Board of County Commissioners | Regular Meeting | August 11, 2025

001Good evening everyone. Uh, thank you for being here tonight. I would like to call the August 11th, 2025 regular meeting of the Union County Board of Commissioners to order. At this time, I will provide the invocation. And if you're so inclined, um, let's bow our heads. Dearly father, thank you for the many, many blessings that you've bestowed upon everyone here in Union County. Thank you for the rain. Thank you for the cooler temperatures. and um and please be with each one of us tonight as we hear um very important issues for this board to consider. And I thank you um again for your blessings. And um we just ask that you will give us the courage, strength, and wisdom to be your hands and feet in our community. In your name we pray. Amen. >>

002If everyone will please stand. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> The next item on the agenda is informal comments from the community. I think we have many signed up for informal comments tonight. Um we will recognize the speakers um that are signed up. Each speaker must address the board from the lectern and begin their remarks by giving their name stating whether they are residents of Union County and indicating the municipality within which they reside. Each speaker will have three minutes to make remarks. A tone may sound at the conclusion of the remarks. A speaker may not yield his or her time to another speaker. Speakers may not discuss matters

003which are the subject of public hearings and they must be courteous in their language and presentation. Restatements or repetitive comments by the same speaker whether at the same or a separate meeting may be ruled out of order and terminated by the chair. Personal attacks will not be tolerated. Speakers may leave their written comments and supporting documents if any with the clerk to the board. Okay. The first person that signed up is Katie Ryan. >> Good evening, commissioners, and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Katie Ryan, and I'm the organizer of Change for Union County. I'm a resident of Union County and live in Indian Trail. I'm here to share urgent concerns for animal welfare. More than 2,000 residents from all corners of the county have signed our petition asking for

004improvements in animal welfare. Hundreds have shared examples of how current code fails to protect families and animals. Parents like Robert, whose children watched in horror as a neighbor's dog killed their cat, a dog they had reported many times. Livestock owners like Barbara, whose horses were injured by trespassing dogs. People like Debbie, whose pregnant donkey was viciously killed by dogs she had already reported. Dozens have lost chickens, pigs, goats, and more. These stories are heartbreaking and they're happening all across the county. Livestock owners are frustrated and they are united with us in seeking ch and solutions. The message from residents is loud and clear. We want to change the ordinances. We want ordinance updates, a shelter renovation, and more animal control staff. While budget is always a valid concern, grants and public private partnerships may be

005a hidden solution to offset costs. Animal ordinances haven't been updated since 1997. While the population and our needs have grown dramatically, logs laws are vague and can be ineffective. They don't protect against cruelty. I want to thank Lieutenant Greg and Captain Green for their our recent positive dialogue on on ordinance changes. Our shelter was built 20 years ago for a county half our current size, and the data proves the facility is too small. In just four years, shelter impounds up 52%. Owner surrenders up 114%. 54% of cats are being euthanized. 32% of dogs are being euthanized. We've had an 82% increase in animal euthanasia in four years. These numbers aren't just statistics. They represent real families and animals in distress. Despite significant increases in population and impounds, animal control, animal control staffing also remains the

006same. This weekend alone, our staff impounded 47 new animals. Commissioners, the building only has 47 kennels. Where do the animals already at the shelter already at the shelter go when that happens? Heartbreaking decisions are made daily. We need more space. We just want you to start the conversation with us. Let's explore what's possible. Listen to the residents because we are telling you the status quo does not work. We urge you to form a commissioner-led group to start this conversation. Let's bring together animal control, civilian shelter staff, nonprofit leaders, livestock owners to discuss these problems. Let's be a county that leads with both compassion and common sense. I want to close by thanking all the animal advocates in the room who've come to support us this site. And I'd like everybody to hold up your hand

007or stand to show the visual representation of support on this issue. Thank you commissioners for listening and for your commitment to our community's well-being. I hope to hear from you soon and we've given some additional information. Thank you so much. [Applause] The next speaker is Ashika Allen. Thank you, sir. Mrs. Allen, not present. We'll move to the next speaker, April McGaren. >> It looks like Diane with with a monk. Welcome. >> So, my name is April Merlane and I am no longer a resident of Union County, but I am here um representing the House of Pearls, which is a nonprofit in Union County right outside of Wing It. Um I'm here again on the behalf of House of Pearls and I'm speaking tonight because Union County's outdated animal ordinances have had a direct and serious

008impact on our property. I previously shared our experience with three female dogs who were abandoned at our property and took up residence under our buildings. I'm sorry. We did what any responsible property owner would do and we called animal control for help. But because these dogs were not considered dangerous, animal control would not and could not come help. Um, these female dogs gave birth and before we knew it, we had 17 dogs on our property that were not ours. Um, the owners were not fined for abandoning these dogs, even though we knew exactly who they were. And they still have dogs back there chained up on on chains. And they're they've moved, by the way. They're not even there. The dogs are just left. >> Um, why? Because Union County does not have a containment

009law. And our ordinances do not hold people accountable for letting their animals roam. Owners should not be allowed to let their dogs wander. If you own a dog, you should be responsible for keeping it on your property. Roaming dogs are attacking livestock, companion animals, and can come into contact with rabies. We need stronger ordinances and more support with animal control. We must hold account holders accountable for abandonment and cruelty to animals. These include fines and consequences, not excuses. We need common sense updates to our ordinances to reflect the reality of Union County today, not the way it was in 1997. We urge you to open a dialogue with residents and form a task force to explore what needs to be fixed. Let's create clear enforceable policies that protect both pre residents and animals. I also

010want to end with recently we now have had cats come up that were pregnant and given birth and we cannot find anywhere to take them because they're considered feral. >> So we're just even though it's not our problem and we have plenty to deal with with helping women in addiction come out, we're now having to deal with this. I'm not blaming anybody, but we got to do something, you know. Thank you. [Applause] The next speaker is Robert and I'm just going to say T. Robert. >> It's torso. >> Just like that. >> Welcome. >> Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Robert Torsiello. I'm a Union County resident. I reside in the town of Wingut. Um I don't have all the statistics that you've already heard. Um and I'm sure you're going

011to hear a lot more of that tonight. Um I volunteer for uh an animal rescue. Uh I foster dogs, so I'm well um well aware of animal welfare. Um I also volunteer at the shelter. I am there every day and I see what goes on. When you're there and you see two dogs get adopted and right behind that 10 or 15 more are being surrendered, that's a problem. There's no place to put these these animals. Uh there's no consequences to any of the the owners surrender surrendering these animals. We have to do better. Um, I ask that each and every one of you visit the shelter, bring your family on a Saturday, spend an hour, visit the dogs, see what the what these wonderful animals have to go through. Um, sit and talk to the

012staff. They're frustrated. There's so many things that they can do better if we had better laws and better policy. So, please come out. We need your support. The animals need your support and the residents of this county need your support. Thank you, [Applause] [Music] Melissa Ever. Ever. >> Thank you. I just want to say I am a resident of the county and I support what change is wanted to do. I see these animals daily, what they're going through, what the staff, what the volunteers, the rescues are going through. I personally have a dog that I just the man passed away, left it. I took care of it. I ended up having to have him euthanized two weeks ago. But I just would like to say that our shelter needs to be expanded. We need more

013staff and we need some change. And I just hope you all will look into that. Thank you, Deborah Zappa. Good evening. My name is Deborah Zappa. I live in the town of Stallings here in Union County. I was on the board of directors for the Humane Society of Union County for nine years. For several years, I served as vice chair and then chairman of the board. During that time, I periodically met with Sheriff Kathy and the lieutenants and the staff in direct charge of the shelter. We at the Humane Society and the personnel at animal services have tried to learn about and implement the best practices in animal welfare. It is important to us. Since our shelter was built, our county population has grown by 40%. Many of the residents have comp companion pets. 52%

014more animals are being impounded than in 2020. In the last five years, owner surrenders are up 113%. Katie said 114%. They went up even since I wrote this. Our current shelter building cannot accommodate this influx, which leads to overcrowding and potential euthanasia for no other reason than lack of physical space. An overcrowded environment can cause increased anxiety, behavioral decline, a higher risk of illness and injury among the animals. The staff at our animal services are competent and caring individuals. They want to provide a high level of service, but they lack adequate physical space which would allow them to do so. Our shelter is simply not large enough to meet the needs of the citizens of Union County. We as taxpayers are asking that revenue be directed to rectify the situation. We need a bigger, better

015shelter building. We've been talking about a larger shelter for several years. Now is the time to make it happen. Our animal services staff deserve our support. The citizens of Union County, whether animal advocates or not, deserve services commensurate with our needs. Union I know my time's running out. Union County is a wonderful, safe, vibrant, and growing place to live and raise our families. Our county could and should be the leader in animal care and concern for the entire state of North Carolina. Working together, all of these people, and with you, we can accomplish that. Thank you. Robin Salsman. >> Elizabeth Mullis. >> Good evening. My name is Elizabeth Mullis. I go by Beth. I live in Unionville, North Carolina. And on that 1842 map in North Carol of Union County, right in one of those

016cogs, that upper triangle, it says Mullis on that piece of dirt. From then till now, we've been here forever. I'm here to talk about the East Lawyers Road Water Project. We were approved in 22, I believe it was. We paid for our tap fees in June of 22. We were told we'd have water by 24 months, which would have been June of 24. We ain't got no water. And the water where we are is horrific. My water is full of arsenic, sodium, chloride, chlorine. It's horrific. I bring in bottled water every month to cook and drink, as my parents and my brother and all of us have done forever. Um, my clothes turn yellow and nasty and we're asking y'all to sever our project from the Mill Morgan Mill Road project. We had great participation

017on our road. I think it was over 90%. Everybody wants to be involved. They've paid their tap fees. It's been designed. I don't think there's any easement issues at all. And if you guys will just get us some bidding and get us some money, we can put some shovels in the ground and put some water in my sink. So that's what we're here to ask for tonight. We're to ask, we want you to sever the East Lawyers Road project from the Morg Morgan Mill Road project so that we can move forward with speed and elacrity. Thank you very much. Helena Ryan Via. Hello, my name is Helena and I'm 8 years old. I live in Union County and I go to school here, too. At my school, we have something called the Let It Grow

018Challenge. It means we try something hard, something you've never done before. Well, today is my challenge. I'm standing here talking in front of all of you grown-ups who make the rules. Honestly, it's scary, but I'm doing it anyway cuz the animals need me. They can't stand here and speak for themselves. My family fosters dogs and cats from the animal shelter. Some are sick and hurt. It makes me cry. Sometimes they are treated badly by people who were supposed to love them. Sometimes they have nowhere else to go because the shelter is too full. Have you ever visited the shelter? It's really small. The cat room is tiny. I love playing with the kittens there, but I wish they had more space to run, play, and feel safe. I want you to make the shelter bigger

019so more animals can be saved and find families like mine. I don't understand why the laws let animals get hurt or left behind. My mom tried to explain it, but I still don't get it. Why can't you make better laws? You are the important adults. You can change things. You care about animals, don't you? I'm only eight, but I know we can do better. You are the ones with the power to help. At my school, after the pledge of allegiance, we say something at at to the end. We say at Union Academy, we do the right thing even when no one is looking. But today, everyone is looking. I'm only 8 years old and I know the right thing to do. Why can't grown-ups who make the rules understand it, too? I want you to

020make a bigger shelter and better laws. Thank you for listening to me. [Applause] [Music] Helena, thank you so much for being here tonight. Great job. Good job. Marcia Stone Street. Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm Marcia Ston Street. I moved to Union County to the city of Monroe in December of 2014 from the great state of Maryland. Our county's animal ordinances haven't been reviewed in 28 years. During the time I moved here and present, our county has grown from 221 to,000 to approximately 271,000 residents. Mind you, these are approximate numbers and they vary from different sources. This growth has directly impacted our animal shelter, which is, as everybody knows, is 20 years old, and the increase of 52% of impounds. As an adoption coordinator for a nonprofit cat rescue, I've seen firsthand how

021cat space becomes critically limited during kitten season, which typically lasts about half the year. But, and I say a big butt, we have had cats this year pregnant as early as January and as late as December of last year. This situation is unsustainable for shelter staff and animals and highlights the urgent need for an updated building and updated policy. The city of Monroe recently completed a year-long community dialogue on improving animal welfare and that's a big step for this county. Why can't Union County host a similar conversations with us? There are many topics worth discussing, including review and update outdated animal code ordinances, explore options for expanding or renovating the shelter, expand spayneuter programs, a proven method to reduce pet overpopulation and shelter intake. Consider policies to prevent unsafe backyard breeding for dogs and cats.

022launch public education campaigns via the health department on the importance of spayneuter. How about we start in our schools? This was very effective in my home state of Maryland. We started with our health department. We went there. We learned from our uh shelter. We were taught things and we were able to speak at schools. Improve oversight to ensure no animal leaves the shelter unaltered. Given the county has a vet and a vet tech on staff, no reason for any animal to leave that shelter able to make babies or have babies. Updating ordinances is a big undertaking, but it's achievable through collaboration between the board of commissioners, county departments, law enforcement, nonprofit leaders, the community, and please, I beg of you, let's open the conversation now and work together to find practical, effective solutions for the

023voiceless and our community. Thank you. [Applause] Maria Garcia. Good evening, uh, council members. My name is Maria and I live in Monroe here in Union County. And like many others, I'm here tonight in support of the proposal from change for Union County, common sense animal laws, more animal control officers, and a renovated shelter. Others have spoken to the details, so I'll speak to the urgency. Over the last few years, I've spent countless hours volunteering in shelters, fostering nearly a dozen dogs, and donating thousands of dollars to rescues and shelters. And still, it's like trying to put out a forest fire with a handful of water guns. We're here today as advocates, volunteers, fosters, and staff workers asking, begging for systemic change. This crisis cannot be solved by individual effort alone. We are drowning. We are

024overwhelmed. And we need your leadership. As our elected officials, it's your job to serve the people. And we the people in the trenches are telling you what we need. These problems are preventable and it will cost far less to address them now than to continue cleaning up the damage later. I challenge you to raise the standards for Union County's animal laws beyond the bare minimum. Let's make our laws and facilities reflect the compassion of the people who live here. And let's protect our most vulnerable because the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. So, let's show the best of what Union County has to offer. Thank you, >> Gretchen McCullum. My name is Gretchen McCollum. I live in Marshville, Union County. Um, so tonight I wanted

025to speak on um, lack of animal cruelty laws. Um, the level of animal cruelty in our county is astounding to me. The conditions in which some people allow living, breathing creatures to exist is heartbreaking. But what makes it even worse is that in many cases, nothing can be done. The laws are vague. There's nothing clear-cut to protect these animals, leaving law enforcement and animal control with their hands tied. My question to you, if animal control cannot act because of the vagueness of our laws, doesn't it make sense to make the laws less vague? Would you consider a wire dog crate meant for indoor training with a rug thrown over it, proper shelter? Would you consider a flimsy transport crate, one that can blow away in the wind or tip over in a storm, proper shelter?

026Would you consider a wooden box with a wire floor where a dog's feet never touch the grass or left raw from walking on a wire? Proper shelter left every day and every night to whatever the current elements are with no real way to stay dry or cool or get warm. Right now, these situations pass as acceptable under the current code. You have photos that we have emailed. Each photo is a situation where animal control did not intervene because the code was too vague. Let me be clear. None of these examples represent proper shelter. They are inhumane. No living, breathing creature deserves that life. Dogs with collars so tight they're embedded in their skin. Dogs living in heavy tractor trains. Oh, sorry. Dogs living on ha heavy tractor chains surrounding by piles of trash, chained for

027their entire lives to four feet of space. Female dogs giving birth in mud in the freezing rain and snow in the heat of summer. Often their puppies dying. None of these things are acceptable. I know the amount of change needed sounds overwhelming. It feels overwhelming. It won't happen overnight, but it has to start somewhere. It has to start with a willingness to listen. It has to start with someone asking, "Can we do better?" I'll leave you with this. My husband's grandparents were married in 1945. A decade later, they built their home on a beautiful 40 acre plot where I'm fortunate enough to live today. One day, Grandpa planted an acorn in what grandma apparently thought was a very odd spot. She said, "Why did you plant it there?" He said, "One day, I want to

028park my truck under that tree." She laughed at him. You know what? It took time. It took years, but he parked his truck under that tree for many, many years. And it still offers us shelter today. Change is like that tree. It starts with planting a seed. It starts with a conversation. And I hope today is that day. Thank you, Laura. Sir, hello. My name is Laura Sir. I'm the executive director of the Humane Society of Union County. I did forget to tell you that last time I came up here and talked, so I wanted to make sure I did this time. I live in Wingut. I've been in Union County now since 2001 and I've been an ad animal advocate for over 15 years now. Um I am here to support the same thing

029as you're hearing about from the others. I'm not going to repeat the statistics to you and stuff. I wanted to take a few minutes to thank you for the community partner grant that um you all approved for the Humane Society. Um, we we feel like we are working as hard as we can to make an impact in the county. We are on track for altering over 6,000 animals this year. Um, we used to think we were making a dent in the intake at the shelter, but the community is outgrowing us and outpacing us. We are scheduled um scheduling six and eight weeks out. Um, and puppies and kittens can happen in that time. So, we appreciate the support that we get with the community grant. Um, I would like to offer my support for updating

030the animal ordinances. We would be very happy to come to the table with any government people, um, other rescues and other nonprofits in the area to talk about, uh, what we can do to, um, get started making a difference in these thousands of animals that are um, overcrowding our shelter. Speaking of overcrowding, I don't know if there is money out there available to um build a new shelter or even renovate the one that we have, but maybe there are um grants or there are ways that it can be reconfigured to hold more animals there. um maybe there's unused space that can be changed up and fixed to um accommodate I don't know at least make a dent in in what's being turned away. Um we get constant um people bringing animals to us because they

031don't want to take them where they're going to be euthanized for lack of space. Um, it's unfortunate we don't always have a space for them because we don't have as many foster homes as it takes to take care of that many animals. Um, as somebody else said, we're all just overstressed and overworked and we don't know what to do. So, I think the only answer to that is to come together as a community and make it better. Um, thank you very much, [Applause] Claire Smith. Good evening. My name is Claire Claire Smith. I live in unincorporated Union County on East Lawyers Road, the onem stretch between Bickot Ridge and New Salem Road. I'm here to talk about our approved shortline water project. Our section of East Lawyers Road has been applying for shortline water approval

032since the old system of the waterline extension in 2012. We applied under the new system in 21 and received approval. We all paid our deposits and in June of 22, we were informed by the county that the project would be complete in 24 months. We received a letter from Union County Water on September 16th of 22 saying, "Our application was selected based on its ranking and program funding availability and you have paid your related cost share fees for your and this is confirming your participation." The county commissioners gave final approval on September 6th of 22 to move forward. During the county commissioner meeting of January 17 of 23, Brian Matthews is quoted as saying about the FY22 short line, "It would be awfully hard to go back on. We already designed it and we've got

033all the all of that ready to go. It would be difficult to tell those future customers that we're not going to do it." In May of 23, we came to the board meeting. Matt Smith spoke on behalf of our FY22 Short Line project. In June of 23, the new budget was passed, including funding to complete the East Lawyers Road project. We received notification from the county that the project was reinstated and would be complete in 24 months. Our last official update from the county came in February of 25. Surveying, engineering, design, and all easement acquisitions for our road were 100% complete by the end of 2024. Permitting was 90% complete at that time, and I assume that has been finished. We reached out to the county on June 10th of this year. We were shocked

034to find that the county said there were easement issues. I know for a fact there are no easement issues on East Lawyers Road. The easements issues are on Morgan Mill Road for an unrelated matter to our approved section. We are not dependent on Morgan Mill Road or its easements. We have replaced water lines in our house, water fixtures, the clothes washer, the well pump. It is corroding our appliances. My daughter goes to Pedmont High School. She is in the color guard. She cannot even wash her uniform. We have to give it to someone else to wash before she goes to a competition the next day. We wish to have our section not lumped in with Morgan Mill Road and to be completed as promised on more than one occasion. I do have supporting documents that

035were submitted with our application from the North Carolina State Lab of Public Health and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services about our water. Thank you, [Applause] Jacqueline Clark. My name is Jacqueline Clark and I live in Fairview, North Carolina and I live near Highway 218 and I am here in support of change of Union County. I have seen countless dogs and cats running around on this dangerous road as recently as this Saturday. Many of them are hit and killed, at least seven dogs and nine cats that I have seen this year so far. I have called animal control many times with no answer. I end up taking these animals off the road, calling the numbers on the callers if they have them, notifying the homeowners about their pets. Several times, rushing injured

036ones to the emergency vets. Animals are dumped where I live. I end up taking them in myself, paying out of pocket for food, vet care, and shelter. Some amazing rescues have taken several severely sick ones in for me as well. I haven't received help or a call back from animal control. Clearly, the animal service system is overwhelmed, putting both animals and people at risk. There is no leash law in the county, and that must change. Basic needs such as shelter, food, and water are not good enough, especially for the tethered animals. With this extreme heat that we have experienced, animal abusers should face harsher punishment and be banned from owning pets. as well as being checked on to make sure they do not acquire more pets. When animal control is called, they must act immediately,

037not weeks later, while the animals suffer in the same conditions. There are several pet owners who love their animals that are struggling to provide food, shelter, and vet care. There should be a program to help them. This prevents more animals from being abandoned in the first place. Also, we need to continue the trapneuter return programs for the cats and add programs like Charlotte's station where residents host shelter dogs for a few days. It relieves overcrowding, helps dogs decompress, and improves the adoption rates. Also, a stray hold needs to be longer. That isn't enough time for somebody to actually find their missing pet before it could be potentially euthanized. As you know, impound rates are high and owner surrenders are even higher. The ordinances haven't not been updated. And with the county's population continuing to grow,

038these problems will only get worse if we do not act now. I ask for a renovated expanded shelter with more staff and veterinarians. More animal control officers are needed with extended hours past 9 to5. At least someone on call after 5:00 p.m. and on the weekends. Also, updated ordinances and expanded programs are needed to reduce overcrowding and comm keep our community safe. Union County should be safe for every resident and every animal that lives here. Thank you. >> Cameron Helms. >> Hey, thank you. Uh, my name is Cameron Helms. I live at 3712 East Loggers Road and um Unionville and just called it to want to come up here and just honestly try to gain some little more information on this waterline extension project that uh we paid for this I don't know some two

039years ago I guess. So u I'm not quite as familiar what's going on with it. It's always been my understanding when you get a bill for something and you write a check for it, you normally get something for that. But, uh, we haven't really got anything for for it. And just trying to figure out, uh, kind of where we are with that. Kind of stinks to drive by the new water extension plant in our backyard and know that the water line's feeding everywhere else, but we can't get it from the mile less than a mile from that. So, uh, just wanted to, uh, reach out and ask about that and just, uh, try to, as has already been said, I think it's kind of crazy that it's tied to a different project and, uh, would

040ask that you guys would vote to to separate the two projects. Um, and that's all I got. Thank you. Jean Alexander. Good evening. I'm Jean Alexander, lifetime resident of this county and live in the New Salem Fairview community. Uh we're here tonight to address the proposed roundabout at the 218 Love Mill Road intersection. It was converted to a four-way stop about two years ago, which has been working excellent. It allows everyone to have an equal chance to navigate the intersection from all four directions. Um the it's a cost-effective way that was needed very bad because that was a dangerous intersection especially if you were on Love Mill Road trying to cross in the morning with the 218 traffic. Um as safe as it is, it works well. the school buses, trucks, large equipment can navigate

041this intersection without running up on concrete curbs, damaging tires, shifting loads, and causing other problems. Um, concerns with the proposed roundabout change is uh the significant high cost of three million plus dollars. I mean, we're for 5,000. and they did what they did. Why do we need to spend that much more money? The maintenance issues that are going to show up with these roundabouts from the truck traffic, if you look at ones that have been there longer than 12 months, the concrete's cracked all the way around them. That's going to be an ongoing repair. Um the unequal traffic flow will return because 218 on the roundabout you have to jump in when you can. 218 will dominate again. Once again, Love Mill Road will it will be at your best judgment when you're allowed to

042jump in in the morning and afternoon because there's a massive amount of traffic. Um the lengthy construction time is a very large concern of approximately four months give or take weather and how things go with the government. Um this would cause love road does not have any side roads to bypass. You would have to go into Stanley County to get back to 218 if you cannot pass this intersection. It is approximately 12 miles on a safe route for a school bus, EMS or any resident on Love Mill to pass. That's an extra 29 minutes. So, who wants to say if uh you call EMS, well, now it's 20 minute 29 minutes longer than what it was. So for us that would put us in the 45 minute zone for an EMS to arrive and uh

043that could be very detrimental to a person having a heart attack, stroke or an accident, bleeding. Um this would also be the school buses would have to travel this route uh which is extremely long for us you know adds another 30 minutes for the children also um tight road and rock hole road are not safe alternate routes they're not safe for school buses or large trucks that would be a nightmare waiting to happen for either one to travel those roads roads. Um, local business impacts. Our farm, we farm on Alexander Farm Road, which is off of Love Mill. Um, we operate a row crop operation and a produce operation, and we utilize upig for strawberries and other vegetables. the April till July time frame is that's the season. If they close that intersection, we're done

044for a year because 99% of our traffic cross that intersection to get to our farm. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you, >> Anthony Drio. Thanks for the opportunity. Uh my name is Anthony Dietri. I live in Unionville. I'm here to support the change for Union County uh petition. Um also want to share just a personal story. Um our um on Saturday, November 23rd, 2024, our family cat was killed on my property. This was done by a noisuence dog in our community. And I want to thank uh Lieutenant Grigg and Sergeant McCarron for doing really everything they could to uh remedy the this horrific occurrence. However, when I initially called uh the sheriff's office with the incident over the weekend, I've received the same advice others had likely been told. When there's a loose

045dog about, there's no leash law and there's nothing much we can do. I've also been told because of the vague animal laws, if a dog enters my property, I can take matters into my own hands. This is not an appropriate solution. I know the shelter staff is just as frustrated. So many so many of us spend our own time uh willing to help these animals. I'm happy to volunteer my money and time whenever I can. When I'm not working, I'm on the road transporting rescue animals. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else, but it's frustrating when neighboring, less populated, more rural counties have better laws and more resources for animal control. We're just asking you to throw us a bone. Please help us help the county. Thank you, >> Ryan McGee. >> Good evening. I'm

046Ryan McGee. I live in the unincorporated Union County about a mile and a half from this roundabout the other gentleman just spoke about. Um I'm not opposed to a roundabout. Um I drive through them every day and in most cases they work very well and I know in a lot of cases they're much safer. Uh but I think we need to look at this situation as the other gentleman mentioned there. The four-way stop that has been installed there for a couple years now, in my opinion, has worked very well. I travel through this intersection at least twice a day. Um, the only I I second a lot of the things that he has already mentioned there. The only thing that I would want to add to that is that if the state does feel like

047it's something that needs to be done, I think they would it would be good if they could get the residents that use that route and live in that community that's going to be affected by it and get their input before that decision is made if it's not already made. if it is made to alleviate some of the problems that the other gentleman mentioned there. If there's a way that it could be done, there should be a detour road or something put in near the intersection there if at all possible so that the people that live on the north side of 218 between there and Rocky River off of Love Mill would have an easy way to get back on this side of Highway 218 without having to drive into Stanley County. Thank you. Glenn Dill

048Dillio >> Dillo >> Dio. >> Good evening, commissioners. And I wanted to say for the different topics today, for people to travel long distances and brave the harsh weather outside, it shows they're passionate about their respective topic. And I think a lot is to be said about that. Uh I came tonight not really having anything prepared, just kind of doing it ad hoc. I am here to voice my 100 maybe 1,000% support of the rural land use plan that's being formulated. I know there was a com a committee started 12 to 18 months ago. There's been a lot of brainstorming. Now it seems to be um taking hold. Um, I live in my my mailing address is Waxaw, but I live in an unincorporated portion of the county. To make you familiar, I am off

049of Lancaster Highway 200 near the furniture outlet, Frontier Meets, if that kind of narrows it down. My wife and I looked six months for a house. 98% of the inventory is in a subdivision. My daughter lives in Waxaw Proper. It's, as you some of you know, it's a total disaster in Waxaw with zoning. They um the zoning is uh there's now state legislature that you can't downzone. Certain amount of commissioners are um just higher density apartments, town homes, and with the idea that uh reducing or increasing inventory is going to reduce prices. Well, guess what? I've go through a lot of developments and they're all 7 800,000 on cookie cutter lots on its slabs. Um my wife and I getting back to why we chose we chose the rural part of the county because we

050wanted property. We didn't want to live in an HOA and um I see a lot of large farms and I believe in capitalism. You know, a farmer if they're not going to sell anymore to a developer. But I'm urging all of you to please keep the boat sailing, keep low density, whatever. I'm willing to pay extra tax money because in the end, if high density, my taxes are going to go up anyway with more problems. Please keep on with the uh impetus of the rural land use program. And um I think it goes a long way. A lot of people in my neighborhood feel the same way and I'm speaking for them. Thank you for your time. Jill Nichols. >> Good evening. My name is Jill Nichols. I'm with Mission Lost Pet Recovery. I I

051am a Cabaris County resident. Um, however, over the last several years, I've done my volunteer work in Union County. um either securing or trapping stray animals, mainly dogs. Um and I'm sorry, I can't read without glasses. So, so I'm here to speak about the need for increased support in Union County for stray animals. This county needs more animal control officers, a containment ordinance, and a larger facility to house stray animals. As Union County population continues to grow, so will intake numbers. oftentimes stray or own dogs that are allowed to to roam free or unaltered or already with puppies. Uh by turning our back on these dogs, the dog population will continue to rise and burden our current current animal control officers and shelter staff. They also create a safety hazard to the community. They travel

052the roads. They can be aggressive with livestock or people. So, some of the most recent notable cases for me that I've helped with, um, we had a stray dog that was very pregnant. Animal control had been contacted. They left a trap for an elderly couple to deal with it. They were not able to do that. So, my partner in crime and I back here, um, we stepped in and we we secured the dog. Um, another there was another stray dog living under somebody's shed that just had I can't remember six, seven puppies. Could have been more than that. There was also a stray dog um crossing back and forth on 485 causing a traffic hazard. Animal control was called. No one showed up. Uh me and some other rescue partners headed out there after we

053got off work, which is during rush hour traffic, rush hour traffic. By the time we got there, he was already crossing the highway um and ultimately hit by a car. I seen the cars all slamming on the brakes. Fortunately, there was no car wreck. Unfortunately for me and my my other person was out there helping. We had to pull over on the side of 485 in dangerous conditions and pick the dog up. And this could possibly have been prevented if we had the support of animal control while this dog was in a neighborhood during the day. Um, one thing I don't have in my notes, but I trapped a dog for House of Pearls, which they graciously took the dog under their care. And before that, I did a straw run in the neighborhood behind

054House of Pearls, which if you drive down there to see the care that these animals are getting, the strongest person's going to drive out there crying. It's bad. So, we hear all the time how the shelter is overwhelmed, full, euthanizing for space, yet we're not taking any steps to slow it down. While removing straight dogs off the street is just a small piece of the issue in Union County, by doing something about it now, we're making a small step towards improvement. Doing nothing guarantees nothing will improve. Change only happens when we make it happen. Thank you, Taylor Ericson. Hello, my name is Taylor Ericson. I am a Union County resident live in Monroe. I've been here since like 2005. Um, I'm the practice manager at the Spay Needer Clinic. So, we have a partnership with

055the county. Um, we work with the Humane Society, our parent company. So, I'm not going to waste a whole lot of time, but basically on the clinic side, we started in 2011, uh, performed just over a thousand spays and neuters that year. By 2024, that number rose to over 5,600. So, we have quadrupled our spayneuter numbers. We still have an 8 to 10 week demand for especially for large female dogs, for female cats, and for feral cats because that is such a huge problem here. The Humane Society in the last quarter has intaken, and they can correct me if I'm wrong, probably about 30 puppies, more than a handful of adult pets or dogs, I'm sorry, more than a handful of adult cats. We've got long-term fosters in our care. We are struggling on the

056rescue side and the clinic side. We physically cannot keep up. We've got clinic employees in the room. We've got rescue employees in the room. We can all tell you that we give 110% and we are still drowning. We need government support. We need the financial backing to make this stuff happen. We cannot do it on our backs. Every single person in this room that is here for a change of Union County's purpose is giving 110%. And it's not fair that people that find stray animals, it becomes their financial, moral, and emotional obligation to take care of these pets. It's not their problem. They're doing something out of the goodness of their heart. But financially, I can tell you personally, it's a burden. And so when someone tries to do the right thing and they are

057told, "Sorry, there's nothing we can do." That makes them not want to do it again. And that's where we see abandonment. That's where we see neglect. So it really starts on a government level. We're doing our part. We're doing more than our part. We need your help, please. And thank you. [Applause] The next item on our agenda is a public hearing for conditional reszoning petition ZZ-2025-00004 Shannondoa. I will open the public hearing and recognize Lee Jensen, planning director for comments. I am so proud of you and you are my role model and I want to be you when I grow up and also your mom is awesome. Thank you, Madam Chair. As you stated, this is a um conditional resoning request, uh 2025 CZ00004. Um we're referring to this as the Shannondoa reszoning. Um the

058request is to reszone a property containing uh 48 and a half acres. Um Can you not see it? Oh, okay. I I'll hold off for a second. I'll stop. All right. So, this is a request to reszone a parcel of about 48 and a half acres on um Waxall Monroe Road from RA40 to R10 with conditions. Those conditions include um be limited to the site plan dated July 8th, 2025, which you'll see in just a second. Um the uses would be limited to 91 single family homes. They would have five-year vesting and the development would meet all the requirements of the Union County development ordinance as of the date of approval if it was approved. This is the site plan. Just to kind of give you some context as to where this is. If you're

059heading down uh Highway 75 from Monroe and you go through the traffic circle roundabout at Rocky River Road, this would be south of that on the left right before you get to the large industrial plant in Mineral Springs. That provides any context. Um again, this is a site plan. It's a few roads have a couple different lot size variations. Um, and again, 91 lots and you see some open space that's mixed in throughout that development. Um, just to the south of this on the other side of old uh Waxal Monroe Road, this road specifically in the neighborhood would align with an existing road that leads into the um Oh my gosh. >> Stone Bridge. >> Stone. Thank you, Stonebridge Development. Um, existing conditions on the site. You can see it's a it's a vacant tract

060right now. Um, looking up and down Old Waxall Monroe Road. You can see one side of the road is fairly vacant. The other side again, there's Stonebridge and looking east, it's it's fairly rural looking that way along um Highway 75. That's looking it's going toward Monroe. terms of development status. Um this is the large industrial complex that I was talking about on Highway 75. The roundabout for Rocky River Road is just um going the other direction toward Monroe. You can see the existing Stonebridge development to the south. Everything else is fairly low density uh residential development and agricultural land uses. On the property itself, there's no major environmental features, but you can see um just to the east northeast toward Monroe, there's a couple wetlands and some streams. Everything out there in that general area

061is zoned RA40. Um except with the exception of this gray, which is the town of of Mineral Springs. A few traffic counts um in the area. Um along Waxaw Highway you've got fairly good amount of traffic, 75 vehicle trips a day. And then along um Old Waxaw Monroe Road, you have about 550. That's based on the 2025 count. And then within the Stonebridge development, you've got about 900 land use map calls for this area to develop as um there's really a rural residential category underneath this employment corridor. that's an overlay. Um, so it's rural residential and if the conditions are are appropriate, it could be used for an employment corridor as well. That would be employment type land uses such as the what's on the parcel um just to the to the south. Um, we

062did reach out to Union County Public Schools and got feedback. You can see here u most of the schools are not quite operating at at capacity. It's uh the Parkwood cluster, Western Union being the elementary school. Uh public water and sewer are available to the site. Uh community meeting was held on July the 8th. Uh seven residents attended. Most asked questions about buffering um road connections, home prices. Um and no changes were made to the site plan. Uh one person did speak in opposition at the land use board meeting. uh they cited uh small lot sizes, density and loss of environmental features as the reason they were speaking against it. Um Mineral Springs was contacted because they are adjacent to the um project to provide comments. Um they stated that they oppose R10 zoning on

063their border and although we didn't get it in time to include it in your agenda packet, I believe all of you saw the email that was sent. Um they passed a resolution in opposition to the to the resoning. I think that went out Thursday or Friday. Um the land use board did consider this at their last meeting. Um they re unanimously recommended denial. Their major concerns were density, loss of farmland, um and loss of open space. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have. Um the applicant is here. They do have a presentation they would like to give before they get If you have any questions to me, I'll be happy to answer. >> M madam chair, I've got one question. U maybe maybe two. U first of all, Lee, thank you. Um so

064if we can go back to the plan here, do either you or maybe the applicant know how much total open space area do we have with this plan? >> I I they uh they're saying 36%. I knew it was north of 30 because they met the new um 30% open space requirement. >> Okay. And >> approximately 14 acres. >> Okay. Thank you. And I guess maybe I I might be a little bit confused here. So this is not actually a part of the existing Stonebridge neighborhood. >> This this parcel was part of the original Stonebridge approval. So, back 98, sometime in the late 90s, early 2000s, um, Stonebridge got a master plan approval. Um, this parcel was part of that. Um, and and there is a a an amount of of homes that were approved

065as part of that development. Um, this piece is not owned by the original developer or I guess any of the subsequent developers of Stonebridge anymore. So, a new either owner or or maybe they're under contract, I'm not sure, has has come forward and they have asked to reszone this this particular piece to something different. >> Thank you for the clarification. >> Any other questions for me? would like to make pres 15 minutes. >> Good evening, Madame Chair and members of the board. My name is Jeff Palmer with Shannonoa Homes. Here tonight with Pam Porter, our project planner and owner of TMTLA Associates of Planning and Landscaping Architecture Firm in the Triangle. We are here this evening to talk about the public hearing items and what we're requesting is approval for a 91 home luxury community.

066I'm going to make a brief presentation and overview and then Pam is going to explain some of the project details. This project was zoned and approved for 67 single family detached homes in 2003 as part of the Stonebridge master plan under the designation of smart growth. today. That zoning is still in place and we are asking the board for permission to increase the number of homes allowed from 67 to 91, a total increase of 25 homes. I'm not sure what the definition of smart growth was back in 2003, but from a common sense perspective, this property certainly still qualifies as smart growth today. Adjacent to the property is existing water and sewer infrastructure that has not been fully utilized and the land is slated for development. This seems like smart growth. Since the property is

067already zoned and going to be developed, it's not depleting any farmland. Development of this property is a foregone conclusion. Without getting into the nuances of how density is calculated in the development uniform development code, just looking purely at the number of units divided by the gross number of acres, the result is 1.87 units to the acre. This low level of density certainly does not conjure up the notion of overcrowding or congestion. The proposed lots consist of two varieties and sizes. Front load garage lots and side load garage lots which give the project an aesthetically pleasing streetscape appearance. A as job growth in the Charlotte metropolitan area continues, so does the demand for housing. Providing new housing and preserving farmland is a delicate balancing act. But by allowing Shannondoa to build 91 homes on this property

068instead of 67, that is 24 additional new homes that Union County would be producing for the community without the depletion of any additional farm acreage. whatsoever. And the resulting lot sizes are not a reduction in quality of life for the future residents either. With lot widths for the two types, 75 ft and 96 feet wide and depths of 140 ft. These home sites are perfectly balanced with the size of the homes that we will be built and proportionally appropriate. Finally, by approving this project, the county would be able to recapture facility development costs for existing infrastructure with water and sewer connection fees totaling $15,469 per lot. The total benefit to the county for the additional 24 lots would be an additional $371,000 266. With that, I turn it over to Pam who's going to go

069into the detailed review of the concerns from the land board and we'll pose two questions for you regarding access to 75 and what amenity the board might prefer. Thank you. >> Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board. Um I'm Pam Porter with TMTLA Associates. Thank you Jeff. Um for that I'm just going to go over, excuse me, a couple details of our project and we have a short presentation for you tonight. So just a quick overview. The site is located between Waxaw Highway and C75 and Old Waxaw Monroe Road. Parkdale Mills to the west, Stonebridge Community and Golf Course to the south. We are just under 49 acres and we are in the East Fork 12mi Creek wershed. The current zoning is RA40 and we are requesting a zoning to R10. Um and again

070as Jeff mentioned previously, this was zoned by and by right 67 lots can be developed on this. So we're asking for an increase of just 24 lots. You just saw this in um the plan that staff gave. It's the uh land use plan. You can see where we have circled is our uh parcel is located in that area. And this is um our proposed development. It's a little bigger. are I think easier to see. Um we have 14.5 acres of open space. That's 36%. And um amenities that we are considering is a pool and a clubhouse and a playground. Um the lots will be a minimum of 10,000 square ft. And there's two lot sizes that we are proposing 96 feet wide and 75 ft wide. All of them will be 140 ft deep. And

071just to compare, um, the smallest lot in Stonebridge that we were able to see on GIS is, um, just over 7,500 square feet. So these lots will be larger than some of those lots across the street. And the lots will accommodate, as Jeff mentioned, a variety of home styles. We are preliminarily proposing three storm water ponds. It may be more once this is fully engineer, but we will treat and capture storm water that's is a result of this project. We are preserving the wetlands um that are located on the site. I don't know if there we go. I see a mouse. There's a couple pockets of wetlands right here. They are in the open space area. We thought that was important to keep those, preserve those, not try to do anything or impact them at

072all in that area. We have 30-foot street buffers. So, there's a 30-foot street buffer along 75 and also one on the south side along Old Wax Monroe Road. And we also have a 15oot reforestation buffer along the um non road frontage property line. So, I'm trying to trace it now with the mouse. And I did want to note that that reforestation buffer is not inclusive of the lots that is outside the lot. So whoever buys these lots, they will not go in and cut the trees down because they are off the lot. These are some examples of the homes that um we would like to put in this neighborhood. They're not inclusive of just the style. This just gives you an example of the style, the material, the size. Um they're not tiny homes. They're

073not giant McMansions. They're in the middle. And um this is something that we are considering and we would like to get some feedback from the board on this. So what we were thinking an amenity um in a neighborhood this size that would be nice would be a pool and a clubhouse. So, this is a rendering of kind of what we're thinking. And what we are showing here is a 2,000qt minimum pool with a fountain, a 4,000 foot minimum pool deck, a 1,400 foot clubhouse, a playground/tlot, picnic shelter, open playfield, and then we have a male kiosk and parking as well. Kind of concentrating all together. And I'm going to backtrack quickly to there. So, that would be located right here. So kind of keeping all that in one spot. Some of the concerns of the

074landport I just want to quickly address and Jeff did touch on them in his presentation but I'll just elaborate. So one of the concerns is removal of farmland and you know we understand there's a farmland item that is on the agenda tonight but the decision to not farm this land has been made. It is for sale. It's entitled for 67 lots right now. So, somebody is going to build something on this. We're not removing actively farmed land as part of this. There's already a plan in place. We are trying to increase the density um and as a trade-off have additional open space and amenities. And by improving the increase um by 24 lots, we're helping to increase the density here as opposed to putting that density elsewhere and potentially removing farmland elsewhere in the county.

075The connection to um highway 75 is something that staff asked for because it helps us to claim the increase in density and it also helps to disperse traffic and serve as an additional egress point for first responders. Um but there was concern from the land board about making this connection. So um staff did indicate that if it was the desire of the board to not have that connection, you all could make us not make that connection and I think we would be okay with that. Um, but we do recognize that it does offer another egress point for this. Um, or at the board's discretion because traffic calming was also a concern. The developer, um, we've talked about, um, having the developer put some money in the HOA fund for future traffic calming devices in the

076neighborhood. We can't just preemptively say that we're going to do this because the DOT likely will say no, but after the roads are built, they can come in and they can do some speed bumps or something that might work for traffic calming inside the neighborhood. And again, just to touch on the added density and amenities, um, in addition to helping concentrate growth here, um, approving the added density provides a neighborhood, um, with the noted amenities we discussed a minute ago. If this were to develop as already approved 67 lots, there would be no added amenities or 36% open space. The entitled 67 lots are just that, lots and There's no open space, no planned amenities. By improving by approving the increase in density, we have the ability to provide amenities that would otherwise not be

077provided. And we are proposing the pool, clubhouse, and totes I mentioned. But we're also open to suggestions of other additional amenities or alternate amenities if you all feel like a pool and clubhouse might not be appropriate because there could be other amenities that might make more sense here. So, we're sort of open to feedback from the board on that as well. So, if you don't want to do pool and clubhouse and you'd rather have something else, we're open to that suggestion as well. And that is it for my presentation. Again, we'd love your thoughts on amenity alternates if you'd rather not see a pool in clubhouse and then the connection to 75 if that's something the board desires or would rather remove. Um, and we are here for questions. >> Okay. Board, do you have

078any questions? >> No. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> We did have a few people um sign up to speak on this one. Let me make sure I have this right. Um the first one I believe is Rita Tigley. Rita. Okay. She must have left. Okay. And then we have um Vance Harvey. Okay. Hello everyone. Um I'm Vance Harvey, Union County resident, and uh I really didn't do my homework on this. This is my very first time at one of these meetings. I actually border this property to the east and a little bit to the northeast, the north as well. And first of all, you know, it's a wonderful thing to build up the area, bring more people in. So, I do like the idea of having this um this development right next

079to us. Not so sure I want it to be increased to 91 homes. Adding density is not something that we were looking at when we first bought the property next to us. Other than that, attach attaching this property with that that street to go to 75. I feel like that's a great idea. That'll definitely um lower the congestion of traffic that goes up the first road, the main road of Old Wax Monroe Road. My concerns with this property being here could say they're somewhat selfish. My main concerns with this property being here is because of the way the land slopes. I'm very concerned about drainage. We get a ton of rain in this area, tons of it. I'm constantly talking to other landscapers and trying to find ways that I can channel the water to

080the the pond that's on my property. So, I'm very concerned about the drainage that would happen during the construction phase and just overall once the project is done and it is just completely paved over with concrete and asphalt and the water has nowhere to go but down the slope to the east to my property. There's a small stream hidden in that tree line. It would be completely overfilled, overran, and I I don't even know what else happen is going to happen to it if more water goes in that route. I'm also concerned about pollution during the construction phase, possibly after, because myself and my neighbors behind us, we all have wellwater. We don't we do not have access to these sewer lines that are going to be um in this development. Another thing that I'm

081also worried about since we bordered this property directly to the east, I urge the developers to put up a fence. I've just just hearing what the other people were talking about with the um dogs roaming the neighborhoods and stuff. I we do um experience that. So I would definitely be concerned and want a fence to be put up to the east and the northeast as well. In that tree line is a very sharp slope. If children or pets get into that tree line and they're not familiar with it, they can fall down those that slope and injure themselves. So having a fence there would hopefully prevent that. Pretty much that's all I have to say. Like I said, I really did not know this was all happening until recently. >> Thank you for being here.

082>> Thank you much. >> The next speaker is kind of Harvey. >> He spoke for me. >> Okay. Good. Okay. Thank you both for being here. Okay. Are there any additional speakers who did not get a chance to sign up who wish to speak in this public hearing? >> Did you I was just going to say could I have a chance to just respond to some of those items that he mentioned? >> No. Um, we don't normally do that. So, we're we're in a public hearing right now, not not really a Q&A. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Okay. So, were were there any additional speakers who did not get a chance um to speak on this um Shannondoa project? Um if we have two if you want to come forward um just um state your

083name, address and we'll give you three minutes each quickly. >> Thank you for allowing me to speak again. Um Glendel Leo Jackson portion of unincorporated Union County. Uh, I want to first say I have nothing against either one of you. You're doing your job. I get that. I've I go to Waxaw, the town of Waxaw border commissioners commissioners meetings often and I get up and talk often because my daughter, son-in-law, my two grandkids live there and I'm trying to protect them. I'm from New Jersey. I've seen this happen in New Jersey. Um the density the increased density this is a minimal example the increased density increases property taxes as the service the demand for service increases it's an easy solution um it's an easy equation actually I should say um more police are needed more

084fire equipment more schools more administrators this is an ongoing problem with Union County there is loads of undeveled help farms. The farmers want to sell. They want to maximize their profits. I get that. I've seen developers and the marketing firms for developers come up before Waxaw Board of Commissioners time and time again. They do their marketing act. We're going to include buffers. We're going to include improvements, amenities. That's to sell it. That's to sell it. We, the residents, are relying on you. You're our voice. There's got to be a limit there. That's why everything is zoning. You got to increase the zoning. In New Jersey, they had 1acre zoning. They built Interstate 78. It increased from dairy farms to bedroom communities by the thousands. It was overwhelming. The property taxes tripled in 10 years. The

085people of the towns got smart. They increased the zoning from 1 acre to five and seven. The builders can't complain once the zoning's on the books. Um, that's important. I know we'll never see that here, but we cannot we cannot upzone. We have to keep what we have and if anything down zone to keep the integrity of this county before property taxes go out of sight and you you can't move in Waxville. I take Province Road every day. It's a standstill. The only reprieve you get two months during the summer when school's out. It's a nightmare there. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. I believe the gentleman in the back, did you still want to speak or did you change your mind? >> I think you may have been pointing to make sure

086you saw heavy. >> Oh, okay. It looked like you were raising your hand. Okay. Good evening. My name is Elizabeth Green and um we own the property that backs up to the Harveys and um I would like to say that we're in support of this provided that there's fencing. Um as he re alluded, there is a deep incline um or decline that could be dangerous. So that would be something I want to be considered um unless there's future development and that changes. Um but in general I can say that my family and it has been in our family for that our property for c probably well over a century and it is our family's home place. So we are in support of this and we wanted to make sure that the board was aware of

087that. Thank you. I will now close the public hearing. Next on the agenda is item 25-449. Public communications department earns state, national, and international awards. I'd like to recognize Liz Cooper, our public communications director. Con concerning this exciting news. Good evening, Chair Merrill, Vice Chair Helms, Commissioners, County Manager Matthews, management team. Uh, thank you for taking a moment to recognize the public communications team. I'll invite my team members here to come and join me. We're missing two team members tonight, but um, I'd like to briefly introduce you to the ones who are with us. Uh, assistant director Megan Hingle, senior communication specialist Nicole Horesk and Eric Madden. Jordan is coming from the back room, multimedia production specialist. And Ailen, our administrative, the wizard. >> Yes. the the fix it all. And there is some sort

088of glitch that he's going to work on tomorrow with this. Um, as most of you know, public communications develops and manages communication and marketing efforts on behalf of Union County government as a whole and supports all 35 county departments to ensure that we are providing strategic, timely, critical information to support our department services and programs. I'm excited to share that with a span of just two and a half months this year, our team earned seven prestigious awards at the state, national, and international levels, two communicator awards, two national association of counties achievement awards, and three excellence and communication awards from the North Carolina city county communicators. The projects recognized are all outlined in your agenda, so I won't go through all of them. Um, but what I think is important to share is that these

089projects demonstrate the range of skills and the depth of expertise in communicating creative, strategic, and impactful ways from a comprehensive lead prevention campaign in partnership with environmental health to the launch of the Union County water website, the commemorative video for the Charters of Freedom dedication event, a Union County at a glance infographic showcasing key county information, and more. These awards are a reflection of our collaboration with county departments and the trust you place in us to share Union County's story. So on behalf of the team, I want to thank you for your continued support of our team and recognizing the importance of strategic communication not just to all county residents but um to help us connect better with our employees. So thank you for this opportunity to be recognized. [Applause] Oh, she's clicking >> and

090Adrian can about this time of the picture. >> You guys might need more hands. >> I know, right? >> Drop it. [Applause] Thank you. I just want to say, Liz, you do such a good job. This is I'm >> very very proud of you guys getting getting this recognition. Good work. Next on the agenda is item 25-494, information technology earns national top 10 ranking and achievement award. I want to recognize John Ailio, information technology director concerning this item. >> Good evening everybody. Commissioner Merrill, Vice Chair or Chair Merrill, Vice Chair Helms, rest of the board, county management. Thank you. I'd like my team to the IT department to go ahead and stand up. That's here. Fortunately, we don't have everybody here because we'd be announcing names for a while, but I would like to introduce

091you to my team that did make it. Brent Hardis, project manager. Uh, Elizabeth Trevino, she is our business manager. That's Chance Kelly that just snuck in there. He's our cyber security analyst. And of course, my assistant director, Christopher Leaf, and and Sally Fu Mamar who is our GIS analyst. So, we have somebody from each one of our teams uh represented and and they do a wonderful job and helped us get this award. So during the recent uh National Association of Counties uh annual conference this past July, Union County IT was recognized um for being ranked seventh nationally in the 250,000 to 500,000 population category. The award developed in partnership with no and conducted by the center for digital uh government and the government technology magazine identifies technology practices top technology practices among US counties including

092initiatives to streamline delivery of government services uh encourage collaboration enhance cyber security and apply innovative and emerging technology to county priorities. this year. This award is uh especially meaningful because it's the seventh time that we've been ranked in the top 10 um in the last uh seven years actually seven years consecutively. But what's more impressive this year is the fact that we've moved up because of our I guess our growth of our county. We've moved up to the next division, the next level. So we're kind of playing with with competing against larger counties and we still we came in the seventh position which is amazing. And the and the best thing about that is um we ended up we are the lowest p we we are the lowest populated uh county or IT team um

093in our category. So that's even more prestigious for us. Um another another award this year we got was u the information the IT department was also recognized for an achievement award and this award was given to us by the uh again by no and our department's implementation and it was for the implementation of office 365 that we migrated to the cloud um and we received the 2025 achievement award in the technology category so we've got two things as much as Liz which was great for her department she she had her whole bag of things we've got two. So, but anyway, I'd like to thank my team. Um, this is a big honor to be ranked nationally. So, thanks everybody. And we've got our certificates up here or awards. [Applause] Congratulations. [Applause] Thanks. The next item

094for consideration of the agenda is for the agenda and consent agenda. Are there any motions regarding request requested revisions or amendments to either the consent or business agenda? >> Madam Chair, >> yes. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um I've got two revisions to the business agenda. Um we can I guess vote on these separately. Uh the first revision is I would like to table item 25-501 and that is appointments to boards and committees to um our next regular meeting. >> Okay, >> hang on. Hang on. Hang on. >> 25501 table that. Thank you. You want to vote on these separately or >> your choice. >> Okay. All those in favor of um tableabling 25-501 um say I. >> I. Okay. And madam chair, my second revision is I would like to move item 25-523 and

095that is the FY22 shortwater line extension program phase B project completion item to our first item on business tonight. Give me that number one more time. >> It is 25-523. >> Got it. We're going to make that first. Okay. All those in favor of that motion to move that um up first say I. >> I. >> Okay. Okay. So that still leaves um approving the consent agenda as amended. >> Madam Chair, I'll make the motion that we approve the consent agenda as published. >> As amended. >> I'm I'm sorry. >> Well, the consent agenda would remain the same, right? So the consent agenda would be as published and then the business agenda as amended. >> Okay. >> But we've already voted on those two items. So Mr. K, do we need a separate motion on

096business? >> You do not. You can just take up the consent agenda at this point. >> Okay. All those in favor of the consent agenda say I. >> I. >> Very good. That will bring us to business. Okay, let's get that number back up. Too many pages. Where's the >> It's hard to find, isn't it? >> There we go. Are you ready? All right. Very good. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So, board, this is a a carryover an item that you discussed previously. It's related to our short waterline program. Uh there were some concerns that were raised previously about the amount of funding available to finish the short water line programs for FY22 and 23. Also there were some easement issues with some of the projects. Um what you are have in front of

097you today is the consideration of moving the east lawyers project which was part of phase B uh and make it a separate project by itself. basically be disconnecting it from I believe it was the um Mullis Road project. Um and and that project has some challenges number one with funding as well as with some easement concerns. Uh this project there is enough funding based on our estimates to be able to cover this East Lawyers project. Um I I do recognize there are a lot of folks out there who anxious to get public water. We'd love to get it to them as quickly as possible. I am going to say this is still going to take some time for construction to be done because we have to bid it. We have to then start construction. It

098may still take another 18 months or 24 months to actually get this in the ground. So, I don't want anyone to think that by approving this within a few months they're going to have water. It's still going to take a good deal of time for this to be put in and become active. However, uh we would like to move forward to asking the board's permission to segregate this, allow it to be by itself, and then we will go out to bid and uh and start the construction on this project. I'll answer any questions you may have. >> Um ju just a quick question, Brian. So um so so again just to be clear uh what we would be doing is we would be removing this item essentially from any connection to other phase B projects

099and the east lawyers leg would be a completely separate project. >> It would be a separately bid project. Yes sir. >> Okay. So um so first of all sorry to change things up on you um at the last minute there but um but hey this worked out well because Lee gets a break. So >> she does. >> So So if if we my question is if we wanted to move forward um you know with the East Lawyers project, what kind of direction would you need from us tonight? >> I I actually just need that direction that that we would approve this project as a separate project and to be included in the FY22 program. >> You got it. >> I got it. Um unless there's any other questions, I I'll go ahead and make the

100motion then that we move forward with that. uh that we approve this as a separate project and move forward with the East Lawyers um short waterline extension. >> Very good. >> And I just want to clarify that it will be completely separated um from the Morgan Mill >> project that would be completely removed. I want that very clear that Morgan Mill was taken off. >> Correct. >> Okay. Any other comments, questions? All those in favor of the motion say I. >> I. >> All right. Okay. >> Thank you very much. >> Now we get to go back. Okay. So we are now at um the business agenda item 25484 reszoning petition for 2024 CZ0 for rivers. I will recognize Lee Jensen and bring him back to the podium our planning director concerning this item. >>

101Thank you mad. >> Small break. >> Thank you madam chair. I appreciate it. Um, this is reszoning 2024 CZ 0104 Rivers. You had the public hearing at the last meeting in July. Um, it's two parcels about 4 and a half acres. Um, reszoning from R20 to B4 with conditions. Just to kind of quickly recap, um, the conditions would be limited to the site plan dated April 16th, 2025. uses would be limited to a type one storage indoor storage, climate control type facility up to 80,375 ft. Um land on the west side of Allen Black is not part of that resoning. We just wanted to make that clear in the conditions. Uh the two parcels that are the subject of the reszoning would be combined. They would have five five-year vesting and the development would meet

102all the requirements of the Union County development ordinance. So, this is on the corner of Lawyers and Allen Black, if you're familiar with that intersection. Um, it's not too far away from the interchange at 485. Um, land use board uh recommended approval of this resoning. Staff recommended approval. Um, believe you did get I don't think anybody spoke at at the public hearing uh for or against the resoning. You you did um receive uh some comments through staff from the town of Stallings. U they opposed the resoning, didn't think it was the right fit for the area. Um they and they wanted any future land use decisions to be directed to to them for an an annexation. I'll be happy to answer any questions. >> I have to agree agree with the town of Stallings. I'm

103just going to put it out there. I I know where this this land is and it it's um right off the intersection. There's a lot of residential um homes right in this area and I I just don't personally see that this is a good fit for that land to have storage units um so visible with 55 and older neighborhoods and um established neighborhoods that have been at that intersection for so long that that would be the first thing you see coming off of 485. So, I I'm a little shocked that the land use board um would approve this, but um you know, those are my comments. I'll open it up to the other board members. >> Ju just a I'm sorry, uh Madam Chair. >> Ju just a brief comment. Um you know, as we've

104looked at this, you know, I've got concerns too about the proximity there to 485. Um, you know, there's I think that that uh could be problematic uh with access to 485 and and traffic there. Um, so I I I'll have to agree with Chair Merrill's comments as well. >> Any other questions or comments for anyone? Lee, I >> I forgot to mention I I know this is not a public hearing, but if you have questions for the applicant, they are here. >> Okay. Does anyone have any questions for the applicant? >> No. Okay. Well, I am going to make a motion to deny the proposed amendment um denying reszoning petition uh CZ 2024 010 and adopt the consistency and reasonleness statement for denial. All those in favor of the motion say I. >> I. All

105those against. Okay. I couldn't really see down there. Okay. So, it's 50. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. You got something? >> Okay. Thank you sir. >> Our next agenda item is 25-485 reszoning position um petition 2025 CZ00003 TKC land. I will again recognize Lee Jensen >> planning director concerning this item. >> Lee, you can be continuously recognized for the next four items if you like. Um again this is reszoning 2025 C CZ 00003 TKZ land reszoning just to recap as a request to reszone about 4.2 acres of land from RA40 to B4 with conditions uh those conditions would include uh be limited to the site plan dated April 25th this year. Uses would be limited to retail sales up to 12,668 square ft. the owner would construct improvements uh to US 601 as required

106by DOT through that review process. Uh they would get fiveyear they they're asking for five-year development right vesting and that the development would meet our requirements of the Union County um development ordinance. the uh the um land use board uh gave a positive recommendation on this at their last meeting in July and staff re has recommended approval as well. Um I'll be happy to answer any questions. I am actually not Okay, there we go. So, the applicant is here in case you have any questions of them as well. >> Yes, this was the Dollar General on 601. Yes, ma'am. South. >> Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. And >> I just wanted to make sure I was clear that I was remembering the right one. >> That's That's the right one. And I believe one person did

107speak at the public hearing, but and I think they spoke in favor. >> Any other questions? >> Hands. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, so my my question is about the the DOT improvements. Um, do we have any idea about what that may look like at this point? >> Hey, my name is Taran. I'm with TKC Land Development. Um, so we are going to include or expand the median. that's in the middle and then we have shifted our driveway to where they've wanted it. Um we don't have additional details but we have been working with Amelia with NC dot. >> Is there any requirement for like a deceleration lane then or >> not on that? Um because we moved our driveway we don't have to extend the del onto. So there is something that would

108exist currently that would provide the my my concern and listen I don't think this is a bad idea at all but my concern is is that >> you got 601 south and that's a very busy highway >> and um and the last thing that we want to do is create a dangerous situation or situation for anybody traveling there trying to gain entrance into what may be a great you know retail business for us. So, so that's my concern and I want to make sure that that that you as well as NC DOT is taking that into consideration. >> Absolutely. So, you do have to go up further to make a U-turn in. It is right in right out only. Um, we are definitely uh here for the safety of everybody. So, >> and we will

109comply. >> Thank you for >> Madam Chair. >> Yes. Um, unless there's other questions from board members, um, I'll make the motion to approved or to approve the proposed amendment. Um, so it would be I'll make the motion to adopt the ordinance approving a revision to the official zoning map of Union County, North Carolina, and two, adopt a consistency and reasonable statement for approval. >> Okay. All those in favor of the motion say I. I. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay, the next item of business is item 25-373, request for feedback NC do project at NC75 and Fletcher Broom and New Town Roads intersections. I will again recognize planning director Legence. So, this was a request from NC DOT that um they get some feedback from the board about a couple of projects that are related

110to each other along um highway 75. Um one is a closing of the um crossing at Fletcher Broom and the railroad in order to take make use of some funds to help improve uh the intersection of New Town and Highway 75. Um, a lot of that kind of came about because of a development um in in Monroe and and and some conditions. Um, and honestly that's the extent of my presentation on this, but we have some representatives from DOT here who have um short presentation to give you and they can probably answer most of your questions better than I could. So recognize the folks from DOT. All right. >> All right. >> Good evening, county commissioners. Uh, my name is Felix Obergon. I'm the division 10 engineer. I think you guys may have met um

111Brett Knight. Um, so I'm the new Brett Kite. Brett uh was promoted to Western chief engineer. And I'm also here with um >> Brian Ger with NC DOT's rail division. >> Yep. So, as it was mentioned a little bit earlier ago, um we do have a project that's uh we're proposing on doing a railroad closure and realigning uh New Town Road. Um it came about from an existing issue that we found and in and then in addition with the development that came in, um we felt it was a good opportunity to take advantage and get up front of development that's happening in the area. So, that's part of the reason that we've got the project and that's what we we'll be talking about today. And also part of the reason that we're here is we

112had our public meeting uh for this particular project and we had some concerns from residents. So, we wanted to present to y'all uh what we're proposing and answer any questions that you have and really what's at the table is we're trying to get um I guess some um some feedback from y'all on this. So, I'll get started and then I'm going to pass it to Brian talk a little bit more about the project. So some project background um as mentioned we identified uh the opportunity to improve safety at the intersection of um Fletcher Broom and NC75. Um there were some safety issues that we have found there. Um and then we also recognized or that the development um was going to provide some improvements at this particular intersection and based on what they were proposing

113and based on the history of this particular intersection in the new town road which has a skewed angle at NC55 uh NC75 I'm sorry. Um, we thought it was a good opportunity to look at it more holistically, take a step back and see what would make the best sense to be able to provide uh better improvements for for this uh part of the county. Um so what we're proposing is to close uh Fletcher Broom at NC75 and then what we would do is we would realign New Town Road at NC75 and that and on some sub subsequent slides we've got a graphic that shows that a little bit more about about the project background. U NC75 and Pletch Fletcher Broom Road um was converted from a two-way stop to an all-way stop in in 2024.

114Um, we also actually installed a right turn lane on uh NC75 onto Fletcher Road uh in um 2017. Um and then just some additional background on uh the development actually finalized their traffic impact analysis in 2021. So that's when um we started trying to coordinate what would be the best uh situation uh and to be able to address the the concerns in of the area. And again the the purpose any of our project is to improve safety at NC75 and Fletcher Road as well as NC75 and New Town Road. Here's a little bit of a timeline of what we've done with uh what has happened with the uh development itself. Um since it started in 2020 um that's when the phase one of the development happened. and it was approved um then in 2021 the

115phase 2 phase three was approved um in 2022 and then that's when um the phase three of the development was approved and then again in 2024 is when we converted the NC75 intersection on Fletcher Road into a hallway stop just the fact that there were some um crash there was a crash history and we were trying to improve that um there were some sub subsequent um modifications to the development itself And then what we did here in earlier this year, we had the public meeting for um our project of again closing the Fletcher Broom at NC75 and uh realigning NC75 at U Newtown Road. Just a little bit more information here about uh some of the traffic that's existing out there. Um it is growing as it was mentioned earlier. There's several developments that are

116happening along this particular corridor. So we want to take advantage to u get ahead of that and provide some relief uh for this particular corridor. So there there's a lot of numbers here. The big key takeaways I would say is for NC75 and Fletcher Broom. Um we did convert again that intersection from a two-way stop to a four-way stop to help out u a crash situation. Um and even so after we've done that, there still have been some crashes on um this particular intersection. And then for just some reference, we do we did include the NC75 and New Town Road uh crash data. Um it has had some uh crashes in the past uh but not to a greater extent. So that's why we thought that that would be a better option for a for

117signal and realignment. All right, I'm gonna pass it on to Brian to talk a little bit about what we heard uh during the public hearing. >> Good evening, commissioners. Um as you can see on this the attached slide here, um the tigraph or the chart to the to the right shows the breakdown of the public meeting comments that we received both in person and uh through our uh public input site that we have for this particular project. As you can see, 39% was in opposition, 42 was in neutral, and then 19% was in direct support. And then the left is kind of a breakdown of what we kind of put those comments into various categories. And that's what that breakdown is. So you can see the different types of of areas that we were looking

118at or got the feedback and kind of categorized those into different areas. All right. So, the alignment study or the alignments that we looked at um that we took to the public, there was multiple ones that we looked at. Um we l we did look at trying to take New Town Road out to um NC200 that did not work out. There was um conflicts with the Duke transmission line and then with the existing geometrics of NC200 at that location with the bridge going over CSX and NC75. So with that, we decided to um look at taking New Town Road and making it perpendicular with the railroad and tying perpendicular with NC75 and the adjacent development on the south side. Um that way it takes that offset intersection and makes it a four-way intersection, which is

119much safer than having these offset intersection with these different left turn lanes and whatnot. And so New Town Road right now is um at the time was a design speed of 55. I think it's now down to 45. Um so what we have come through with this is right now we're having a design speed of 30 mph coming into the railroad crossing and then tying in perpendicular with a stop condition at NC75. So there would not be a light at this location that does currently does not meet the warrants for a light. So it would be a four-way stop sign at this location. Okay. What that does is currently the existing aggreate crossing is at a a skew right now and with that it's provides sight distance issues um with the railroad crossing itself and

120with all this development happening in the area we felt like this was an opportunity to fix that situation. Um, perpendicular crossings are much better when it comes to interacting with the railroad so that you have a bit better line of sight looking down the railroad crossing either way in an instance of a malfunction or power outers or whatnot, you know. So, just because it has protection license gates doesn't mean that there's there could be instances where something could happen, right? You know, you never know what powers are or what not. So, you want to have that clean line of sight. A perpendicular crossing does provide for that. Um, we tried to stay off the mobile homes that you see on the north side of the railroad crossing because that was going to be a significant

121impact to those. Um, we end up choosing to go through the Helm's property at that location. Um, and not impacting the home, but at least impacting a portion of the property. And so that was one thing that we try to minimize as much as we can. And as it goes further down the line, we could minimize this further if we choose to, you know, depending on what kind of design speeds we feel is acceptable, you know, coming into um NC75. And I said Helms, I'm sorry, Nash property. Sorry. Um so again, this kind of blows that up and kind of makes it look like what the proposed rideway would look like on her property. Um as you can see where the 35 is, that's about where the home is at currently. Um, so we would

122be I think we'd be impacting her well and we'd have to provide a new location for that. I'm unsure of like septic that has not been looked at at this at this time. That's something that would be done um further into plan development if this project were to move forward. One other aspect of it is that there would still be driveway access um to the uh towing company that is on um New Town Road currently at NC75. and that would be basically cut off with a a driveway access. We did have conversation with that property owner um and we can definitely look at different alternatives how we tie into that. But this is what we came up with when we took it to the public meeting and solicited impact or feedback from them. As you

123can tell or as you can see, we're also adding turn lanes to make this a better functioning intersection going forward. Um this is basically below map of the um public hearing map that we took to the public uh project schedule. At this point um we did go to the public in in April. We collected the feedback. Um at this point we're looking for y'all's feedback. We've got St. Monro's feedback and upon that we would then proceed on with this project. We do have funding available for it. So if we can fund this project, it's not something that is subject to STI uh prioritization. Uh we have safety funds that we can use to progress this project forward. So that is completely outside of the STI process. It still would be in the STIP. So you

124would see it from that aspect, but it does not pull um from any other funding sources um related to STI. Right now, we would think that if we were to move forward, rideway would start sometime next year in spring of 26 with construction starting sometime in se summer of 28. Um, as you can see, we have preliminary costs associated with this rightway is at $400,000 and construction is at 4.5 million. And that is our mission statement. So, right now we'll open up to questions for y'all. Commissioner SS, >> if you are successful in starting summer of 28, when would you estimate completion of the project? >> It would take about a year to complete. >> Only a year. Wow. Less than a year actually. It's a pretty simple project. >> Good. Yeah. Thank you. >>

125Thank you. >> And the closure would not happen until the new town road is done. So we would not close out a crossing until we were That's >> the last thing you do. >> Yes. Yes. Yeah. >> One thing I just want to mention is um it was on the slide, but I didn't mention that. So, there's no uh we're not asking for any funds from the county for this part particular project. It's all DOT funds that we would utilize. >> Commissioner HS. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um so, I I was at that community meeting you a few months ago. Um Brett was there as well and um well so it was about 50 you know angry uh county residents um about this particular project and I've got a couple of questions and I've

126got some comments that I'll make about it. Um, first of all, I'd like to hear from from Lee as to whether or not the county was contacted by the city of Monroe asking for input um on those developments and any kind of traffic uh mitigation plan. >> I believe that's the Waxaw Landing project that's across the street. Um to my knowledge, we were not contacted, we're not looped in on the TIA for that. >> Okay. Thank you, sir. But we it is practice I guess for for us to contact adjacent municipalities if we have something like this that comes up. Correct. >> Yes sir. We do that. >> Thank you Lee. Okay. So, um, so if you could maybe go back to slide number two on your presentation because this was something that came up

127in the community meeting and, um, I I think Brett sort of ran into a buzzsaw at this meeting. Um, because I I I posed a question to Brett and I said I said, Brett, I said, "Do you understand what's going to happen should you close this this railroad crossing here?" And he said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Do you know do you know whose property that is?" He said, "I have no idea." So, I'm going to ask you guys, do you know who do you know whose property this is? >> Yeah, we're aware it's a farmer. >> Correct. That's that's Mr. Frank How's >> property. And so, if you effectively close this railroad crossing, then this road would still maintain or would still be statemaintained. Correct. >> It could be it could be reverted

128to the property owner if he chooses to. >> If if he chooses to. >> I think we would solicit that. Correct. >> But he doesn't have to agree. Well, to Yes. So, we would we would if he inquires about us abandoning the road, then we would go through that process. >> Yeah. >> If So, so effectively what we're what we're doing here is we're going to shut down this railroad crossing in favor of a better railroad crossing to facilitate Waxaw Landing. Well, so we have found as I mentioned in the the stats, we did convert that into a a always stop and it has helped out with the uh with crash the crash history there. Um there's still some additional crash his or crashes that are happening. So part of that is we felt that

129this was a good opportunity to provide a again a more perpendicular intersection and provide additional improvements at at the other location at New Town. You know, this was something that came up in the community meeting as well about the number of crashes at this intersection. And I asked a question. I said, "Well, how many crashes have occurred since an all-way stop was was created there?" >> Yeah, that's what we've got. >> And the answer that I got at the community meeting was zero. I got zero. >> I don't call it being said. I think we said we were going to look into it. >> We would that was something we would come back to and and give that information because we didn't have it at the time. Something else I'd like to point out is

130on slide six. If you can turn to that slide six, uh you got a bullet here that fatal crash is an error in coding. How does something like that occur? You know, in a presentation that we're looking at where we've got a number of fatal crashes and we just put a bullet up there that fatal crash is an error. So, you're telling me that there was no fatal crash here? >> One of those one of those fatal crashes was not actually happened. So somehow it it was an error whenever that was coded in there, but as we were providing all the information, we did want to point that out. >> Okay. Thank you. So, um, a couple of comments I'll make is is that, you know, I cannot support this project. I travel through this

131intersection pretty frequently. Um, I sat there and I watched the community and and their concerns, um, you know, as they addressed them. And a couple things I want to point out is is if you close down that railroad crossing, what will result is you're going to give essentially a private statemaintained driveway, you know, to one of the largest farmers that we have in the county. Now, I have no problem, you know, with farmers or any kind of operation Mr. Howy does. However, I do have a problem with having a statemaintained driveway where essentially the only purpose that would serve was, you know, for access to that property. >> So, can you can we go back to that? slide the big one where it shows. So the I had a Fletcher room where we're going to

132close it. So >> Oh yeah. So can you zoom in on that one? >> Zoom. So we're going to remove that crossing. Sorry. So I think there there might be some confusion on how I how the question was answered. That's going to go away. Correct. Yes. So the crossing itself will go away. that will not be there. So the zoom zoom in a little more. Wait, I can't. So if you can see the cursor, this hatched out gray area, that is all going away. So it there will not be a crossing right here. So you won't be able to have access from existing Fletcher Road down to NC75. >> Correct. >> Traffic would have to go. So it wouldn't be a driveway. I guess there was a comment made earlier that there would be a

133private driveway for >> but from New Town Road it would be because the only business the only purpose that traffic would have if you did this would be to facilitate uh entrance and exit out of Monroe uh out of the the farms here out of that property. So if you shut that down you only have one road of or one means of of direction coming in from New Town and then you're going to sit there and you're going to go right down over here to Howie Farms. that will be statemaintained with state tax dollars. Correct. >> Yes. So this portion will be statemaintained. That's correct. >> Thank you. >> So it will but it will have access well it will have provide access to both sides of that of that of the properties. >> The

134other thing that I've got a problem with is the property acquisition. So if you can go to that slide there that shows the overview of the project. Okay. And if you zoom in over here, so I had the opportunity to meet uh Mary Nash at the community meeting >> and she expressed a lot of concern, a lot of concern about um you know, prior uh condemnation that's occurred there with her property. >> Yeah. She's referring to the 200 great separation that's constructed over here. Yeah. >> And I'm going by memory here, but I think she told me that she's been through this process twice already. And so >> I think it was twice. I think it's twice. Yes. >> Yeah. I talked to her, too. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> So, so again, I think

135that what we're dealing with is a fundamental disagreement about, you know, how this thing should be done. Uh, first of all, I'm not going to trade a Mary Nash and her property for, you know, future development here that Monroe wants to annex and develop. I'm not going to vote to do that. Um, I I'm also not going to vote to support having a statemaintained driveway for, you know, farming business. I don't think that's fair to the rest of the residents and and uh taxpayers of Union County or the state for that matter. And so I'm going to be um you know fundamentally opposed, you know, to this. And I'll go ahead and make the motion now that we um that we approve the resolution expressing opposition to the proposed project. [Music] Do any other um

136board members have any questions or comments? >> U I have a I guess comment or question of Commissioner Helms. Is there any revisions to this project as uh it's currently proposed that would uh persuade you to support it? any any changes that you feel would would justify your support on this >> through the chair. >> Um, commissioner sides. No. >> Okay. >> Anyone else? >> No. Okay. So, we have a motion on the floor. All those in favor of the motion say I. >> I. >> All those opposed. I think that was unanimous. Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. Okay. Next on the agenda is 25-519 NC28 and Love Mill roundabout project. I want to recognize planning director Lee Jensen concerning this project. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, again, we have some folks here from DOT

137that could provide some further background, but I don't have a presentation for this item. Um, I don't believe DOT does either. Um, I have a little bit of information. Um, it's in the on the agenda packet. Um, we got this from DOT. Total cost of the project was about $2.8 million. Um they've recently begun rightaway acquisition and construction scheduled for the summer of 20 uh 2007 take 8 to 10 weeks to complete. Um spent aboutundred almost $110,000 108 on design or rightaway expenses so far. Um the project was submitted as DOT as a safety project. Um received additional funds from CARPO. Um there are no Union County funds have been requested or associated with the project. It's not a critical intersection project either. Um the allway stop was installed as an interim measure since the

138roundabout was in the works. Uh traffic volumes u from DOT standpoint show that the intersection is approaching the operational limits for the allway stop and will not function in the future with growth in traffic volume and so they have recommended a roundabout for that um intersection. And I believe Felix would you can you answer questions about it? If you have any questions for DOT fields can build those as well. >> Commissioner Balkam, >> since it's been turned to a four-way stop intersection, do you have the data for the crash history? >> So, I didn't bring that with me, but I can provide that as a followup to you. >> Okay. One one more. Are the rumble strips at that intersection now? I don't I don't think there are any rumble strips up there right now.

139No. >> Okay. >> There's the rumble strip in the center of 218 going all the way down. >> Okay. >> Yes. But not on >> not not going up to the stop sign, but to cross over the yellow line. There's one. >> Yes. >> Um as somebody who lives in this area, um I'm going to go ahead and tell you that I do not support the roundabout in this area. uh simply because many farmers use um a processor just over the county line and it does take considerable amount of time to go around that and at the point of construction. That's when a lot of farmers tend to uh go that route. Um Mr. Alexander was here tonight in opposition of of this project. Um he goes through that intersection multiple times a day. um

140and it would kill his family business. And so um that's very very concerning for me. Um also um as a farmer's wife um and near the uh 20218 roundabout, let me go ahead and just voice my opinion. That roundabout is atrocious. It is absolutely atrocious. Um, when you have 53 to 55 feet that you're trying to get a roundabout with a tractor trailer, it's virtually impossible not to hit the concrete. >> Um, so the four-way stop does work for that community. So, um, I would like to make a motion that we oppose the 218 Love Mill roundabout. >> Okay. Are there any other questions or comments? Commissioner, >> could I ask is there a a flashing red light at that four four-way stop? I'm trying to >> I don't remember if there is. >> Is

141that an alternative? Just add another layer of safety. Put a flashing red light >> coming up to a fourway stop road saying there's a a stop sign. >> Yeah, there there's a four-way stop. And I'm just wondering >> So, as far as we could potentially put some uh some lights out, some red lights out there. However, the the the I guess the the need and purpose of the project is to provide additional right now as a new room, we had to put a a waist stop to help out. However, the the long-term goal for this particular intersection was to provide additional capacity because it's almost getting to the the level of service that is inadequate. So, there's queuing out there right now in the morning and the afternoon. So part of this the always stop

142was an interim to the future of a roundabout. >> Well, to Ms. Helm's point with big trucks going through there, you put a roundabout in there, you're going to be fixing it every year because it'll get tore up because somebody goes straight through straight over and your pretty little roundabout is going to be turned into a concrete mish mash. Well, it's the matter of fact that it's there and it's so hard for tractor trailers that drive through that area and 218 and 200 is a a figure eight if you will >> um the outer portions of it and it is virtually impossible for a tractor trailer to go through that. Um there's many roundabouts in the area. There's one on Lawyers Road at Emerald Lake that is so tiny >> and where it just keep

143invading people's property and it's just gotten to an extreme. Many people have commented that Union County is the roundabout capital of North Carolina and it really seems like at every intersection we've got a roundabout and it's not necessarily needed. I understand that 218 is a very highly traveled area, especially with tractor trailers, but you know, the the people in this community have reached out to me multiple times in concern of this project. Um, not only for the local farmers, but just in general. Um, when school starts back up, >> um, the there's no cutthrough areas. There's no cut through roads for EMS, fire, anything of that nature. and there's not a fire department on that side, it would be detrimental even if it's just a couple of months. >> So I what I would tell

144you is so as far as the design and how it functions, we can certainly uh there's ways where we can try to address some of the design functions that may I'm not aware I'm not aware of the other concerns that you were mentioning on the other roundabouts. However, that certain some that that is certain good information and feedback where I can we can take back and and be able to design this particular roundabout in such a way that it doesn't prohibit trucks. Uh roundabouts are used nationally. Uh we use them all the time and they can be designed in a way in such a format and way that large truck to trailers uh are able to maneuver in a in a efficient and safe manner. >> I would have to call your bluff on that.

145Um, >> we can go look at it. >> And I'm using great restraint right now. I live in Emerald Lake and we begged the DOT not to put a roundabout in front of our neighborhood. I even sit on that board and express the community's um plea to please don't put a roundabout in front of Emerald Lake and Countrywoods East. And so they put a smaller than usual a small small small roundabout in front of these neighborhoods in near Steven's Mill. And then the very next committee meeting I went to, the DOT said they they were going to press forward. They were going to do this roundabout and they didn't care about the community. And so I I hear Commissioner Helms and I think about the position I was in a year ago. The DOT did

146not give one ounce what I had to say, what I shared from the community and they put that roundabout in and it's too small. And then they were overbudget and wanted to cut other projects when this one went over budget and we didn't even want it. We're like, "Have your $4 million. We don't want a roundabout." And then when it was too small and then school buses were having trouble getting around it with all these neighborhoods with Buckingham, Emerald Lake, Countrywoods East, Stevens Mill, um and and then tractor trailers couldn't get around. They said, "Well," they said, "Well, the um bigger vehicles will just drive through the middle." They >> sure do. and and I said, "Then we don't need a roundabout." But they move forward with it anyway. So, I am I am in

147support of Commissioner Helms tonight. um the the DOT and I'm sorry you're gonna have you're getting the brunt of this but um my experience with um the DOT and these roundabouts um they do not care about the residents and the people that sit on these committees and um I was mocked and ridiculed in this in these meetings in open meeting and um I don't care if I ever go back but I will support you tonight. >> Can I make one more comment? What we're asking for is for the DOT to listen to the people that live and work in this community that do not want it. I have yet to hear from a soul in that area that wants this project. Listen to the people who live and work here. They do not want it.

148Please respect what they desire. Emerald Lake didn't want it. Country Woods East didn't want it. Stevens Meal, Buckingham, nobody wanted it. We got it anyway. And now we have a roundabout that basically is open season for trucks to drive through the middle. So, I don't know why we wasted $4 million. Commissioner Sides, >> I I can appreciate you looking at alternatives to improve traffic flow, but let's call this what it is. not enough money to widen the blasted road. That's long long and short of it. We're we're trying to stick in these roundabouts because we don't have the means, the funding, the determination to actually say, you know what, 218 needs to be four lanes or this road needs to have at least a decent shoulder on it or whatever. And so we have to

149resort to these other measures, other alternatives that as you can see are not fully supported by the residents. Now, I understand you can't pull a couple 20, 30, 40 million out of your back pocket to to widen our roads, but as far as I'm concerned, we we are trying to nickel a cure for a bigger problem. That means decent road funding in this state to address this critical infrastructure rather than stick roundabouts all over creation that get tore up that are a hazard themselves and and try and use that as the and that cure is worse than the disease. That's my two cents. Does anyone else um >> Commissioner Walcom? >> Um you know I'm I'm all about safety and and u making sure that people are safe on the roads, but there is a

150true concern with the with the route these folks are having to take that live between 218 and Rocky River. It it is um I I would guess I would speculate said 20 20 minute you know detour. Uh and the emergency services I I hear what they say about that. So I would I don't know of any major crashes at that intersection since they've done the four-way. Somebody else may, but I I don't know of any crashes since the four-ways been in. there's any other safety precautions we can use. I but I concur with my colleagues. Um it just doesn't seem necessary at this time and that's that's my two cent. >> Madam Chair, >> Commissioner Helms, >> ju just real quick, I I I'm not going to continue to be beaten dead horse here. Um

151but what I will say is is that is that I share I share the concern too, especially for for big trucks. um be really easy to turn one of those things over, >> you know, trying to navigate, you know, a roundabout that's not adequately sized. So, um so yeah, I'll be in support. >> Okay. >> Has anyone made a motion? I've made a motion. >> You made the motion >> not to support. >> Is that >> Yes. In opposition of it. >> Okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those. Okay. Five. >> Thank you. Good sport. >> Let's go ahead and take care of item 25483, the rural land use plan draft strategy update. Again, I'll recognize the famous Lee Jensen. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I'm going to do

152the I think first few slides of this and then I'm going to turn it over to the chair of the rural land use plan committee, uh, Mr. Alan Balkam, uh, to go over the, um, the the strategies that the committee has come up with so far. Um so so what what are strategies? They're they're really policies or actions that are sort of designed to achieve a goal as typically found in a plan or organization. Um they're the teeth of the plan. Um we need to think through what those strategies are to avoid any any unintended consequences. You don't want to come up with a strategy and sort of not think about it. Um because when if you just come up with them quickly and and you just knee-jerk reaction, then you can you a lot

153of times you can have unintended consequences. So we want to avoid that. Um you want them to really be effective on their own. Um and you don't want to have to have other strategies that you don't want to pile a bunch of strategies on top of each other to be effective. So you want each strategy to be sort of can stand on its own and and and do what it's supposed to do. um how do we uh reach out to folks regarding the the rural land use plan and the development of the strategies? Um lean heavily on social media. Liz and her folks helped us out um tremendously with that effort. Um I know we hit Facebook, Instagram, all of them. Um Liz and her group also have a weekly newsletter that that they put

154out. So they were kind enough to allow us to have um a space in in that newsletter. um sent out an email to uh over 500 interested residents that included lists that we had that that the county just had um in general. Um we also hit the municipalities. Um and that was a big thing too is when we hit those municipalities with the emails and they saw the Facebook post, many of them also shared with with their email groups and on their social media pages too. So we we hit more people that way. um was posted on the county website. We got a lot of traffic there. Um we did an interview, I believe a couple weeks ago on on Wixie. Um and through that effort, we got um almost almost 170 responses. And as

155you can see, those responses were largely in what I would call, we'll circle kind of with my cursor here, the rural area of the county. So you can see a lot of the feedback we got were from folks that lived or worked. So that first number is people that live or work in the rural area. Um and not not too many responses from people that don't. So I to me that says that people that lived this plan represents the people that actually live and work in the rural parts of the county, which is what we wanted. What are our next steps? Uh tonight we're here. We're presenting uh some of those draft strategies to you. Uh we did this uh with the land use board uh last month. Uh got some got some feedback from

156them. We would like some feedback from you. Don't feel like you have to give us feedback tonight. Take some of this digest it and then if you have feedback later on you can reach out to me Bejorn reach out if you know Mr. Balkan you can reach out him to him directly. Um August 26th, uh the committee will review and approve some of those strategies. Uh throughout the month of September and October, we will staff will be taking that information and putting a draft plan, finalizing the draft plan. Um be presenting that to the land use board on October 21st. Um and then October 28th, we hope the committee would endorse that plan. will be back before you on November the 17th. That will be the way you have to do plans now in North

157Carolina. It follows the same process as a reszoning. So, we'll have a public hearing on that. Uh so, November 17th hopefully we'll be having a public hearing before you with that finalized version of the plan, hopefully with committee endorsement and land use board recommendation. Um and then December through March, we don't like to just have a plan that sits on the shelf and collects dust. So if that plan is approved then we will immediately start um amending you would probably amend the land use map as part of the plan but there could be some UDO changes um that need to take place as part of that some of those strategies and there could be some other things that need to be discussed um some some of those strategies that may not necessarily be um UDO

158um recommendations but could be other things that would need to be discussed and then potentially in June June there there are some strategies that may involve some some future funding considerations. And with that I will turn it over to Mr. Balk. >> Well, you're not up late. Good evening, commissioners. >> Manager Matthews and of course, Miss West. Uh I'm here to give you the update. The good news is your steering committee is staying on calendar. We've done everything on the timeline that we set out to do up to this point and our intention is to remain on that calendar so that we're back here in November with the strategies that hopefully that we've gotten feedback from you. We've gotten feedback from the land use board and that the strategies will be ones that have been

159presented to the public as well. So I got three things that I want to present to you. One is strongly supported strategies and this is equally from the steering committee and from the polls that we've taken. And I'll say that that 166 uh responses back on the poll, I feel like I've had more than that personally. Uh everybody that gives feedback doesn't do a poll. And uh so as as y'all know, you get lots of interpersonal interaction. So but there'll be strongly supported strategies, supported strategies, and then not supported strategies. So the strongly supported strategies and it remains number one is to expand the agricultural easement purchase program. In other words, the purchase of development rights and these these purchases would be that the property cannot be developed in perpetuity. the land still remains in

160the ownership of the present owner or whomever they sell it to. It's a deed that that continues just like any other piece of property with the exception that it can never be developed. So you have that program in place with with the under the opaces of the soil and water conservation district. You've actually approved I think three parcels now and so this is underway but the expand agriculture easement purchase program this development right p purchase is by and far the number one. Second one was require contiguous areas for open space and major developments not have it splintered out but have it contiguous. Third was proposing removal of one or more bypasses and these are bypasses around Waxaw. These are proposed Waxaw Monroe Southern Loop and then Marshall Southern Loop. Now there were these were not

161named. It was just proposed. They were not prioritized in any manner. It was just the question was do you propose removing one or more bypasses. Then the next is to limit subdivisions in certain zoning districts. And the last one there on the strongly supported is to protect intact forest in the 30% current the 30% open space required area. And then right behind it was equally the rare and protected species, wetlands, and streams. Those three were tied. And quite honestly, if you got one, you pretty much got all three. So supported strategies to expand the rural area on the land use map. And it really there's not a lot that can do outside of municipalities. The circle you see there is about the only area that is left that could be expanded and that is in

162that is just in the county. Implementing this strategy would occur through an amendment to the land use map for Union County. And then you can see the frequent comments there. have enough high density. Uh it's already upside down on development housing versus the industry. Uh more rural is better use and then that the reasoning back to rural is better. So, but anyway, there was lots of comments and supported strategy was add six rural centers to the land use map. And these are centers that basically already have maybe a a convenience store, gas station, have something there already, but they're not on the land use map as as being identified there. So the question was, do you add six rural uh centers to the land use map? not to become strip malls or anything like that,

163but just a rural a convenience uh type facility. The frequent comments you see those don't mind driving to town commercial centers turn into broader developments da da da da. Uh so the notsup supported strategies is to purchase parcels in priority areas in exchange for higher density in remaining areas. Not supported. Next not supported is allow low impact commercial and industrial uses on residentially zoned land. And this one quite honestly in the poll was probably not worded the best cuz as there was the feedback we got was confusing some sometimes conflicting. Uh but the intent was with in this question that we had on the poll was that if someone had property had 10 acres, 15, whatever acreage they had, but if they were in a service type business, if they were doing HVAC, if they

164were a an electrician, a plumber, could they have a a business at their home. And so again, we probably didn't word this correctly, but is intended for a service type for the area, but it was not supported. Uh, and frequent comments there. Uh, 5 to 10 acres most common suggestion for minimum lot size. Well, I think the poll question was that suggested that a 10 acre with maybe I believe five acres as uh undeveloped for every acre with a minimum 10 acre lot size. But but anyway, uh there was questions about if you opened that Pandora's box that it would not be enforced and that it so the observation, the last bullet down there is pretty uh obvious throughout in that the strategies that increase flexibility for property owners and developers, not supported as much

165as strategies that limit development. And that was pretty universal across all the responses. So, one of the things we've looked at as a committee is how do we restrict major subdivisions as a use And of course, uh, subdivisions is not a land use in and of itself. So, we got to we got to address work from that standpoint. And currently, it would take a change by North Carolina General Assembly, the general statutes, uh, because they limit down zoning of property. Eligible strategies could could be that we require a special use permit for major subdivisions or that we add an additional requirement that a major subdivision in the rural area would require access to at least one public utility, water, sewer. At least one. An ideal strategy downzone all land in rural areas and process subdivisions

166as resonings. I'll leave that one last map have included here. This is this is county water availability. So when I go back to the previous slide and say that coming out of committee right now is looked at requiring at least one public utility. Well for most of the area that would be water and the reality is in most of the rural areas county water is not available. So just food for thought, >> questions, >> comments >> and again we desperately need won't request your feedback. >> Commissioner Helms. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll make my comments brief. I just want to tell you uh Mr. Balkan, thank you for being here. >> Um, Lee, thank thanks once again for, you know, teeing this item up for us. I know you've had a busy night, too.

167Um, but also want to want to thank our steering committee, you know, for the work that you guys have invested. Um, I I do think that there's some things here for for us to look at and consider. Um, I especially liked um some of the strongly supported strategies. Um, for example, um, I think it was bullet point number two about the 30% open space requirement for uh, making that conti uh, contiguous. Um, and I think that that's something that that maybe our board should should uh, at least, you know, consider in the future. Um, you know, this board has been very supportive of the of the easement purchase program as well. and and um I I think that and I don't want to speak for the board, but I think that there's a lot of

168support, you know, for that program and something that we may want to consider additional funding, you know, over over some time. I don't know if we can do it this year, but but uh but certainly, you know, as we look at future budgets, then that might be something that we want to rededicate some some some funds to. Uh but again want to tell you thank you uh tell the committee obviously thank you for the work that you guys have invested. >> Commissioner Sods I I want to echo the same comments. Thank you all for your hard work and as far as your uh strongly supported strategy on um removal of one or more bypasses. Considering how long it took to get the first one and turned into a toll road instead of a bypass I

169I probably won't live long enough to see another one. So, uh, maybe that'll be a strategy you won't have to worry about. >> Commissioner sides, it's not all about you. [Laughter] >> Thank you, >> Mr. Balcom. Thank you for coming out. Um, I hope that um you and your committee is also reaching out to the general assembly and letting them know what Union County wants. Um the recent proposals by um including some local representatives um has really wanted to move even the rural areas into highly uh populated areas and as someone who lives in rural Union County, I really like it rural. Um it's, you know, I know that it takes me 20 minutes to drive to town and I'm okay with that because that's what I knew going into it what I would have.

170So, I I do appreciate and support so much of what you have presented and I do hope that um you and your committee do reach out to our local legislation and let them know this is what Union County who they represent, this is what we want. Um I also hope that um municipalities also take a look at this and um even though they are not in a rural area um what they do still affects the rest of the county. And so I hope they do take this into consideration as well, sir. But thank you for all of your hard work. We do appreciate it. >> Thank you. If if I may, I just want to share with you that the Soil and Water Conservation District had an application period of six weeks for for land

171owners to make application to go into the program. in that six weeks had the 28 as Lee showed you had 28 applicants. Uh a little over $7 million of property. Now this was six weeks. The state north the state of North Carolina their application period was open for a year. They had five applicants. So what this is telling me is we have a tremendous appetite. Not just from the public wanting to preserve the rural atmosphere, but we also have an appetite that's clearly defined from land owners that want to participate, that want their land to stay and rural, not developed. That they this they have this appreciation, this respect. In fact, they look at it more as being stewards rather than owners. And uh so it it's it's very clear it uh it it to

172me it's uh the timing is wonderful, you know, from both aspects from just the the general public that appreciates this open space appreciates what Union County has to offer, why it's a wonderful place to be. And yet we still number three agricultural county in the state. You know when you say those two almost conflicting uh but gosh it is wonderful. And uh so I I just wanted to share with you about the the willingness of the land owners to want to participate. The other thing is that this quite honestly anything that's done is not going to going to really stop growth. We're going to change how the county looks with with the right approach. We'll change how the county looks 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 years from now. Growth will still occur. the capitalism

173that we have, a landowner can still capitalize on it. Doesn't have to participate in this. Builders can still build. They can still develop. It'll just be under some different maybe some different guidelines, some different zonings, different approaches. And uh so with that, I I'll every every every four-way stop and every roundabout should have rumble strips. >> I'll say that relative to the other one, >> Commissioner Balkam. >> Allan, on the notsupported strategies page, >> yes, sir. >> I want to be sure I understand. Um at the second point where it says allow low impact commercial and industrial uses on residentially zoned land. >> Yes sir. >> So and it says 5 to 10 acres most common suggestion for minimum lot size. >> You know a lot of times your mom and pops that's how they

174start out. That's right. Are you saying that the people y'all were in contact with are against those startup business? >> That was the results from the poll. >> They were against the startup business. The poll did not support it. >> Okay. >> People did not support uh allowing low impact commercial and industrial uses on R840. >> Okay. >> Uh and again, I'm I'm saying myself that we probably did a poor job of wording >> right >> that question. >> Yeah. Because that does surprise me there. Well, it was but then then some of the comments were supportive even though they didn't support it. The comments were supportive. >> Okay. >> And so that's the that's the conflict that I that I see in the results. >> Got it. That's good. >> And as somebody who

175did take the survey, >> um yes, I agree wholeheartedly. The the wording was very akeewed and I I had to read it a couple of times. I went, I don't know if that's what they're asking or not. So yes, the wording could have been much better. >> I think AI got involved in that. Probably probably >> I think what we took away from some of those comments were were exactly that we we saw that people thought that it it was going to turn into like an industrial park and that and that wasn't the intent of the question. It was more so >> we we allow home occupations and rural occupations. This was more sort of an expansion kind of what you were talking about. you know, you start out, maybe you've got five to 10

176acres, you own some landscaping equipment, maybe you can start your small business. So, that that was kind of the that was what it was supposed to be. >> All right. >> Thank you, Alan. >> Yes, sir. Commissioner, Vice Chair Helms, to your point, there is a clear demand for for participation, but with that demand comes funding concerns. And so hopefully that all of us can come with some strategies that will be beneficial. I heard uh had the gentleman say that he was more than willing to pay. You know, I I hear people telling me that, but sometimes it don't always mean it. So, thank y'all very much. >> Thank you, Mr. Spoken. 10 minutes after 9. We'll be right back. you stayed around. >> Okay. Next on the agenda is item 25493, contract and budget

177amendment with the town of Wingut law enforcement services. I want to recognize Sheriff Eddie Kathy concerning this item. >> Lee Jensen ain't up here. Thank you for having me, Miss West. I appreciate you and the county commissioners. Uh, the taking over of Wing It started probably about six years ago when I met with the president of the college. Wait a minute, I better retract that. The pro president of the university and uh the mayor down there. And at that time they made the decision to just try to save their police department and make it work. Since then they've gone through I know three police chiefs, maybe four police chiefs. They come back to me. The there's only three officers working down there. They ask us if if we take it. We already taken all the

178calls, all the things down there. So, it wasn't a big choice for us. Uh, we're having to do it anyway. So, we said, you know, this is a contract that we've used in all our cities. We just renewed this one for Indian Trail that you just approved tonight. We gave them that contract. They said this is basically what it says. the county will put up, I'm not sure of the numbers exactly, but I'm sure somebody can get it if you need it. Somewhere about $48,000. Uh the county chips in $300,000 $500,000. >> City Wink in return the city will keep $300,000 of the that they budgeted to $800,000. So it's uh with their 500,000 they'll hire four officers, equip them, train them, put them on the road to work wing it. Uh with me tonight

179is Brad Sers, who's a Wingit city manager. He can tell you how that's whatever questions you've got or why they made the decision to do this, but we're already doing it. So, you know, it was sort of a no-brainer for us cuz we having was having to do it anyway. And it's a benefit to citizens of of Wing It. You know, they're going to have better service. They're going to have a full-time officers down there. There's not an hour in the day today that we don't have a car in Wing It going through Wing It going back and forth through Wing It. We got cars in Wing It. They're 100 yards from our office. So for wing it, it just made perfect sense. So if you got any questions for me or I'll call Brad

180up and see what he's got for you. >> Yes, Commissioner Helms. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, sheriff, my my only question, and maybe this is more towards staff, is um with with this with this impact to us this year. Now, that's not including any kind of like cars or equipment or anything like that. >> That's everything. >> So, so it does include like new cars and equipment. >> Yeah. Yes, sir. >> Because I was under the impression it didn't. So, >> so the um typically there is a a purchase that is a capital purchase that's part of this. The sheriff's office had um already in their budget at the ability to purchase some vehicles. So rather than having to purchase them this first year um that will be built in over time, uh Wingut

181will still be responsible for paying that capital cost. Okay? and then we will then purchase newer vehicles later which will be the normal cycle. So because the sheriff's office already had those vehicles, we didn't have to build a capital cost into this into our um upfront cost for this. >> But moving forward then that would be something that would be negotiated with Wing. >> It it is it's part of their their cost. They ultimately have to pay for not only salaries but the capital expenditure over time as well. >> It's not not negotiable with Wing it. That's what it is. Yeah. >> Gotcha. Thank you. Appreciate that. >> I would like some clarification. Um you rattled off some numbers earlier. Um you mentioned 500,000 300,000 to get to 800,000. And I'm looking at what we

182have in our agenda. Um, it says that the town of Wingut is going to be responsible for 484,390. I just I just want to be sure crystal clear. >> What is the town of Wingut going to contribute? How much? >> Right. >> And um and how much are we contributing? >> Sure. So what you see here is 484,390 is the is the total for the contract. Wingut is responsible for 90% of that which is 435952. And then the county is responsible for 10% of that which is 48,438. >> And is that for 10 months or 12 months? >> I believe that is a 12 month contract if I'm not mistaken. >> Annual contract. >> It is annual. Yes. Okay. And then of course next year we'll have to budget our portion as well. So this

183is only one year of those costs. They have to pay those costs annually. >> And I I want to confirm um will the sheriff department be taking over the police for the university and the town or just the town? >> The university didn't have an a police department. It's just a town has a police department. Okay. >> University has safety officers university. >> So the university has safety officers. So they don't actually have a campus police department. So my understanding is Wingut um police department responded to those calls. The sheriff's office will still respond to those calls at the university. >> Okay. So, um, the other question that I had, um, the last several months that you've been here, you've had 17 vacancies, 19 vacancies. The last time, um, two months ago, I think it

184was 21 vacancies and you were having trouble filling those. And now we're going to take on a a new municipality and a university, a campus. Um, so and that's going to be four four more positions that So now are we up to 25 vacancies that we can't fill cuz I've been >> 17. >> Okay, Robin, >> that's about right. >> 17. >> So you've gotten it down to 17. Is that with or without the four here? >> That >> so it's without without the four. >> Yeah. When you approve this and that'll be four vacancies. So add four more back to that. um you know because that's that's been a big concern that we've had is you know um you know salaries signing bonuses or you know is Union County not offering enough um you

185know have we've talked about settling you know having to settle for um B or C um C law enforcement candidates because the top students coming out of the school were going to um the municipalities and counties that were offering signing bonuses and stuff. So, so where are we today? How are you feeling about the 17 vacancies you have right now and taking on a university and another municipality? >> Well, taking on the university won't affect us either way. >> It is just added stuff that we'll have to do that we've got to do anyway. We're doing it now. We don't have a choice. They don't have but one officer working in Wing it. We're answering all their calls down there now. >> Is he um full-time or part-time? >> He's full-time. >> He is full-time.

186Okay. >> And he has not applied with us. None of them have applied. There's one that's applied and he's got a broke ankle, I think. >> Okay. >> So, we've got to wait till he can get to where he can work before we can even look at his background. And is is my understanding correct that the other officers were terminated? >> U I no I don't think so. I don't know how that happened but Brad can tell you that uh I'm not sure >> I didn't have anything to do with that. >> Go ahead. Thank you Sheriff. >> Hey Brad. >> Hey. How are y'all? Good. >> Thank y'all for allowing me to speak. Yes. uh our uh the council disbanded the department July 15th. Now, obviously the timing of this has been terrible >>

187from a budgetary standpoint. I certainly understand that. >> I think it came to us the night after we voted on our budget >> and I apologize for that. But it's, you know, it obviously deals with people and it's been a very fluid situation with us starting in June when I started speaking with Sheriff Kathy and his staff. Uh and then you know with dealing with people we we uh we had some officers that quit. We had some that have medical issues had medical have medical issues and it kind of created the perfect storm for us >> and some that were terminated. Right. >> Yes ma'am. And it kind of created the perfect storm. You know we've wrestled with this for years. Uh you know we've you know people people obviously the Facebook jockeyies put on

188Facebook that you know we're building new homes and we can afford this. Well that's not the case. We've had zero growth in 20 years. Zero growth and we've approved a thousand new homes. So, fortunately, we're home to Wing University. Wing University pays no taxes. So, we're so far behind the eightball. We we we cannot continue to fund. I mean, our the police department I've been with Wing 21 years and it's been a revolving door. Uh for the last 10 years, we had 56 officers come and go >> and and we just cannot sustain that turnover. you know, we're dealing with what Sheriff Kathy's having to deal with, but you know, we're losing them to Union County, to Stallings, to Monroe City. Uh, so the decision was made to, you know, to to go to the

189sheriff and ask for his help and and again, we are an anomaly in that we the sheriff is sitting on top of us and and we're fortunate for that. Uh, you know, they have the gun range on Mills Harris. I cannot leave my home in College Park going to office what I don't meet a deputy sheriff and and we're blessed to have them in our town. Uh and again to from the financial standpoint our budget this year we budgeted $826,000 >> for our police. And looking at it if we continue to to grow in two years we're going to be over a million dollars. And you know we we we know we realize that we could do it you know I hate to say cheaper going with the sheriff's department. we get better services because

190we have not been good stewards of our taxpayer money to with our citizens as far as providing security for our town. >> So, it just made sense. >> Commissioner Helms. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, so just a real quick question in regard and I believe this was included in our agenda packet, but I just want to make sure. So, um, the existing building. >> Yes, sir. So, we're going to enter into a lease agreement essentially for that >> for$1. We're going to allow the the the sheriff to to utilize that facility. And I think I mean that is a huge uh piece of that puzzle to to give that you know visibility if you will to the people particularly on that end of the county too to have the sheriff on own 74. Uh

191and and uh you know we're going to the town's going to pay for the signage that'll go up that'll replace you know it's important to to our mayor and board that once the you know the the sheriff takes over that police sign comes down the county sheriff goes up immediately. So >> um and this is a question back to our staff. So, can we just expecting that we're just going to have a budgeted item moving forward of 48,300 or $438 annual cost for this? So, if the board does approve the contract, um obviously there are provisions for that cost to increase over time based on our cost increasing that is built into the contract, but it'll be approximately that much annually. Gotcha. Okay. >> So, I have a question along that lines, too. So, you

192said that the town of Wingut had budgeted $826,000 for your police force. >> Mhm. >> But our contract is only for $484,000. How >> Brad, I'll I'll jump in here and correct me if I'm wrong. I think um for a small town department, obviously I have some experience in Wing It. um you have to pay for some of the command staff that I think the sheriff already has in place that'll be able to handle some of those duties. So you don't have to have a chief, you don't have to have captains, you don't have to have a sergeant. Um that'll fall within the duties of existing personnel that the sheriff has. Um so it's a it's a little bit of a duplication that you wouldn't need by going to a contract service. So for the

193four deputies, I don't current staffing levels were seven, eight, nine. Um so you're able to do the same policing with less personnel. Is this contract um comparable to what we're offering for like Indian Trail? >> It's the same contract. >> Uhhuh. Okay. >> Okay. >> Well, I do have to agree with you, Brad. The timing has been really, really bad. Um, I think it's, you know, unfortunate phones weren't picked up and called to kind of get let us know that we were getting ready to go down this road. Yes, ma'am. >> Because we haven't even voted on it yet. >> Um, but you, Sheriff Kathy says they're already doing the work. Um, so >> they have been they have been for years. >> I'm not even sure. Do you need a vote tonight if you're

194already doing it? >> This might be a nitpicky question, but you said that the county, the sheriff's department is going to lease that that one building right there on 74 across the street from the university for a dollar. What's in the facility that can't be used that's just a mile or so down the road at the sheriff's department? What's what's the purpose of having a building right there? I mean, is there something special in that building? Are there sales or anything of that nature in that building? >> No. No. It's just it's just the visibility of it. It was it was uh once it was it's a new building, well, new in in regards to Wing It, but it was originally built as a as a pharmacy uh for for a drugstore and and that's

195we were able to move our the police department in six years ago. So that was that was really part of the the deal with the sheriff is that we would allow them to use that facility same as they do with Indian trail officers. I mean does that give you any >> Well, it they went through it. We didn't go through it. We don't go through that officers like that. You're talking about whatever he said 56 officers in 10 years out of seven officers. That's about many. Uh we're talking about uh you know I don't know we don't how many we go through in a year but uh it's not that near nowhere near that. Not even in in several years. Will um for these new positions or the people that are already um taking these

196calls or doing this patrol, is it going to take any are you going to have to increase your supervisory positions? >> No. >> Okay. Because I know when we were doing SRO's for the schools, we always had to factor in, you know, another supervisor. >> That's true. This has already got supervisors. They've already got shift supervisors. We don't have four officers assigned to Wing It now. We're just using patrol officers. So, this will cut down on the response times to the citizens of Wing It once we get four assigned there. >> We will and we're going to work with Brian on We probably need a little supervisor in this section, but not just for Wing It. Uh we need it for we need a lieutenant and we think we've got it worked out. We don't

197know that we have but we think we have. >> So that's in addition to the four patrols. >> No, don't don't get confused with that. That's not in addition. That's okay. >> The four patrols got nothing to do with Wayne. I mean the lieutenant doesn't >> I'm just reading the agenda. >> I know. I understand. I don't mind you asking. >> Mhm. Okay. Anyone have any questions? >> I have a question. I hope uh winged officers uh are to up to the standards expected from our sheriff's department and that that will help that they will uh be additions that will help at least have some impact on the current vacancies and that they will they will be a good addition. Let me speak to that. And all the vacancies we've got, we haven't lowered our

198hiring standards. We just are not going to do that. If we're short, we're just going to have to make it up. We're not going to lower the hiring standards that we've used all these years with success. We're not going to do that for wing it. They'll still have to meet our standards. It's just like the officers. We offered them the chance to apply and go through the process and we would try to hire them, but we they didn't want to. They've gone other places. I don't know where all they've gone, but they've gone to other places. And uh so, but we're not going to lower our standards. And to be honest with you, we've worked with the the university. We've met with them. I think they're excited. I I know the town is excited. I

199went to all the public hearings. I didn't participate, but I sat there and listened. I never heard one complaint about the Union County Sheriff's Office. It's not one complaint. It was basically they don't want to lose the heritage of the police department. And I understand that. I mean, I think everybody understood that. >> Very emotional. And I I think they were right feeling that way. But they're going to get better service. They're going to get the response time is going to be quicker. They're going to have more equipment, more more everything than they had. And the university will still work all the programs off duty. They're going to pay off duty to work for all the football games. We're going to do it all. So, nothing will change as far as the university go. >>

200Okay. Well, thank you very much. Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion that we approve um agenda item 25-493, contracts and budget amendments for the town of Wingut Law Enforcement Services. >> Okay, questions. None. All those in favor say I. All right, the next item of business is 25-504, a jail discussion. I will now recognize County Manager Brian Matthews concerning this topic. Thank you, Madam Chair and board members. So this was um a request uh from board from a u board member sides that we bring this back have some discussions about number one you know where we go with the jail ultimate size um and we also took this as an opportunity to have some candid discussions with you about how do we pay for this and some other things that we need to

201do because those decisions are looming. We'll need to decide what we do with this. So, I'm going to just kind of number one, I'm not going to go through this whole timeline. You've seen this before. I think it's important. The most important part of it is in 2004 2005, we started talking about a new jail a long time ago. And here we are today in 2025 and we don't have a new jail. So, a lot of boards have kind of pushed this out and you're now stuck with the decision of how do you do this? How do you handle this? Um the latest um section that we're in here in 2025 is we did do a um a study. We did have some folks come in and evaluate some needs. Gave you some options and

202some cost estimates. So the the most recent cost estimates you got um were a 400 600 jail. So that's a 400 core ultimately be able to be built out to 600 at some point in time. I'm sorry. 600 core could be built out to um start with 400 built out to 600 and then a 500600. Um that construction cost for those was 144 million estimate at that time and the 500600 was 168 million estimate. They also gave you some operational estimates for what it would take to fully um basically run this jail when it was completely full. So I want you to understand those numbers for 400 600 14 almost uh almost 15 million and the other one um 19 almost 20 million is a full buildout. That's that's all the deputies. That's all the

203cost. Obviously if you build a jail it's not going to be full on day one. It's going to take time. So you're not going to hire all of your detention officers, all of your staff. It's going to ramp up over time. So those costs are all in. um those are going to change and I'll show you that in just a minute. One of the things that this board has talked about is um how do we actually fund the cost of a jail if you decide we're going to build a new jail and what's been floated around is a possible bond referendum, voter referendum for a new jail. And there are steps that you have to take if the board chooses that option for funding this. And this is just a timeline to show you how

204that would work. Uh essentially, we're saying that if the board were to say, "Let's do this in a bond referendum." We're thinking the November election in 2026 is probably the best time to have that. You could tell us something different, but we use that as the as a starting point. Around April of 2026, the board would actually formally have to take some action as far as the rep referendum. uh May and June, you know, there's some additional actions that you take and ultimately that leads up until the actual referendum which would be November of 2026. And we anticipate that midyear construction of the I'm sorry, that um local government approval because we still have to go get LGC approval to actually um go out issue the bonds uh would be somewhere in the 2027 range.

205So you can see this is years in the making and that isn't you haven't put one brick. You haven't built anything. You're just getting the bond, getting the funds, and then getting ready to start construction. Yes, ma'am. New York. >> Mayor Matthews, I have a question. Does it have to be in the general election? Can it not be in the primary then? >> It can be in the primary. However, understand we're button up against a lot to do to get it on that primary. Now, the board could say you want to do it. understand that's a lot that we would have to do between now and that primary, >> which is one of the reasons why we felt like the November time frame is easier for us to make that. >> Okay. Thank you, sir.

206>> Certainly. >> Um, I want to point out, like I said, 2027 is you're you're going out for the bond orders. You're likely 2029 before you're in the middle of construction and 2031 before you're finished. That's a long time that you're going to have to have the current jail operating the way it is and some of the challenges we have with the current jail. There's some things that I want to tell you about that in just a moment. So, just to give you an idea of um some costs and some potential impacts to your property tax because again this would be if it's a if it's a bond referendum it would be a voterapproved bond referendum. That means the voters are saying that they pledged the tax to be able to pay for this. As

207you see over here, you see some uh financing amounts for the 400, 600, and 500, 600. Those are higher because we've taken those numbers that the consultants gave us and we escalated them for the time frame of when we actually issue the bonds. If we think we issue the bonds in 2027, you've got to escalate those costs to be able to accommodate for that. So you can see it went up to 152 million uh for the 400600 and 178 million for the 500600. What you'll also see is the estimated property tax rate increase for th that amount. So if you see the top number 5.34% that's what we're required to put on the actual referendum for the voters to see. Now, when we budget, we don't usually budget that 5.3. That's that's that is sort

208of the not the extreme, but that's just the high end. We really budget the 5% number. That's more in line with what we see. But even then, you're talking about greater than two pennies of an impact on the tax rate to be able to pay for this. Now, what's not factored into this because I can't factor into it is any of your reevaluations that may occur while this is going on because we do re-evaluations every four years. There could be another revaluation through this and that could change all of this much like we had when we had the most recent reevaluation and the numbers we showed you for tax rate impacts for school bonds was actually lower. We can't tell you it'll be lower. We can just say understand this is the best available information

209we have. It's going to be two pennies and above impact to the tax rate. Any questions about that? Okay. I talked about um the cost of having to operate that. And so it's not just building a jail. We all need to understand if we're going to spend 152, 178 million, whatever the number is, you got to run it. Right now we spend roughly around 13 million in total operational costs. That's staffing and then your other operating costs, electricity, all the other things that go into it. With the 400 bed facility, you're going to talk about nearly $15 million to operate that uh facility. And that's at full buildout. And at a 500 bed facility, that's going to be um almost um I'm sorry, that's 28 million, not 14 million, it's 28 million. And then the

210500 bed is 32 million, almost 33 million. So you can see that those costs are significant. There's more detention officers we're going to have to hire. That's more electricity we're going to be paying. There's there's just more that we have to do. Yes, ma'am. Well, so part of my question is the staffing cost because currently we're underst staffed and a large portion of that is because of municipalities can pay more. So does this at what price are we paying staff? Is it at current rate or is this at an escalated rate? So these are estimated at current rate with some escalation a basically an inflationary estimate increase but again that's a guess >> that's the best we can do. >> So but as you can see 28 million uh for a 400 bed 32 almost

21133 million ultimate buildout when you have all your detention officers and and it's it's fully loaded. Um, as I said before, um, that's a we're we're six years out. If you were to say today we're doing this, we're six years out before we'll have a jail built. Uh, so that means we need to operate the current jail. And and what are we going to do? Well, there's a lot of things that we need to do to continue um to operate that jail safely and securely. There's a number of short-term projects that we need to do. What you see here is some things that are already funded. So you got almost a million dollars in projects that we already have funding set aside for, but you have another nearly million dollars of projects that are unfunded

212right now that we will need to do over the course of the next five or six years. And that totals up to almost $2 million. Um there's no way around this, folks. These are things we're still going to have to do to operate and run that jail. So I just wanted you to be aware there is some ongoing cost we're going to have to incur for that. So next steps, we need the board to give us some direction on what are what's the bed count that you ultimately want for this facility. Is it the 400 5 400 600? Is it the 500 600? We also want to know what's your funding strategy. Do you want to put this on a referendum? If you do, then we'll start down that path. If you don't, we'll do

213something different. We'll actually probably start design ahead of time if you don't want to go down the bond referendum. If you do want to go down the bond referendum, we're not going to start that yet because we can't get reimburseed for those things. We want to make sure that we, you know, we get all those funds available for that. You also, one of the things that the board has brought up, which we think is something we should explore in greater detail, is the reuse of the existing jail facility. We think that it does have some future benefit. Um, we've done as much as we've done, as much as we can do with our staff. We really need to hire some experts, some architects, and some engineers to get in there and really give us a

214a better idea of adaptive reuse for that. So, what we'd asked the board to do is authorize us to spend it's it's about $87,000, a little over 86,000 to hire um some architects and engineers to get in there and really lay out for us what can we do for adaptive reuse of that facility. Um, and I think that's important because ultimately whatever size jail you do build, there's still going to be a demand 30 years from now, 50 years from now. and we'll have to figure out how we're going to accommodate that demand when that comes about. So, this is an opportunity to be able to use that facility if we need to for any expansion of that. So, those are the next steps that we have. I'm seeking the board to give me some

215direction on those items. I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have. I know the sheriff and his staff are here. They certainly can give you some input as well. >> Okay. Yes. Commissioner size >> didn't mean to yell. >> Oh, no. You're good. >> Um, there is another option I would like your thoughts on. Okay. And that is the route that Cabaris County used when faced with a similar issue some 20 years ago and that is the construction of an annex. It is not the solution. It is a stop gap, but it is a way, a quicker way to add additional capacity and a safer work environment because we had the challenge of trying to repair things like locks, but didn't have the means to move enough of our guests out of the

216way >> so we could make the repairs. Uh, Cabaris County built a 96 bed annex. They built it so it could be integrated when they got around to building a new full detention center. certainly >> can build it quicker, can build it cheaper, can add capacity, can make hopefully repairs that may at least create a safer work environment at the existing jail and facilitate repairs because you can move our guests around. Um, what are your thoughts on that as an option that would be more have a more immediate impact than going through and building a full-blown jail? Well, I said my my first response would be is that the cost of building anything is not going to get less expensive. Um, just keep in mind that if we decide to build an annex and and

217I that I'm not saying that's a bad idea, but if you decide to build something that's say 100 beds, um, the cost of building the other four or 500 is never going to go down. It's just going to keep on going higher. Um, in my opinion, if you're going to do it, I think it would be best for us to go ahead and figure out what size we want and go ahead and get the funding available to build that facility. You're just going to save yourself some money. >> Sure. >> in the long run, it's going to cost a lot. I get it. But if you peacemail it over time, it will cost maybe double that because you're waiting a lot longer to build that facility. So, it just depends on your strategy. >> Yeah,

218that's fair. >> Commissioner HS, >> um, Manager Matthews, you mentioned that there was going to be $86,500 for architectural studies for the jail. Where's that money coming from? >> We already have projects set aside originally for the jail itself. So, it will come out of that funding for the the capital cost of the jail. >> Okay. And what about the repairs? will come. There are part of that nearly a million is already in our funding stream for that. >> Okay. >> Over the course of the next couple of years, we will have to build that funding into the capital program to finish the rest of those projects. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. Alluding to Commissioner Sid's question about the annex, is it possible that if if the 86500 is approved for the jail

219adaptive reuse study, isn't it possible that the current jail could kind of be the annex in the future? >> Well, absolutely. So now what I what I get from what Commissioner Sides is saying is in order to gain additional capacity the annex would be your additional capacity. I think that's the route he was going and you could move a lot quicker with that. I agree with you that in time that uh reuse of the jail would likely become the annex, but it's not going to gain you capacity quickly because if you say, "I'm going to build the new jail first," you're not gaining any new capacity. But I think absolutely it would yield it would become the de facto annex. And >> and and the reason I bring it up is because it it would

220give this board comfort level in investing in it. now because we do potentially have six more years before a new jail would be ready. So, it's not a it's not a total loss, right, >> to pour money into it now and and take care of it >> if the study comes back that we are able to, you know, use this as an annex or for separation purposes for populations. >> Certainly, and that was our logic. You hit the nail on the head. It's like if we're going to sink a bunch of money into it, can we recoup use of that long term, not just a short-term we're going to use it for five, six years and then throw it away? >> We'd like to use it a lot longer if possible. >> Now, don't get

221me wrong, there will be challenges when you have two separate facilities and you have to fill out how do you manage that? How you staff it? What do you do with that? We will have to figure those things out. But just having the facility gives you flexibility. If you need to do block renovations, you could move those individuals out if necessary into that annex area while you do block renovations. So there's a lot of opportunity, we think, from reuse of that facility. Now >> again, the architect may come back and say, you're going to have these challenges. Is it worth it for you to do that? We don't know that at this point. I just remember um several months ago the conversation about weekenders, >> you know, that annex may be a good place for

222the the people that need to come in, you know, to serve their time on the weekend. Um so they're not with the full-time jail population or And then I know we have other court cases where there has to be a separation of inmates. Absolutely. >> Okay. Yes, Commissioner Balkam. >> In this study where we're going to spend $86,500 if we choose to go that route, have they determined if the soils are still settling under the structure? >> So, the the the current um obviously they haven't evaluated anything. We did have an engineering study done several years ago. um that evaluated that facility. It's my understanding and I don't have it in front of me that the the area that was really the the concern was under the administrative side of the building and not necessarily

223the jail side itself. Now again, >> okay, >> we will obviously have to evaluate are there has anything changed? Are there any issues that we need to address with the jail andor the admin building? Uh but that was my understanding is there were concerns were really mostly with the admin building. The jail itself did not come back as showing any significant issues as far as structural. Again, I'm not an expert. I'm just going by what I recall from looking at that study. >> Commissioner Helms. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. So, uh, Brian, I don't want to get, you know, too far ahead of ourselves and over our skis here. Um, but I I do want to point out a concern that that I've got, uh, that I won't communicated with, you know, assuming that we

224press forward with this, but I'd like to have this communicated with whoever it is that we're working with. Um, I I think that the emphasis on any kind of new project that we take on, whether it's a jail, whether it's repurposing our old jail, um, is functionality. >> Okay? >> And and and I stress that because I I don't think that we need flash. I think that we need function. Mhm. >> And um I I want to I want to be clear that um that I I I want whatever it is that we decide on to um to go in the direction of serving the needs and not necessarily the wants. >> Okay. >> Um because we're looking at an awful lot of expense with this. I mean, this is a county changing decision. This

225is not, you know, a a small decision that this board has been tasked with. This is a huge decision. And for the past 20 years, every single board that's looked at this has been scared to to make a decision about it. And that's the bottom line. >> Yes, sir. >> I mean, we've looked at, you know, other projects. Other boards have looked at other projects. You know, we've got um things like the sheriff's office admin building. We've got an emergency services building. Uh we've even invested in Health and Human Services buildings. >> We've we've got a 911 center. We got a crime lab. We got firearms range. >> Medical examiners. >> Yeah. >> Medical examiner. >> And so this is not, you know, this is not a knock on our law enforcement folks, okay? It

226really isn't. What I'm trying to express here is is that we as a county have invested in these other things. And I'm not saying we didn't need these things, but what I am saying is is that this is a true need. The jail is a true need and it's been a need that we've had for a long time, >> a very long time. Um, at the same time though, we've got to be responsible with taxpayer dollars and I don't want to invest in fancy architecture. I don't want to invest in, you know, marble floors and things like that. And of course, I'm exaggerating a little bit. Yes, sir. >> But but I want you to understand >> Yes, sir. >> that I I want it I want to invest in the cost where it counts.

227Something that we can expand, something that we can build um build with, but uh but not uh something that's going to win beauty contests. >> I mean, at the end of the day, we're talking about a prison or well, I should say a jail. >> Jail. >> And I I know that there's several of us board members that would like nothing more than put them out there in tents and pink jumpsuits. um that's probably frowned upon, >> but um because I mean I think we all understand there's a minimum care that's involved, you know, with inmates. >> Um but it doesn't have to be fancy. >> So I I I understand what you're saying and the design and the function is what we will focus on. Yes, sir. >> Thanks, sir. >> I'd just like

228to uh I understand Mr. Helm's concerns and there will be push back that I don't want a nickel of my tax money going to pay for that folks. But it's more than that. It's also a matter of safety of our law enforcement working in a safe environment. >> Well, and living in a safe environment >> and and being able to do their job, which is I I can only speak for myself. My primary function overriding concern is the safety of the people of Union County. And right now we don't have the capacity that when we arrest somebody, we have to turn somebody loose. Now, who wants to be the one to explain to the family member that that person we had to turn loose because of lack of capacity ended up in a DUI and

229getting somebody hurt, killed, or what have you. I I don't want to have to explain be because they've been kicking around the idea of a jail for 20 years. >> I want to clarify something real quick. And Sheriff Kathy, you may need to take a stand on this one. Are we letting criminals loose in the community because we don't have a sale to put them in? I I want to be real careful with that getting out there. No, we're at capacity. We sleep them in the floor. >> So, criminals are not being let go because we don't have enough sales. >> No, not >> Go ahead. >> Oh, no, no, no. Finish your thought. >> Yeah. >> I think what he's alluding to is sometimes that we call the the cities and say, "Listen, we're

230over capacity. if you can let them go on a citation. Don't bring them into the the jail, but if you need to bring them in there, we'll take them. And we're doing that. I think we're at 290 today. Our capacity is about 240. Uh it's a 264 beds, but you can't sleep them together. >> 246. >> So, it's uh >> And you're at 290. >> We're at 290 today. Uh I think uh the jail over the months June July and we're in the two 80s 90s 288 290 >> close to 300 and we've been over 300. Uh jail inspectors I can tell you they ain't liking it. Madam Chair, >> I I didn't want my comment to be misconstrued >> that we're turning >> folks >> loose that shouldn't be on the street, but we

231have a capacity issue. >> Okay, >> there should people that should be in jail because of what they've done. And we fund an assistant DA to make help make the decisions of who can be released or turned loose or not, like the sheriff said, a citation instead of a charge because of a capacity issue. And I'm not comfortable with the risk of what happens if the wrong person is because of that issue is back on the street. >> Okay. Gotcha. >> I agree with you. >> Commissioner Christina Helms. Um, and I'd like to kind of add on to what Commissioner Brian Helms offered up was the fact that we don't want, let me back that up. The taxpayers don't want a fluff. >> They want it bare bones. We want to make sure our law

232enforcement officers are fully protected as much as we possibly can in the jails, but we want to make it >> an inconvenience. you know, we don't want any and Commissioner Helms, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's what you were alluding to. >> Yeah. I mean, exactly. I mean, we're not we're not building a fivestar resort here. Um Yeah. >> And that's exactly where I was going. >> It's it's a jail. >> Yes, sir. >> I assure you, if you take time to come down there to that jail, you'll see there's no fluff in that jail. There's no fluff in the jail. They're on cement floors, iron bars, uh, you know, iron bars, bars, it's iron beds. Uh, we we're at a place now. The state says that we can't put three

233people in a sail unless we put them in a canoe. I know you don't know what that is. I don't either. It's like a little canoe that goes up under the bed and they sleep off the floor. Oh, >> well, our beds are built that the canoe won't fit under the beds, so they're on the floor. >> I don't know what you do about it. We've got them in Cabaras. >> We've got them scattered around the state where we can find a bed. >> But right now, we're 289, I think. >> Okay. >> I I relinquish. >> Commissioner Helms. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. And and Sheriff, I I hope Lord willing, I never have to figure out what a canoe is. Um I I think that commissioner s's uh you know question there uh

234was sort of generated from a little bit of confusion that we or maybe misunderstanding that in the information that we received from the consultant you know and so >> so I don't think it was meant to be a knock on on the sheriff's office there at all. Um but you know some of the information that we got from the consultant suggested you know that that may be the case or there may become a point there where uh where folks are you know let off with maybe lesser offenses. Um >> yes sir. >> So yeah I just wanted to bring that that point up. Um you know as we're looking at the scope of this particular project u I I'm going to go ahead and put it out there. I personally favor the uh the lower

235end of of the the scopes here. Uh we >> 400 600 is what you mean, >> correct? Uh yeah, it's been a long night. So, thank you. Um but yeah, I I personally favor that and and I think that as we look at uh potentially repurposing the old jail, you know, to your point, if it can be salvaged enough, then that gives us additional capacity to work with and flexibility. And so, you know, for just for my opinion, um I'll put it out there to to my colleagues on the board. Um but, you know, I would if we're going to choose between one of those two u then I would support the lower of the two. >> So, Commissioner Helms, I I just want to have a conversation about that. If we are currently in

2362025, you know, hovering under 300 and we're not we're turning the weekenders away and we're sending 10 or 15 to Cabaris County. Um, you know, I I'm afraid if we wait, you know, six or seven more years to to open a new jail, we're going to be way over 400. So I would do you have any concerns about that that you know I I don't want to have a four a 485. Um, when 485 opened, they immediately said we needed more lanes. And I I really don't want this board um to mislead the, you know, the constituents with their votes or their money. And I personally don't want to be remembered for spending all that money and it not being big enough. Um, >> thank you, Madam Chair. So, I want to maybe this is

237a question best posed to our manager. >> Sure. >> Um, but as I understand it, you know, the core of the jail is what it would be maximum capacity. Correct. So, you start out with an initial bed count of 400, but it could be potentially increased up to six. >> So, the core the core would be built to six for both of them. The core would be 600. And then the then the bed count would start at whatever the number is 400 500 whatever. Now understand if you start at 400 then there is still construction that you have to do to get that extra 200 beds and you're going to pay whatever that cost is. I I couldn't tell you at this point in time but you're going to pay that cost to get those

238additional beds when it comes time to get them. Uh so yes the core is built for the size that you make it uh and then you can expand to that but there is a cost ultimately. >> Can you go back to the presentation here and show the um there we go. So logic would hold true, and I'm not saying it it always does. You're going to spend to get that extra 100 beds just on that one, you're going to spend another $26 million to get 100 beds. Understand that if you wait and all of a sudden now you need those 100 beds, >> it won't be 26 million when you need it. It'll be 30. it'll be 35. Whatever the number is, you will have to come up with those funds to get that additional

239100 beds when it comes time to that you need it. And it won't be overnight. It'll take time to build that additional 100 beds. I I am also drawn back to something the consultant said that the 80% rule because you have a bed capacity of 400 doesn't mean you could have 400 guests. >> That's a very good point. Be >> because people have to be separated, gangs have to be separated, codefendants have to be separated. So when you use the term 400 beds, that doesn't mean 400 guests. That's right. And and the sheriff made the point earlier that, you know, the the current bed count in the jail is 264. It's really rated for 246 or 248. That means that when you when you have classifications of inmates, in order to be able to put

240them in those proper classifications, you can really only get 246 in there. That's where that's where Commissioner Sid is getting that sort of 80% rule because you really can't get 264 people in there and meet the classification requirements. So ultimately if you build a 400 bed facility some of those beds won't be able to be used for the classification. Now the flip side of that is if we invest and I don't know what that cost will be but if we invest to also improve the current facility the current jail and make it so it's an annex well then you know you can meet some of those classification separations in that annex if necessary but that's additional investment that's not shown on this that's not shown anywhere on here because we don't know what that number

241is >> and do we have any idea about how long it took from the initial buildout of the current jail facility to reach capacity? >> My understanding is if we go back to the um in 2004 it already exceeded 240 inmates and it was classified at 246. So you went basically 20 years before it I'm sorry 10 years not 20 you went 10 years and it was already at its rated capacity. Now what helped during that time frame is the additional assistant DA they made some changes on how they were um you know I guess citing not citing but those inmates whether or not they were giving them plea bargains whatever they were doing things to keep that jail population down but that only lasted so long. We're now to the point where our backs

242against the wall essentially. >> And to to your point, the flip side of that is is that since 2004, we've been at or above capacity for 20 plus years. >> Yes, sir. >> I get that number. So, I know again it this isn't a great decision and you're faced with a lot of money and ultimately if you decide the voters are going to vote on this, they're going to they're going to understand they're going to have to spend a lot of money to accommodate a need. Commissioner Balkam. Yes. >> But going by the 80% rule. So if we have a 400 capacity, if my math's correct, u 80% would be 320. >> Right. And and I don't think it's actually 80%. I think it's some number between 80 and 90. I don't have the study

243in front of me, but you're right. It's going to be less than 400. Is it 350? Is it 360? Is it 330? I don't know that number, but it's going to be something less than 400. >> 80%. I've heard that number a couple times. When he said that, that sounded correct. >> I don't know that 80% is the exact number. I don't know. >> I'm getting a head nod from the sheriff. >> Right. Right. >> Okay. So, so that's 320. >> So, currently where we are, 30 more inmates. >> We're almost there. >> We're at capacity. >> Right. So all right and is it possible and I don't know I don't know the daily workings of the jail but if we do fix up our current jail is it possible that could be used for

244females or would that would it be some way I know you're keeping up two facilities. Yeah, that I think ultimately the sheriff's office is going to have to and they will get involved in programming how that facility is used. And yes, they could certainly say we're going to use it for females, but understand you get the nail on the head. You're having to duplicate your efforts in that facility. So, there's always a there there there's a plus and a minus. You can use it for that, but you're going to have to spend the money to make sure you have the staffing to duplicate those efforts. So, as long as we all understand right now what we're talking about is a new facility and a building that's been renovated to use it, and I this is

245my opinion, to use it when necessary. If your goal is to use it permanently, that has a whole different flavor to it. I think the sheriff would probably agree with me on that one. It's a it's it's a different ballgame to run two facilities. >> So, the decision before us right now is the um deciding to move forward with the architectural study. >> Well, you got three things. First is what is the size of the facility that you want us to focus on? 400 600 500 600 then do you want this to go on the referendum and third will you authorize us to do the re the red the adaptive reuse study those are the three things that we're asking the board to give us some direction >> I'll make a motion we move forward

246with the adaptive use study >> is there any com for the >> Okay. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> That's one out of the way. >> I I will also make a motion that we move forward directing uh staff with a new jail facility with a 600 bed core, 500 bed capacity. Okay. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed. [Laughter] >> Better late than never. >> All right. >> And then I make a motion that funding strategy will be um put on the November ballot for the um for6. >> Okay. >> I'm going to be a fly an ointment. >> All right. So, we have an annual budget of $600 million, >> right? >> Yes, sir. Did we do a referendum on that budget? We did

247a public or a series of public hearings where the public is encouraged to come and gather information, give input, yes or no, change this, we don't support this. But in the end, everyone who chooses has an opportunity to make their opinion known. I personally think that our responsibilities as I as I I can only speak for myself in public safety is the utmost concern concerning the condition of our current deteriorating condition of our current facility. I will not support will not vote for a referendum. I believe we need to move forward. >> Um Ron Was the 911 center and the admin building? Was that on the other? >> Yes, >> it was. >> Yes, ma'am. >> And >> Madam Chair. >> Yes. >> Um, and some of those projects were also included in the initial

248scope of I mean I'm I know I'm going back way back, >> but at least like 20 years, right? So if you're talking about originally there was going to be a sheriff's admin facility with a jail or Yes. That was original thought for the construction. Um that got separated at some point in time and then the admin building was built. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yes sir. >> Yes. >> I just have one more question. This stresses me out a little bit. Um, and in in this planning, you know, anytime I've ever built something, when I finished, I should have built it a little bit bigger. That's just been my experience in life. >> I agree. >> Um, in in this planning, we need to look towards expandability. We are looking in that

249direction. Correct. So what you have with the initial list, I mean the board, you know, as a majority said 500, 600 is this would be designed for an ultimate buildout of 600. Now if you want it to be designed to go further than that, that's a different that that's a different way to view that because what no expert, but here's what I understand about it. There are certain core functions that you have to know upfront how many people you're going to put in there to be able to have it under roof. Otherwise, you got to build another roof to put it under. >> So, you it's this idea of expansion. There may be a way to expand certain things within that core, but you really got to know what is it 600, is it 800?

250What is that ultimate number? because then they have to program it and figure out how to make that space work. >> So, I'll expose my ignorance. If if you build that if you build that structure that that structure for 600, there's no such thing as building a pod over here 20 years from now. >> So, I think the pods are really more in line with the beds themselves. So, if you look at the 400, 600, 500, 600, that's where the pods come in. the bed facilities and how they connect to the rest of the facility and add to additional beds to add core. I'm sorry to add core in a pod fashion. I'm not saying it can't be done. >> I just don't know how efficient it would be to try and do it that

251way because your s your security all has to you have to build it so your security can handle the ultimate buildout. You have to have your medical bay to handle your ultimate buildout. Your cafeteria, all those things have to fit. What's your ultimate buildout? And that's where the challenge comes from. >> Okay. So, we have a motion to um for the funding strategy to be put on the November 2026 ballot, a bond referendum for the taxpayers of Union County to decide on this potential tax increase that um we see here. Um I think we're ready to vote. Could Could I be the flying ointment again? >> What happens if a referendum is voted down? >> So, if if the referendum were to fail, um obviously that doesn't change the need for a jail, um we

252would then likely come to you with a strategy for how to build it in probably parts, which means it's going to cost more over time. It just is. And we'd have to work with the local government commission to get their approval to allow us to to sell bonds because we're gonna have to sell bonds to pay for this. They would have to be nonvoter approved bonds and the LGC has to approve that. So, we'd have to work with them to get authorization on that. Um, I'm not saying that the LGC would turn us down, but obviously they're going to have some questions. that tax increase is higher than if my memory is correct from like two years ago with this discussion. >> Isn't the tax increase um you mean >> the interest rate the interest

253rate is lower with if it's voter approved? >> It is. It is lower now. I don't want >> than the non voter approved. >> It is. Now I don't want you to think that like it is significantly lower. It's not. Let's just say that rates are 4%. It's not going to be 3% and 4%. It might be >> 10 basis points. There's my expert back there. >> So, it's not like, but you will save money. I mean, I'm not saying you're not going to save money. 10 basis points still is money. Um, but it's not like it's a half a percent or a whole percent. That's that's not what you're going to run into. But it is lower. Yes, ma'am. Did you get your answer for your question about what happens? >> We we have

254to work with the local government commission and get them to approve it. They'd have to approve a plan for us pretty much to build it in pieces honestly. That would be my guess. >> And that could in that could um most likely entail some kind of delay. >> Oh, it would it would be a delay. Yes, sir. There would be no doubt. and the price would go up. >> Yeah. Yes, sir. >> Yes, ma'am. >> I mean, Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. So, we have a motion um for the funding strategy uh to be on the November 2026 ballot uh for uh the voters of Union County to decide um on their support for public safety. All those in favor of the bond referendum say I. >> I. >> All those opposed. >> No.

255>> Okay. Bond referendum it is. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Okay. And I moved the short water line so we can >> I think that's >> Oh, we do need Okay. >> No, we did it already. >> Yeah, that's what I thought. >> Okay. It's been >> Yeah, this should be it. >> Okay. And then we um we're tableabling this one. Okay. So, I will now recognize the county manager for comments. >> Thank you. The the only thing I would like to say is um I appreciate the board's patience when we do our um our employee recognition and the awards. It's just a way for the staff to show you all the hard work that they put in and and we've got some really great staff and all our department. So, and

256I know sometimes it can make the meetings a little longer, but I do appreciate that you guys, you know, get to see them. You you you get to understand what they're doing and they like it. They like sh getting that recognition. So, thank you very much. >> Okay, now it's uh time for commissioner comments. I'm going to start down here with Commissioner Balkam. >> Thank you. Um, so far as recognizing the staff, I think that's just a great thing to do, >> you know. >> Yeah, recognition is nice for a job well done. So, um, and that's that's about it. I'm not going to say anything else because I want to go home. Commissioner Helms, >> it's late. Everybody wants to go home. No comments. >> So, I just want to thank everyone uh for

257being here tonight. We had a packed house and I regret that we did not get to recognize two Boy Scouts that were here earlier and this um so we do not know. Does anyone know what troop they were with? I'm sure they were here for um one of their merit badges uh for local government. Um mother of two Eagle Scouts. I hate that I did not get to meet them and recognize them, but um maybe they'd be willing to come back to another meeting. Maybe not quite as long, but or we could have a mock a mock meeting for them. But um did want to recognize um the Boy Scouts that were here tonight and all the other constituents. Um our incredible Union County Sheriff office. Love seeing you guys here. Brad from Wingut. Um

258I truly believe that Wingut is going to be our crowning jewel in the next few years. Um fully support you, fully support um Dr. Brown at Wingut University and the amazing things um programs that they're doing out there. So, I'm happy this worked out and um hope that it takes some of the burden off your shoulders to have such good uh deputies um take care of a a special community. So, thank you for being here tonight and Commissioner Helms. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, as always, I want to thank all of our uh speakers that showed up tonight. You know, your involvement is always appreciated. Um, so yeah, we we did have lots of participation tonight, but uh but you know what, that's a good thing. It's a good thing to see the passion

259uh from the residents that we represent. Um I I I would just offer a suggestion to those that um that came to us tonight um regarding animal welfare. Um I I want to stress that you know the county is a very different place than municipalities. Um and the majority of the population that that is in our county actually resides in the municipalities. Uh so probably about 68%. Um we are certainly you know open to having conversations um you know with any of the folks that we represent. But I would also encourage the the folks that were here tonight to reach out to your municipal leaders as well um and voice those concerns uh with the the other municipalities in the county. Um as for Miss Mullis who spoke tonight, um I hope that tonight uh

260expedites getting water in your sink. Um because that really stuck with me during the comments and I want to let her know that I appreciate what she had to say. Um we had lots of uh good stuff tonight. But it's been a long meeting. So with that, thank you all for uh for being here. Uh staff has as always, you know, done a great job for us. U for the sheriff's office folks back there. You guys have had a long meeting too. So we really really appreciate your participation too. So thank you and good night. >> Commissioner Sides. >> Thank you everyone for coming out and I wish you bid you a good evening. >> Okay. Make a motion that we adjourn. All in favor? >> Good night.