we have for the police department to move supplies into that area. And then the next is an airless paint sprayer. This is to help our public works department to more efficiently do spraying in the roads, parking lots, can help us parking lot stop blocks. A 55-gallon drum pump to help with maintenance for fleet maintenance within public works. A two-post auto lift to help with fleet maintenance in public works. and then the last is UTV or one of those side-by-sides for parks correct maintenance so those are all of our CIP projects with that I was going to go into just some graphs here that kind of compare things expense wise and where the money's going we've got a bar chart here that just so shows our expenses for total budgeted by department current fiscal year and then compare it to the upcoming one so that purple bar is the current fiscal year that kind of magenta reddish one is the upcoming budget when presenting so you can see we had some the most notable increases were police fire was the largest because we put that one and a half cents as proposed to go to there and then public works would be the other are just increased. Then some smaller ones and administration in IT. And then we had some decreases also in departmental budget. Our professional services budget dropped a little bit. And then I just talked about CIP. And we moved a half penny of the tax rate away from there. So that causes that total budget to drop a little bit. it's a little busy but it are a lot busy where the big pieces of the pie going to your kind of salmon color one here is the police department fire department is the yellow the dark blue is public works The pink is CIP and then this kind of brownish magenta one as parks and recs, I could see a kinda idea where the, mostly public safety. And then kinda grouping some categories here by general government, public safety, public works and facilities, and CIP. Again, the biggest piece, this kinda red or magenta, is public safety, so police and fire. the general government block that's admin parks and rec planning and zoning professional services the kind of aqua one here is our CIP and then that yellowish is public works and facilities and then lastly I've got a bar chart of those same categories and your general government about 2.4 million going there public safety about 4.8 million and then public works facilities a little over 2 million and then CIP at just the just a little bit over 1 million dollars so that's a little bit kind of where the blocks of money are going to and that's all the charts graphs I have and then next unless you have any questions at this point or comments I'm going to go into the two slides kind of talking about the implications of the rate increase there with the county on our potential sales tax distribution. I'm going to qualify this with a couple of things before I jump into this. Number one, we can't predict with absolute certainty what retail spending is going to be like. get information from the League of Municipalities and they drill down into this and really analyze it and we got a look at our local activity here and spending but we base it partly off of that but it is a projection that depends how retail spending happens the other thing in here we don't know is what the other municipalities are going to because none of them have adopted their budget yet at this point some are saying no Hendersonville did not adopt their budget last week. and they may be looking at a rate increase and I don't want to predict it was in certainty but that likely could happen so you kind of need to know the ramifications and if you want to adjust something this evening so with that Heather worked on a analysis of if we took what the county's rate increased was and hypothetically put that in last fiscal year and I won't run through all the numbers out here but the so last fiscal year of this scenario that happened would have been about 91 thousand in sales tax that we probably would have fallen below budget if you were to run the same thing for the current physical year that we're in right now we don't have all the sales tax revenue in we projected a little over 45,000 probably below as it is a direct impact of that you know redistribution of the property tax levy that impacts sales tax distribution and then the last is this is harder to tell but just kind of based based on those last year and where we're at current, I mean could easily be a hundred thousand or more that And it depends what city Hendersonville does and the other municipalities obviously Biggest impact County second biggest impact with raising the tax from the property tax rate is the city Hendersonville because they get the second largest and We're the third largest distribution of sales tax or sharing sales tax revenue So I you know I put in there a hundred thousand it's hard to say but those are scenarios with at least the first two bullets fairly accurate then the one if you have any questions on that I'm going to go into the basically the last slide of kind of what are some potential considerations you might want to do to mitigate this so as far as steps to mitigate these impacts of the county rate increase would be You could increase the town's property tax rate by an additional, I'm going to say half cent to one full cent. I can't imagine you'd raise it any more than that. It's a pretty small adjustment still. Keep in mind, Fletcher doesn't raise its tax rate very often. We've held the line for so many years. And even on revalued years, you've lowered it to either revenue neutral or something very close to it doesn't guarantee there's no tax bill increase but it way lowers that many gates it so a one half cent or maybe one full cent what is a half cent on the levy produce about ninety six thousand seven hundred dollars and if you would go to a full cent that would produce an additional $193,400. And those are net you know we based on our tax collection rate which is about 99% over that so if you were to do one of these if you did the half cent what we'd recommend doing is this lowering our estimate for sales tax so it wouldn't raise the total amount that's appropriated what I went through on the presentation and we just be lowering the sales tax projection by the like amount of 96.7 we did the full scent we probably lower the set or we would lower sales tax projection by a hundred thousand and then that balance of ninety three thousand four hundred lower the amount of appropriated fund balance we use the balance of budget because we're like it 260 some thousand in appropriated fund balance. So that's-- These are some suggestions in light of the implications. I'll open that to questions here. - What questions or comments do we have? I'll say, if we can make things work with the percent and a half increase, I would prefer that, but I do have this, I guess a little bit of fear of just year after year if these impacts continue to happen, particularly with even the city of Hendersonville, rates we're going to continue to lose that sales tax revenue is going to impact us in the long run and that's my thought process with this over to do this i wouldn't want to do more than that that half is sent because we're going to project a hundred thousand dollar loss and i guess that half cent it's just nearly there that's what we're estimating in the ballpark yeah it could be more it could be less and the absent is nearly there and then if we were to not do this now then next next year during reval, hoping that the assembly doesn't meddle in it any um maybe we can revisit this then but i'll say i if we were to do this i i'd be comfortable with that that half cent additional i know there's going to be a shortfall i mean i ran into it in the local county all the time when departments move up and stuff like it so i do agree with the the mayor out there um half cent that gets us close I guess it's pretty close and I think the the full scent looks like it might be over way too much yeah yeah if you don't want to put that burden on the taxpayers necessary burden on taxpayer just because we don't want money but i i i kind of agree with uh the mayor right there putting it close to what we're going to be shortfall just to make the balanced budget myself and i did put one penny in there just to give a little more security yeah to and you can lower down the appropriate fund balance amount so that why and thank you for you know you and Heather putting this together getting in front of it yeah I think Heather really dove into the numbers here job and what I'm now it's sure for that and she's here yeah she wanted to be here tonight because we were working on this Friday and just in case you have detailed questions on that since I did not put that Yeah. Yeah, and to y'all's point, it depends on consumer spending as well, so that's always a big unknown. Yes, and that's just, it's hard to know that. We get good information from the league, it's generally not way off, and I think they try and go conservative. So hopefully, you know, it exceeds. what their projections are. So I guess then the big question is what other questions and comments do we have first of all? Well, I was just going to say, the cent and a half, nobody wanted to do that. But I think from a public safety standpoint, Chief Griffin has done a phenomenal job with his staff of bringing everything up to where it needed to be, and they've got to have that Yeah. To... ensure the public safety with the explosion of construction not only within the city but within the county and i want to do want to say i'm i know the county approved the set and a half for there to cover the county district so looking to us to match that and so i'm in agreement too i think the half cent without placing too much more of a burden but also or make sure we protect the services that the town offers. to the taxpayers and so on that's where I'm yeah got any strong opinions Amber you're okay I have half a cent okay so it sounds like we perhaps want to do a two cent tax increase to have a cent and a half okay all right so go up at 30 cents and then just so you know if you could take action now I'll adjust the budget ordinance and the total amount appropriated will stay the same. We'll just adjust the projection of sales tax revenues. So we'll make that adjustment in there. Okay. Sounds good. Any questions or comments before I public here? No. Okay. Then we have a motion to end the public hearing for the proposed budget for fiscal 26 20 27 I'll make that motion we have a motion is there a second a motion in a second in a public hearing is there any discussion hearing no all those in favor of entering public hearing say aye aye those opposed okay we are in the public hearing we don't have anybody that signed up to speak during the public hearing was anybody wishes to speak while we're in public hearing hearing seeing none do we have a motion to close the public hearing make a motion okay we motion to close the public and we have a second second motion as second is there any discussion hearing all those in favor say aye aye those opposed okay we also have the public hearing and Kristen I'm going to ask you a question here because I've never done it this way where we edit the budget so do the motion just need to include that we're raising that two cents I guess okay then and then make sure this language is correct and those ordinances I've got in that packet of course I didn't know they had to be re-signed correct So I want to sign those this year. - I'm not sure of the motion that you have mentioned with the change to 30 cents instead of 29. - Okay. - Just as a matter of fact. - Okay. - We know that you discussed it, and it could be inferred by the Senate. - Okay. Alrighty, then do we have a motion to approve budget ordinance 0-26-07 with the amendment of raising property taxes to 30 cents? I'll make a motion. Okay, all motions are approved. Is there a second? Second. Okay, a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the budget ordinance with that 30 cent amendment, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Okay, the motion carries. And thank you, Heather, staff, everybody for so much work on the budget. Yeah, I just thank you for saying that. Thank you again to all our staff. I know we got our chief in the back as well. or department heads, everybody. our chief of police and our other department heads who worked hard on this to get us to this point so it already sounds good deeply appreciate y'all and moving on to your town manager's report okay thank you i mentioned last week that our street resurfacing project is completed i still don't have anything here about any punch list items on it but again it was meadow pathway cord and metal walk cord. that were I'm set meadow pathway Drive meadow pathway court meadow walk court in Livingston farms that looks like they did check it out and our public works director was pleased with it I don't know if McGill has inspected it but they usually do a walk through any other punch list items but that appears complete and good quality job the second thing I wanted to mention and forwarded a public survey for transportation projects for project prioritization that MPO that so the French Broad River MPO does a public input survey for their spot 8 process now for prioritization process we've the link for it we've put that information on Facebook and the town's website. We'll also put it in the newsletter coming up for July. The deadline is July 22nd. So I just encourage you all and anyone you know out there, any constituents to take a few minutes to complete it. You don't have to respond to all the projects. You can just comment on the ones that you approve or disapprove or have an additional, there's a place for comment I haven't done the survey yet have you done it Jim I've looked at it but I've not completed it yet but I will say being a member of the MPO I hear a lot of people comment about road projects and what they want to see changed in Fletcher and everything and so I will tell everybody take a minute to do this because this is where you get your chance yeah for input yeah the the MPO and DOT will take a look at everything and put on those projects. So it's real important to hear from as many folks as we can. I could do a Connect call, too, our blackboard call system. And just hopefully that would drive some traffic there, too. I don't know what other places are doing on that. I'll make a note and do that. Social media newsletter. Yeah, we're doing that. Facebook newsletter and website it's gonna go on the website it's coming coming soon to a theater theater near you so yeah please fill that out and I just want to mention something about it the last thing unless there's any other questions on the survey Town Center project I know I mentioned last week that Tyler Morrow and I had met with representatives from impeccable development they were a group that retail strategies brought to us and so we sent them follow-up information they do retail commercial retail projects and I also should mention you know we reached back out to Martin Lewis and will Bowie who Martin Lewis is Lewis real estate group they were the ones who come back and express interest and they want to regroup like the middle of this month let us know it's good news yeah and you know they've got a he said Martin has a lot of bigger projects out there like you know he's involved with the Costco saying and so but yeah we're going to regroup with them hopefully a little more substantive update kind of where they're at evaluating the project and i'd also mentioned last week that we get got an updated value on our the portion of the town center property in highway 25 and it's was revalued at 2.85 million it was about 2.4 million before so and the reason why I did it retail strategies was asking for it 'cause they've had other entities approaching them about interest in that stretch. And we gotta sell it some determination of fair market value and usually appraisal is one way to satisfy that test. Of course it goes into negotiations with any entity. And then the last thing I wanted to mention is when we met with Martin Lewis and Will Bowie, they they wanted to get our help on some of the traffic improvement stuff kind of probably a little more proactive than reactive once they have a project and then you got to do a traffic impact analysis and DOT then comes back with all these traffic improvements with so there was something called Express design which is where the MPO transportation group can submit that to DOT, DOT does a cost estimate on potential traffic improvements. So we've identified the area near here on Highway 25, those intersections, and then the potential of extending Old King Creek Road down to Howard Gap. So we reached out to Tristan Winkler, who's the contact with the MPO, and Tyler was able to find out from him. they About every four or five months they put these in and ours should be submitted in September, he's thinking. And then usually it's about a couple months after that that they do the analysis. So that's in motion. We wanted to follow up to make sure was there anything we had to do like a resolution or something else to formalize that. So that's in motion with that expressed design information that the Lewis real estate group wanted to basically try and get some help proactively I mean you can certainly see and I'm not sure what's going on with the Costco deal of course this is a Costco project we're looking for more small mixed-use retail restaurant stuff but that traffic improvement requirements is what's At least this will derail that I know they're trying they've reengaged and Negotiating and I I don't really know anything else with anything else what's happening with that? But I those are all the things on town center project that it's wanted to update you Sounds good. Well, I'm excited that Lewis real estate is going back to the table. It's good news That's all I have unless there's any questions or any questions for more Any other business-- oh, go ahead. I had a quick question about my wife. got out of town I guess February out of the country actually I've seen that we're having both concerts at the auction house versus other than the past four years we always had one at the council always said they'd like to have one here they we are and just for better traffic I mean if you want we can pull one out again and so the last four years has always come to council council always says we want to have one at the park that's kind of curious to say I did and I and I'd asked our parks and rec director and they were trying to get more traffic on there over at the auction house but we can pull that out and move one back over we did one in one last year but we always change the other always support a business and then always one to park those bill was good people saying they won't be at the park I was kind of curious about Josh okay what the differences were okay between those two last year yeah I know whether their play's a big part of it. here and I think they had some rain yeah there's always a chance it's always you know yeah I said no what he didn't come to the council this time he just kind of it on no and we did it before because there was some back and forth on it so I can ask and we can bring it back up for discussion now we always get a bunch of phone calls people always want to park us for even kind of ask because a call and said why we're having both over here something to bring back so yeah what one other concert i'll follow up again for more discussion it's one in june why we've got both proposed over there or committee okay but i might be working on coming in june the answer is yeah june and one in july i don't know if there's something with the repairs for the septic system and there might be something if something like that yeah yeah i just didn't want to just have all the one business and then we get phone calls again saying what - That's why you have to park one or all of a sudden one business. - Yep. - Okay. - Well, we'll look forward to hearing about that next month. - Yeah. - Okay. - All right, we have any other business from council? - No. - All right, is there a motion to adjourn? - Motion. - Okay, motion to adjourn, a second? - Second. - Motion and a second to adjourn. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of adjourn say aye. - Aye. - Those opposed? We are adjourned.