Board of County Commissioners | Regular Meeting | June 16, 2025

001No, it's just Greetings everyone. Everyone, welcome. Um, I'd like to call the June 16th, 2025 regular meeting of the Union County Board of Commissioners to order. At this time, I would like to recognize Commissioner Gary Sides for the invocation. If you would bow your heads, dear and merciful Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to come together tonight to make decisions for the wonderful people of Union County. Watch over us and watch over your people of Israel. as they defend themselves from the forces of evil and darkness. Thank you for all your many blessings. We humbly beseech thee in the name of your son. Amen. Everyone will please stand for the pledge. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with

002liberty and justice for all. The next item on the agenda is informal comments from the community. We do have some list um for that and we will start with the ones that signed up online. So we'll um this is so we so we will start with um the first we've got the first person here. Let me read this statement real quick. We will recognize the speeders speakers speeders signed for informal comments. 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 indicating the municipality within which they reside if any. 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.

003Speakers may not discuss matters which 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 leave written comments and/or supporting documents, if any, with the clerk to the board. The first person who signed up online is Jessica Lee. Okay, it does not appear that Jessica is with us tonight. So that will take us to Kelly O'Neal. The next person who signed up online is Tina Sykes Mosley. Okay, that will bring us to the people who signed up in person. And the first speaker is Reagan Shaw. Good evening. My name is Reagan Shaw and

004I'm a UCPS parent. So, this budget um Gary, we have certainly had our differences in the past, but we could at least agree that our public school teachers and certified staff need to get paid properly. Yeah, agree on that. Um their salaries are bottom of the barrel in the rankings. It's pretty pathetic. So, here it is. The time to decide if you're going to pay teachers here at the local level. If you approve this budget, you haven't given UCPS enough money to give teachers even a tiny pay rise. The other items, the additional funding package, as Mrs. Mclam explained it to us, uh funding for two extra nurses, a modest reorganization of the EC um to meet urgent needs, an extra months admin to cover the change from P school to infinity or whatever it's

005called. Um, it doesn't seem like these are things that can be cut either. So, how are we going to give teachers any kind of raise with that those figures? It doesn't seem like we'll be able to. Fort Mill's starting salary, as far as I can see, for teachers is 50,000. Um, why can't our teachers at least make that? There was so much energy in this room against SB 205 or HB765, whatever the iteration is. Um, you were going to primary anyone who voted against it. you're going to issue resolutions, all this kind of energy. Where is that energy to get our public school teachers and certified staff paid properly? If you claim to love our teachers, but you won't pay them properly, you're just being phony. You couldn't care less about our public schools. If

006you won't get our staff paid, please don't pass this budget. Lastly, we have lost too many youth in Union County to gun violence. Please speak out against the concealed carry for 18 year olds. We will lose more kids in this county if this is allowed to become law. Thank you. The next speaker is Randy D. Good evening. God bless you. My name is Randy Down. My family and I live in Union County, Wesley Chapel, and um I have the honor to serve in law enforcement um as a sworn police officer. I work in Union County, but at a smaller department, which is not the sheriff's department. Uh my reason to speak before you all tonight, and I appreciate the opportunity um is in response to Gary's um comment, Commissioner Gary's comment from May 19th. Um,

007I just read part of it that you want to again state um your determination that staff working with the sheriff's department to determine that we have what we have to do to curb their attrition rate and we cannot afford to lose uh good people and you go on with that and I'm with you 100% brother. Um, obviously you're talking about employee turnover and quite honestly out of all transparency and hopefully the uh sheriff back there and deputy chief underwood can hear me on this one. Um, I would greatly welcome the opportunity to work at Union County Sheriff's Department. Um, deputies I've talked to, they absolutely love it and I have great dearly respect and I it's an honor for my family and I to have them as our um, sheriff's department. If I was ever

008graced uh, with that opportunity, my preference would be as an SRO versus a patrol deputy, mostly because of the rotating shifts that they work as many of them switch every 30 days from dayshift to night shift. Um for me personally, rotating shifts would keep me from serving as a deputy with them. Um the many challenges even even personally uh but also long-term impact of shift work on health and well-being. Um I talked to deputies and that is a challenge for them as well. you know there's documentation and I'm not here to um um share with all all that in my time but obviously there can be increase of cancer uh cardiovascular heart disease um uh gastrial disorders mental health disorders um obesity type D diabetes and things like that and this certainly by no means

009is a slam or criticism against the sheriff or his department by any sh by any means every department is ran a certain way Um, one thing I heard of the rotating shift is because of the court system in the sense that it's a lot easier to schedule for all off deputies when they work in dayshift at 9:00. Um, I've had the opportunity in the past to work in Mech County. One of the things they do obviously they schedule the officers for afternoon court perhaps going um going from rotating shifts to permanent shift uh uh in uni county would be have something to have a conversation about. So Gary, respectfully, sir, um that's one of my things that I'm just bringing up is that perhaps um that can be more more appealing to deputies or those

010that are seeking employment with the sheriff's department to draw them there, but also keep them there because obviously there's been a lot of conversation about pay and that's and and other factors. But for me personally, I'm just speaking for myself, that's a big factor for me as uh in regards to the rotating shift. Thank you for your time. God bless you. The next two items on our agenda are public hearings for reszonings. Before opening the p the first public hearing, I will read the rules that apply to members of the public for both of these public hearings. Each speaker must address the board from the lectern and begin their remarks by giving their name, stating whether they are residents in Union County, and indicating the municipality within which they reside, if any. Each speaker will

011have 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 shall limit their remarks to the subject of the public hearing only. Speakers may leave written comments and or supporting documents, if any, with the clerk to the board. The first public hearing is item 25-365 for conditional resoning 2025 CZ00002. Gordon. I will open the public hearing and recognize Bejorn Hansen, senior planner for comments from the county. Madam Chair, are you you able to see it on your screen? Okay, we'll go ahead then. Uh, good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, Manager Matthews. This is a conditional reszoning 2025-CZ-002 Gordon for the name of the applicant. This is a request to reszone a portion of a parcel

012in the Jackson Township on Mary Elizabeth Church Road. This is um from RA40 to light industrial to allow an existing legal non-conforming um automobile manufactur or automobile repair and maintenance facility to um expand beyond the legal non-conforming portion. The site plan is shown here. This is on Mary Elizabeth Church Road. The portion that would be reszoned is the front portion shown as proposed lot two. it would be subdivided out. The parcel actually goes around there's a a connector piece that goes over to the house that's off the map and the uh area that would be reszoned is is really for storage. This would be graveled. Um potential future building here for um material storage and for um service work. Existing conditions, you see some vehicle storage on there. That's for the legal non-conforming portion that's

013been in existence for uh approximately a decade. Um you can see north and south of Mary Elizabeth Church Road. So a large lot residential area is a church across the street. On the opposite side is the existing um actual facility where the maintenance work is done. This is also legal non-conforming. Terms of development status, there are large areas that are undeveloped, but there are a fair number of homes along Mary Elizabeth Church Road. Environmental features, this includes the aerial, there are a couple man-made ponds in the back of the property. One of them would be used for storm water purposes. So, you'd have this uh cleared area draining back. This uh cleared area is from a couple years ago and it shows the extent of the disturbance which resulted in the uh code violation issue

014that motivated the resoning. So this area that I have the cursor over right here is allowed to exist regardless of the resoning decision because it's been in existence for um longer than the state um requires for allowing a legal non-conforming use to um occur. But the area to the south was cleared in the last couple years. And so that's really the area you're talking about for the reszoning. Terms of the zoning in the area, it's all RA40. Transportation relatively low volume area. Potter and uh Tom Starns have approximately 12-300 vehicles per day. There's no traffic count established for Mary Elizabeth Church Road. Then there's no funded projects in the area. Land use plan. This all calls for rural residential which is approximately one acre lots and agricultural uses because it's commercial in nature. The school

015system was not consulted and water and sewer are not available to the site. So they'd utilize well and septic community meeting was held in April with one attendee. They just had questions about the proposed use and what would happen if it were reszoned. Could additional uses occur on site. We explained that with a conditional resoning, you're limited to the site plan and the conditions associated with it. We did have one other resident submit written comments opposing it due to concerns over appearance if they were to sell their their home in the future. And two uh residents spoke at the land use board meeting last month. One was for and one was against. We traditionally consult the nearby municipalities, but Waxaw was too far away to be um considered for outreach. So, in terms of the

016positives and negatives, it it's identified as in terms of negatives, this is rural residential, and this proposed light industrial designation. It's not consistent with the land use map. Uh could motivate future resonings for other industrial uses inconsistent with the plan. And the reasonzoning is in is in response to a zoning violation and the proposed use is several times larger than what they're allowed to do with the legal non-conforming portion in order to um accommodate all the area that was recently cleared. The positives are that there is a legal non-conforming portion of the business across the street. So, it's part of an existing business. It would not create a significant traffic impact because the operations are already in existence. It would increase business opportunities for uni county residents and their site plan has gone through our

017review process and can't meet our standards. Um, however, we recommended denial. The planning board had a a fairly robust discussion about this with the positives and negatives and um, they ultimately voted denial on a very split vote, four to three. So, I am happy to answer any questions that you may have. The applicant is also here with additional information. I would like for the applicant to step forward, please. Thank you for your help, Madam Gordon. Thank you for your time. Union County resident, Jackson Township. Thank you for your time. So, Mr. Gordon, who is your primary customer base? everybody, the general public, the community. Um, I primarily work on daily drivers, the the vehicles that you guys would use to commute to and from your jobs wherever you're going. Um, that's that's my primary. Um,

018my my shop is at my parents house. It's a a 40 by 40 with a two 10 foot tall door. So, I'm I'm pretty limited to what I can and can't do. Um, however, I occasionally will work on some medium and heavy duty vehicles, but those vehicles belong to my my local community, my owner's operators that live in our community, our farmers. Um, what I'm able to do to these vehicles because of my facility is is small, is very limited. It's basically just the stuff that will get them going, you know, save them a tow bill, get them a little longer on what they have. Minor repairs, you know, simple stuff. I don't have the facility to put a big truck in my shop and tear it down. But I do have the resources to

019to do emissions equipment repairs to get a a farmer, you know, from being back to field or or vice versa. Um local owner operators. There's one that lives on our our street um two, three driveways down. He's he's owner operator. I do very little for him. I can't offer him a lot because again, my facility is small, but we try to help our community and everybody that we can. Um but our primary business is you know smaller everyday vehicles that like say everybody would would drive but not limited to those vehicles. Okay. Are there any other questions? Commissioner Helms. Um, one of the my questions is how many vehicles do you have there that are sitting there um that the owners have not claimed that they're taking up space, if you will, because everybody's seen

020the yards where there's 50 vehicles that are not tagged that are just sitting there that are creating an eyesore to the community. If I may, a quick backstory. Originally all the land on that side of the road belonged to my great uncle. When he passed away, it was split up into thirds. The area that I'm the legal non-conforming that was grandfathered in, if you will, when previously all that land was planted in in pines for harvest uh before they sold the land and developed half and and so what they did, they came in and they cut everything to the right hand side of the property. They cleared it for development and in that center section which I own. They came in and they thinned it. That lot that I am have been using for for

021years is where they set up their equipment. They stumped it and and that's where they had their operations in and out to while they logged it. So we didn't clear that. We just once I purchased the land, we took advantage of that clearing. Now fast forward again, that land was planted in pines. Um I bought the land in 2013. I built the the small house that you can see on it and uh my wife and I live there. She's pregnant now with our fifth. So, a couple years ago, we had to sell that house and we built a house next door. That's why it's subdivided the way it is. Um during that process, I had to contact the uh the US Forest Service. The pine started to die and I mean it was very rapid.

022So, I had them come out and look and uh an agent said we had pine beetles and we had no choice. You got to got to cut them out. He helped me find somebody to harvest what little bit I had. And then just while we were doing the grading on the house site, I had him go ahead and stump everything while he was there to clean up the mess. Um, COVID came and we we've always been really good about getting a vehicle in and getting it out. When when COVID came, the the parts industry just went berserk. It took forever to get stuff. Um, and so we started utilizing that area. uh there were there were some times where I mean it was it was months lead time on back order before we get get

023parts and so the picture you see in the complaint that there were several vehicles that had to to sit there for a lengthy amount of time now that's not the case now I will say I don't feel like the parts industry has recovered you used to I can make one phone call get a part basically that day or the next day some things are a week out so occasionally vehicles will sit there for a week but nothing there is is unclaimed everything you know we don't do junkyard or like restorations. It's it's your vehicle breaks down, you call me. I'll fix it and get it back to you as quickly as I can. Are there any vehicles there now? No. Oh, sorry. How many vehicles are sitting there now that haven't been picked that you're

024not currently working on? Everything that's there now is currently being worked on. Whether it's it's waiting on a partner, there are two there now that if school just got out, so they arranged to bring a vehicle, drop it off, get some work done while they're on vacation. So, but nothing longterm is there. We just that's most of the things we do we you know it's fixable. Um Commissioner Helms. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh so Mr. Gordon. Yeah. Yes, sir. Um so how many employees do you have at your shop? Uh precoid I had two. Now I've got three full-time guys on the weekends. Um I've got two to three part-time guys that will come and help me get some things done. Okay. Thank you. Um Commissioner Sides, I'm sorry I couldn't see from the um

025u pictures. Is the property fenced? No, sir. It's It's not fenced. There is a pretty extensive row of hedge if if I may. Can I can I use this real quick? I'll Yeah, I stole some images from Google Maps. Um let's see. I think this is going to work. I'm sorry. That's okay. That's okay. Go ahead. You want Does it matter which one of these I use to try success? Um this is a video that I took from Google images. You can see, let me see if I can pause it real quick. The cursor is right in the way right here. When I hit play, you should see where it was. It this this was taken in November of 24. So, you can obviously still see there's some leaves, but the majority of those have

026gone. And so, like I say, this is just kind of scrolling through, and you can see um a little bit. Now, this is the thinnest part of that that hedge that we left um when it was was cut. And then obviously the site plan, I didn't realize when I made a site plan that was required, but I'm I'm obviously I opted to put in a natural hedge because I felt like it was less invasive than a fence, but a natural hedge all around. I don't want my neighbors I don't want to see it. I mean, I understand I understand their complaint. It's just unfortunately I don't want to say unfortunately because fortunately we've gotten busier and and we could use and take advantage of this. Some of my parts are come on freight trucks. Obviously,

027my driveway is too small. They can't get in my shop driveway. So here lately we've been having to unload at the road. This expansion will allow the freight trucks to be able to pull in and me to unload safely from there. Some vehicles that get recorded in we we can get in the parking lot, but some of them we've had to unload roadside. So this expansion would obviously free up the road area, make it a little safer as well. Um service. No. No sir. No. No sir. Right. Yep. Yes, sir. No, sir. No, I did. Um, I hope my parents live forever and I'm able to use this shop as forever. Um, you will notice on the site plan, I did propose a building in this area just in case something happens and they decide

028to sell. And I mean I I don't want to lose my business. Obviously I don't want to have to split and say, "Oh, you can buy this house, but I need access to this shop and right away to your driveway." So I did include that just but even even that if you look at it's not big enough for for tractor trailer tractor trailer repair. The the land use board I think had an issue with I wouldn't necessarily tell them I I wouldn't agree to not work on medium heavy duty equipment, but it's just I don't do tractors. be, you know, it's not, but again, I don't want to be limited not being able to help neighbors the I do harvest season comes. I do a lot for for farmers. Um, more of so is on

029the road in the field, but you know, there is an occasional time where they'll have to bring something in that parking lot. I'll change a part for them, hook my computer to them, and send them out. So, I didn't want to be limited to that. Um, any other questions? Okay. Okay, thank you very much for being here to answer those questions. Thank you for the opportunity and the time. Um, Michelle Brunette and I apologize. I'm naturally kind of loud. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. Um, and I am a 35 year resident of Union County. I bought the 13 acres on the Potter roadside of Mr. Gordon 23 years ago. I've been concerned about his property use for the last five years, but I did not report or complain because I didn't want to cause

030trouble for my neighbor. I respect his right to operate a business. And his father had been there forever. He was there before we moved in, before I bought my property. So, that was great. Fine. I'm here now because resoning is permanent. It's forever. Um, once it's done, it's done. Mr. Gordon currently has a variance or exception where he is allowed to use a half acre for business, but he regularly exceeds that. I own 13 acres. I know what a half acre looks like. So his storage frequently he's already violating the agreement he's supposed to be operating under. At the May land use meeting, it was obvious that the board really wanted to approve his request for reszoning with the condition that he not service or park the trailer portion of tractor trailer units because of

031the potential damage to the nearby roads. Mr. Gordon argued he wouldn't do that anyway because his soil and parking area would not support the weight. Last week for sure he definitely had a full-size tanker truck, not a little septic truck, but a full-size tanker parked on the property for about 10 days. Um, and the thing about I'm sorry, family daily driver vehicles. No, these are cherry pickers. They're larger vehicles parked on that property like the big 350 things. Big panel trucks like Duke Power uses. Um large box trucks. They're they're not daily drivers. Um I live next door. I see it. I drive by it frequently. Um, so here is my question and I am the one that sent the letter regarding the property values. I am very concerned about my property value. It is

032an eyesore and when my property was listed that was the first thing everybody asked my realtor because it was so visible from her aerials um was what is that next door? Okay. Second, uh, the other thing is I question whether there is anything to stop him. Am I all done? I got one more sentence here. Two more. Anything to stop him from filling in the current pond areas and using the full 2.6 6 acres for tractor trailer storage because that seems to be since he argued against that one condition, that really seems to be where he's headed. So my question, if he had applied for this reasonzoning five years ago before he cleared, graded, graveled, and started using the parcel for light industrial, would y'all have granted the reasonzoning back then? if it was not

033I mean if he came to you five years ago when it was still heavily wooded and all in pine trees and said I want to go light industrial and that's all I have to say and I thank you for your time can I address No I'm afraid not Okay, I will now close this public hearing. The next public hearing on our agenda is item 25-366 for conditional reasonzoning 2024-Z-011 Union Landscaping. I will open the public hearing and again recognize Bejorn Hansen for comments from county staff. Evening again, Madam Chair, members of the board, Manager Matthews. This is a second conditional resoning request to address a um code violation. This is in the Monroe Township near the airport. It's to reszone a single parcel of approximately 2.4 4 acres from RA20 to RA40. Uh this includes

034a um special use permit for the um total list of uses that are being proposed because it's a greenhouse plus a landscaping business. There's a site plan that goes along with this proposal. It is on Sanford Lane. Um when you see the aerials, you see that these uses are essentially already all all in um existence. You have two driveways that are gated. You have a pond which is used for storm water. Um it's a nursery area on the east and south. Then the middle is graveled with a lot of parking for vehicles and the like. You can see from the photos that the business is in operation, mainly single family residential surrounding the site, although there are large areas of uh industrial that I'll show you on the zoning map. Monroe is immediately to the

035north. They did not have comments or concerns about this proposed reszoning. Gold mine is immediately to the north. an airport. So, the airport is up here as well. Terms of development status, subdivision to the south, um single family residential, there's a church down the street, and then to the north it's um largely vacant, undeveloped yet. Terms of environmental features, there's a stream with flood plane to the west. There is a natural gas pipeline uh on the western edge of the property. you can see where it's cleared, but u none of those features are on the site itself. Terms of zoning, you can see the light industrial zoning immediately to the west and to the north. These were approved in the last 20 years. And then uh RA20 for the remainder of the property in the

036area. Terms of transportation, Sanford Lane is approximately 1400 vehicles per day. gold mines uh nearly 6,000 per day. There's no funded road improvements in the area and no improvements are required as a part of this site. Terms of the land use plan, it's it's kind of messy. There is a employment center dot on the map. It's it's a large circle and it technically is immediately adjacent, but that implies some precision that that isn't really there. It's a employment center which is focused around the airport and um single family residential to the south which means with utilities approximately two units per acre which is similar to the existing zoning that's in place and the gray area is Monroe. So we obviously don't do land use planning for them. Again because this was a commercial proposal the

037school system was not consulted. Um this would utilize well and septic service. Community meeting was held in early May. Two attendees, they were supportive of the proposal and didn't have any concerns. No changes were made. No one spoke against this at the May land use board meeting. And again, Monroe didn't have any comments. The applicants are here as well to answer any questions that you may have. Otherwise, I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Do you have any questions? Land use board uh recommended approval. Yep. I should get to that last slide. Thank you, manager Matthews. Um yeah, thank you. So, we we're recommending approval. Planning board recommended approval. Uh the negatives are that this is single family residential and the uses are commercial and that it could facilitate additional resonings of

038a similar nature. However, uh the greenhouse has been in existence for many years. It's the landscaping business that caused the issue. This wouldn't create a significant traffic impact. Uh it's on the edge of an employment center. Realistically, it's influenced by that commercial center designation due to the two resonings that this body approved in the last 20 years. It would increase business opportunities and the site plan can meet our standards. Is the applicant here and would like to speak? Hi, welcome. You can have landscaping. Thank you very much for being here tonight. Um, if you have anything you would like to say, um, up to 15 minutes or less. Hi, I'm the wife. My name is Adriana. Thank you for your time. I was just um have a question and since we are don't have any

039problems, we are everything's going on well. Is there a possible way that maybe we can wrap this up and I don't know need our approval? We have a lot of plans coming up. Yes, thank you. So, um it is typically the board's uh practice that you wait until the next meeting. However, we don't have another meeting in two weeks because this is our summer break. Our next meeting is not until July 14th. Um so, obviously that is about a month, a little over about a month away. Um you have in the past waved those rules when you've had no um opposition. So again, that is a board call. Uh but I wanted to make you aware of that. So um we if if we choose to do that, would um tonight um would we need

040to make that motion after everyone's had a chance to ask questions? You would need to make that motion this evening. Yes. To consider it at the end of the meeting. Um, and uh, you may have some other business that you need to consider as well prior to to amend the agenda and add it to business. Yes. Okay. Is there anything else you'd like to say tonight or you're good? Very good. We appreciate it. Wait, I have a question. How many employees do you have? Uh, 14. 14. Full time. for you. Yes. Yes, ma'am. Any part-time? We have one. One. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Well, thank you very much for being here tonight. Oh, we have one more question. Sorry. Um, thank you, Madam Chair. So, my my question is is, you know, would the addition of

041the hardscape um to your business? Would that, you know, potentially um add any additional employees to your business? Do you see any kind of growth opportunity there, you know, with this addition? We hope so. Probably like Yeah, probably like probably six more guys. Six. Did you say six? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Commissioner Balkcom, um I think I'll need to recuse myself from this vote as we do business with each other, so I probably need to step back. Okay. Thank you very much for that clarification. If Commissioner Balkam is requesting to be excused, that would be appropriate for the board to make a motion and to consider uh whether or not to recuse him from that vote. I make a motion to allow Commissioner Balk to recluse himself from this

042decision. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. I. Okay. You can step out. Thank you very much. Um, hold on. You actually, well, you you actually don't need to leave at this point. Uh, because well, first off, the agenda actually hasn't been adopted yet. And no, yes. Yeah. So, just want to clarify, we haven't gotten to this actual item. Okay. Good. Good. Good. Okay. I wouldn't let him use the bathroom earlier. So, I'm trying to figure out. Okay. We did not have anyone sign up to speak on this particular reasonzoning. Is there anyone here tonight that wishes to speak? I will if it if it Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead and close it. Okay. I will now close the public hearing. If if it please the chair, would this be appropriate time to make

043a motion to expedite the decision on this resoning item and add it to the agenda so that we can have a decision tonight. Um I think it I think it's certainly a a great um question. So when we get to the um approval of the um agenda and the consent, we can we can add it there if that's okay. Okay. Next on the agenda is item 25-338, presentation of the lifesaver award to five sheriff's office employees. I want to recognize deputy county manager Pat Patrick Nyl for this item. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh tonight, five deputies with the Union County Sheriff's Office are being awarded the Lifesaver Award for their quick and courageous actions. On Sunday, May 4th, uh 2025, members of the Baker Squad Patrol Division were enjoying breakfast at STAX restaurant in Waxhall

044when they alerted that a 78-year-old man was choking. The man was visibly struggling to breathe and the deputies immediately jumped into action. One deputy performed the Heimlick maneuver while the others coordinated the response, calling for EMS and fire assistance. Thanks to their fast and effective teamwork, the food was dislodged and the man was able to breathe on his own again. Because of the deputy swift response, the man made a full recovery and did not require hospitalization. The five deputies received are receiving the lifesaver award tonight. It's it's truly amazing to me how often we get to do these and how often our employees are in the right place at the right time. Uh I'm going to invite Sheriff Eddie Cathy up. I think he has a few words and then afterwards we're going to invite

045each deputy up and actually present the lifesaver award to him tonight. Usually we do this ahead of time and tonight we get to do it in real time. So sheriff, this is just a normal stuff for our agency. You know these they're out there every day. They're on 12-hour shifts and they're on 12 hours. No meal break, no thing. It's there every day. And I just I'm proud of them, but I'm I want you to know that this is their every day out there. So, just keep it in mind. Thank you. I'm going to invite each officer up and Liz, I think we're going to take a picture in front of the DH. Uh, Sergeant Corey Williams. Sergeant [Applause] Deputy Sarah Tucker, [Applause] Deputy Luke McCorder, [Applause] Deputy Nicholas Lala [Applause] and Deputy Ian Barlay.

046[Applause] Okay, thank you. [Applause] Look at everybody on that. Our next staff recognition item is 25-351 GFO certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting. I want to recognize Beverly Laws, our finance director, concerning this item. Good evening. Thank you, commissioners. It is my great pleasure to recognize our finance staff this evening for receiving the GFOA certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2024 in order for our staff and our financial report to actually receive this award each year. Um, this report has been judged by an impartial panel to determine that we have met the highest standards of the program, which includes demonstrating a constructive spirit of full disclosure to clearly communicate our financial story and motivate potential users and groups to read our report. This is

047the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting that can be attained. and it represents a significant accomplishment by our government, Union County, and our management and staff for the work that we do each year for our financial reporting. So, I have a few of my staff members here tonight to join us to receive this award. Um, if they would like to come forward, please. I have Miss Arew Kukro. She is our accounting services supervisor, our CPA that was on staff at the time that we actually did this report. She does a lot of hard work for this. We also have uh Brady Chapen who is our payroll accountant here with us tonight and Mr. John Buchanan, our assistant finance director. Um several of our staff could not make it

048tonight but um we have 11 staff in total. There's a lot of hard work that goes into this and we'd like to recognize these individuals tonight. [Applause] Now is time for consideration of the agenda and consent agenda. Are there any motions regarding requested revisions or amendments to either the consent agenda or the business agenda? Commissioner Helms. I would like to make a motion that the board add a consideration of the item concerning a opposition of Senate Bill 205 to the business portion of the agenda. Please. Okay. Are there any other U commissioner sides? Uh, Madam Chair, would this be the appropriate time to add the consideration of the resoning request to expedite the move for the gentleman on the landscaping business? I don't have the number of that right in front of me, but um

049um added to the business portion of the agenda. Are there any other changes? Commissioner Helms. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I would make a motion that we for item uh 25-389 related to the uh dissolution of the Monroe Union Economic Development Commission. Um, I'd like to make the motion that that be removed from consent agenda for further consideration. Okay, busy night. Anything else? Okay. All those in favor of the changes as stated say I. I. I. We are now at the business portion of our agenda. Consent agenda. Madam chair. Oh. Um I I believe we're going to need a motion to approve the the consent agenda and uh and I'll make that motion that we approve that consent agenda as amended. Okay. Very good. All those in favor say I. I very good and that's

050this one right that one. Okay. We are now at the business portion of the agenda. The first item of business is item 25-367 the uh fiscal year 2026 budget adoption. I want to recognize county manager Brian Matthews concerning this item. Thank you madam chair. So, at the uh previous meeting in June and we had the public hearing for the um proposed FY26 budget, um I just want to go over just a few things just so that we have that information. You do have a copy of the draft budget ordinance um that was in your packet. Um overall, we are recommending a tax rate of 43.42 cents on the 100. That is broken out a number of ways. I'll just say that just so we have that for the public. Um there would be a portion

051of.1124. Uh this would be for let's see county Texas. I'm sorry I'm trying to get my notes. Section three. Yep. Section three. Um you also have uh of tax for our county debt service. you would have. 2678 uh would be for our education tax and that is for all education partners. Um then you would have 0389 for education debt service and then finally 0.0045 which is our economic development debt service tax. All those added together would come up with the rate of 43.42. Um the budget overall of all funds is $620,330,01. That is all funds. That is every single thing that we have. That's your um your enterprise funds as well as education, general government, all added together. I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have about the the proposed budget. Thank you.

052Are there any questions, comments? Commissioner don't have to go first, but Commissioner sides. Okay, I guess I uh Mr. Manager, I understand there are have been discussions with the sheriff's department. One of the concerns I have that hopefully is addressed in this budget are the current vacant positions in law enforcement in our county which I understand latest numbers I have around 19 and this not only of course there are legitimate retirements uh folks ready to move on to the next phase of their life which I certainly understand but also a number that we are losing to other uh service units including some municipalities within our county. And I have concerns and uh I hope that you can allay the concern that sufficient resources are being devoted to renumeration pay etc for law enforcement so that

053we can address not only these vacancies but uh opportunities moving forward to entice others to join Union County law enforcement. So, if you or other of staff could address uh what is included in this budget to address those concerns, I would appreciate it. Certainly. So in this budget and for all employees as well as the sheriff's office, there is a compensation adjustment for the sheriff's office specifically uh which equated to $1 $1 and a half per hour for all sworn officers, all sworn deputies. um al also as well as a 2.5% in cola increase which would occur in January of 2026. Now other employees within other departments it was a little different. That was a request by the sheriff's office to treat it in an hourly rate wage. It comes out to approximately about the

054same as the way we handled the other adjustments for uh deputies. I I do want to say that we have worked very hard with the sheriff's office to uh try to work within our revenues and expenses based on what we have to meet their request. It does not fully meet everything that they've asked for. Um and and without some other revenue source, we're not going to be able to fully meet what they've asked for. I am aware that the sheriff's office has made um another uh I would say request but another way for us to consider how to address this. We're not prepared to make any recommendations on how to accommodate that at this time. We're evaluating their request. We will come back to the board with options of how you might be able to

055take what is currently within the budget and slice it a different way to get to what they'd like to get to or at least close to it. Um I anticipate that will be in the July August time frame for us to bring that back to you for you to hear, see, give us some feedback on. Um, but unfortunately I I I think we've done our best to try and accommodate all departments with the revenue sources we have. And I assume that you work within the parameters of um the desire that our constituents and the and the board direction of um being revenue neutral and working within those parameters for all employees. Yes, ma'am. And I think I appreciate that you brought up the revenue neutral. Um I I do want to point out that the

056budget only increases revenue neutral based on the voter approved debt. That is the only increase that is recommended for this. All other department and expenses were based on revenue neutral rate. Um, so I appreciate you bringing that up, but yes, we had to work within that rate structure to be able to accommodate all of the um the needs of our departments. Thank you. Did you have Commissioner Helms? Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, yeah, ju just a couple comments, you know, since we brought up revenue neutral. Um, so so first of all, I I want everybody to understand that, you know, that's that's been our goal the whole time is to go revenue neutral. Um, at our last meeting, we had our public hearing and obviously the revenue neutral rate is 41.6 cents per $100 of

057assessed uh valuation. Um, you know, what we're looking at here is 43.4. So that represents a uh essentially 1.82 penny increase over revenue neutral. And um and and I want to just take a minute maybe to to explain why and sort of point out some things. So So first of all, we need to understand, you know, kind of how we got here and understand that the general obligation bonds that uh that the voters have seen over the last few years. Uh general obligation bonds are used by local governments when they want to finance capital projects such as schools or infrastructure, even parks. Um, and these bonds are essentially backed by the full faith and credit of the local government. Um, they are typically funded through tax increases. And so, in short, when you go to

058the ballot box and you vote for a bond, whether that's for, you know, education or something else, then you are essentially telling local government that you approve of the project and you also approve of the anticipated tax increase that comes along with it. And since 2022, the voters of Union County have had three of those. Um, so since 2022, we saw uh our first UCPS bond for Forest Hills and and that was a total project costes not including interest of 134,45,000 I believe. Um, in 2024, no, I'm sorry, in 20 also in 2022, we had SPCC bond for 32.7 million. Now understand these two bonds we had, you know, the voters were overwhelmingly for. So we had 53,164 voting for the Forest Hills bond, 32,000 and some change against. Uh for SPCC, well, we had

05947,04, 37,000 against. Um 2024, we had UCPS bond for East Union and then the Parkwood uh high school design. Uh that was a total of 39,425,000 and we had 69,000 voters for that and 56,000 and some change against. So that brings a a whole total here of over $200 million and that's not including interest. Now, what we saw before is we had sort of anticipated a 5.15 penny increase with all of that. Now, this is what the voters have told us that they're okay with it. They won't. So, 5.15 pennies. And, you know, our staff has worked diligently to try to get us as close to revenue neutral as what we can possibly get. and they have cut that tax implication in more than half down to 1.82. Um I you know listen I I

060would love for us to sit here and say that we're at 41.6 cents. Okay, but the truth of the matter is is that you know education is a cornerstone of our of our county and the voters have have told us that these projects are important. So this board has a due diligence, you know, to fund what the voters have approved. U we have done our dead level best to try to get this so that it is a minimal tax increase over revenue neutral. But you know, at the end of the day, um again, you know, this is a voter approved increase. Voter approved. So I just want to take a minute. Um, you know, my observation of this budget is is that this is an extremely tight budget. Um, there's not a whole lot of

061wiggle room here. And so I I I fully believe that staff has done the best job that they could with the direction that we gave them. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Okay. Somebody else have a comment? Oh, yeah. Commissioner Sods, I want to reiterate my comments regarding law enforcement and the needs in our county. We have watched recently certain areas of our country have witnessed destruction, defiance, and absolute disdain for law enforcement. And that does not happen in our county. But to sit here and without recourse vote on a budget which does not supply sufficient resources to law enforcement so that I can feel like we will address the current vacancies and the vacancies that will occur naturally through attrition. People move on, people retire, which I do not begrudge them. We all

062have a right to to move as we see. But as myself, a basic responsibility is the public safety and that to me is law enforcement. And I have seen, as we had an example tonight, of the the wonderful people, men and women of law enforcement doing their job, going into harm's way, not knowing what one day from the next will unfold. And to be satisfied with currently, and sheriff, if my figures are out of date, please uh correct me. currently nine open positions either those working in our jail, those working on patrol, etc. But to have those vacancies and to know that some of those vacancies have occurred because other services, other mun agencies, other municipalities within our own county are willing to provide the resources to hire our our county staff is unacceptable to

063In my mind, Union County sets the standard. We set the standard not only in performance, but we set the standard in what we will renumerate our law enforcement. And uh I will hold the manager to his assurances that this will be addressed by uh the next meeting next in July. It's not too late to do whatever adjustments are necessary. Correct. That's until we get ready to send the tax bills out. That is we have time. But my resolve, let me be be very very clear and of course I'm one of five and my my uh colleagues may not agree and that's the the way things things work but I am prepared and determined to offer whatever is necessary and if that is additional resources I will be glad to make that motion so that our

064law enforcement is fully funded and leads s the area in compensation and what other benefits are um can be provided in order to fully staff our positions in law enforcement from detention officers to those out on patrol to SRO's etc. To me, it is not negotiable to do whatever is necessary in order to provide the resources for these positions for these brave men and women that keep us safe. That are only thing that stand between us, our families, and the people out there that wish to do us harm. and at the very least my I see my duty as a county commissioner to back them up. So, I will wait to see what uh alternatives, what options the county manager will provide in uh a next meeting to address those concerns if I do not

065feel they are adequate and or that the manager says that they will require additional resources in order to implement. I will be in support of that effort. And again, it takes three to make things happen. That's that's the way the things work. But I just want to put that out there that my commitment to law enforcement is unwavering in doing whatever is necessary in order that we have a full complement of all the positions are filled. They have the supplies, the equipment they need, and the training they need. so that they can do their job. And I will look forward to the results of your um work, which I'm sure the sheriff will be more than happy to cooperate. And I have every confidence that you will leave no stone unturned to do what we

066can. And if the hard decision has to be made in order to fund those alternatives, I will be in complete support. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Size. Um, this question is for the county manager. So, you indicated earlier and we we've seen this in the binder and all the information we've been provided, but I'm not sure I've seen an answer to the question I have. So, here in commissioner sides, I I have two parts. Um, are there nine vacine current openings or 19? I think there were n 19 maybe the sheriff 19 and then one today is 20. Okay. So 20 vacancies. Um so my my second question is is when you were discussing the sheriff's budget and and you were reviewing that department and working together. Um, was it ever discussed what the tax

067increase would need to be um to be able to, you know, meet the sheriff's um, you know, budget request, right? So, I I don't know that we actually formally gave the sheriff uh, you know, hey, it's going to take two or three pennies. However, I will say that, you know, the original budget request from the sheriff's office was was significantly higher than what of course we funded it at and it would have yielded uh at least an additional penny increase in order to meet um his request. Um I don't know that I actually communicated that to him directly. Um but it would have yielded at least one penny additional to fund all of that. And today after the reval and and um and going to revenue neutral from where we were a year ago, a

068penny is approximately 6 million. 6 million. Yep. Okay. Is there any other information like do do you recall in your plan what what we will be able to meet in his request or how how much are we not meeting in his request? So it it and this is this is from memory. So if it's a little bit off uh I apologize. I I think that, you know, number one, I think the sheriff's office is is interested in getting your entrylevel positions, whether that be a a detention officer or whether it be an entry- level deputy, however, uh up to at least 60,000 starting salary. That is not what we pay at this point in time. I think it's around 57, a little over that is what we do. Um cover that as far as that

069amount. Um, and once you raise that, you also have to work worry about compression. Where is everyone else in relation to that? And that has its own impact as well as your nonsworn staff. What will we do with those? And so, we really have to evaluate h how can we possibly slice that and accommodate that in some way? Um, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that that can be done within the revenue sources that we have, right? So, we're that's why we're not prepared to make any recommendations to do anything today. Um, we're going to have to go and and look at that and talk to the sheriff's offices about, you know, what about some changes? You we do something here. Uh, and then bring to the board here are ways that

070we might can accommodate some, all whatever of their request and then you'll have to decide what you want to do from there. Uh, it's not a simple solution. There will be multiple moving parts to this. Do you feel comfortable that if the board chooses to um approve your recommendation tonight that will there be any room for you to make a recommendation after our a decision tonight? There will be. Now, it may not get the sheriff's office to everything they want. it may get them to, you know, a partial and and I think that's our goal is to say we can meet them partially and here's how we can meet them partially. Um, but it's it's about how do you accommodate it? What things do we give up in some places? How do we accommodate it?

071It's really about that. That's the complicated side of it. And the other alternative is a tax increase. other revenue sources, which our only main revenue source is a tax increase. Obviously, I'm not I'm not I don't think there's any cushions out there we can find a several million dollars off of. So, yes, ma'am. It would likely be a tax rate increase. Okay. Um, Commissioner Helms. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, u So, so again, circling back here, so the revenue neutral rate is 41.6. Uh the proposed budget is 43.4 two 44 43.42. Okay. 43.42. So So the overage over revenue neutral currently represents essentially the bonds that were Yes, sir. So So the the overage above revenue neutral is again what the voters have approved. Right. Now, the modeling that we've seen previously um is a

072typical, you know, annual increase for say a $450,000 home somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 to $82, something like that. Um any idea what another penny on top of the 1.82 would require? Just approximate numbers. We looking at a hundred bucks. We're looking at I'm going to get I'm going to This is a guess. I'm going to tell you that, you know, for an average home, they're probably going to see close to $100 total. Um because remember, we we said that this this rate is going to probably add another $80 to $90 for a $450,000 or so home. Um it's probably going to be somewhere in that 100 100 plus range if I had to guess. Could you put that in your spreadsheet when you We will we will we will give you the correct

073number once we actually do the math. My math may be wrong. I like your spreadsheet, but um we will we will try to give you that information. Um just ju just from my two cents here. Um yeah, I I have no problem in looking at it and seeing what we can do. Sure. Um I have no appetite for any additional increase other than what the voters have approved. Thank you, Commissioner Helms. Uh Commissioner Helms asked my question. So, thank you. Commissioner Sides, did you have anything? Did um you have anything? I uh also um understand everyone's concern and I will look forward to what you have back. Um Sheriff, this this may be a question that you can answer best. It's it's uh a question of attrition. In other words, losing law enforcement to other

074jurisdictions because they throw more money at them. But it's also handicaps us in not being a competitive player to entice the reverse the experienced trained professionals from another jurisdiction to come to Union County. So that is not only losing our good people that we train and have experience, but because we're not in the middle of the in the game from a renumeration standpoint, we have a harder time attracting those already trained and proven professionals. Is that is that a fair statement, Sheriff? Is that does that make it harder? Did you want to address that? What you what you said is right. Uh we don't have any place to have laterals anymore. We call them laterals from some other agency. Waxall stylings other agencies that are around. That's gone. we just don't have it. So when

075we lose officers, we're losing welltrained that we the county's paid for that are some of them are high paid officers that are are making good living and we lose them to Waxaw Stalins Cabaris County uh on a regular basis that we've already put the money in it, put the training in it. So what he said is right. I mean that's way way it works. Are is any of that attrition um to retirements as well? Oh yes. Oh yes. Not just losing them to another agency. It's not losing them. It's it's got retirements in it. Several of them have retired, moved on to their life as it is. about this. But what he asked about hiring trained officers, we can't find that anymore. We don't we're not getting any applicants from any place. Okay. And would

076you say that's due to compensate not being competitive from a compensation standpoint? It's all it's all due to money. Okay. Thank you, Sheriff C. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion for this board to adopt the FY2026. Uh Madame Chairman, we have had uh some offline discussions here about the nature of the motion that's or the action that's requested there. And if I could, I'd like to propose some additional language in that motion. Okay? It's not necessary for you to repeat it, but probably just to affirm what it is that I'm going to say here. Um, so adopt the fiscal year 2026 county manager proposed budget and adopt the budget ordinance and recommended tax rate. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to adopt the FY2026 county manager's proposed budget

077along with the budget ordinance and tax rate as recommended. Any discussion? Yes. Quick, I apologize. I don't mean to monopolize the conversation. Um, Mr. Manager, I believe that you um tonight because of the budget discussions have postponed the presentation by the strategic planning and innovation team until July. Is that correct? Yes, sir. That's correct. Okay. Um, I have some concerns about the uh, frankly the return on investment in that initiative, but I will withhold those concerns and any possible motion until the July meeting when those folks are here to defend themselves in person. Thank you, Commissioner Sods. I have made a note of that. A motion is on the floor. All those in favor of the motion say I. I. Okay. Very good. We have a budget. We have a budget. And we will circle

078back on those other conversations in July and August. Our next item on the agenda is 25-392 Union County Public Schools presentation on high dosage tutoring pro program. I would like to welcome and recognize superintendent of the year for the what is it southwest region. That is correct. Okay. We are happy to have you here tonight to speak on the high dosage tutoring program. Um, I will turn it over to you. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, commissioners. It's great to be in front of you this evening. I also want to say a big thank you to the Union County Board of Education for their leadership and support. I'm joined this evening by two of our high-ranking officials, Dr. Jonathan Tyson, who is our chief of school performance, as well as Dr. Susan Rogers, who

079is our assistant superintendent of academics. And tonight, uh, we bring good news about some critical work happening in Union County Public Schools. As a reminder, we are the highest performing large district in the state of North Carolina. We take a lot of pride in ensuring that our kids get a high quality education every day in a very safe environment. And recently, we have received a two-year evaluation summary from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Uh this this evaluation was commissioned by the North Carolina General Assembly as a way to measure post-pandemic recovery strategies as a best practice for school systems across North Carolina. And our model was selected. I'm going to go into the details a little bit, but basically this is a summary of that evaluation of our high dosage tutoring model.

080To give you some background, we began this initiative in 2017 to really support persistently low performing schools. When the pandemic hit, we knew we had to expand this model uh as a post-pandemic recovery strategy. The model itself actually came from work that I did when I was in Houston as a result of post Katrina uh refugee and recent uh newcomers that came into that district as a way to help them recover from learning loss from hurricane Katrina. Um we in 2020 from 2020 to 2024 we actually implemented two different models. One model was the original model that we started in 2017 known as the whole grade model. The second model what was called the targeted tutoring. So you had two different models being implemented at the same time and the evaluation and the research was

081which one is getting a better return on investment. Uh the reason we were doing this targeted approach was because we were very worried about staffing. We were worried coming out of the pandemic that we were not going to have enough tutors that were needed to apply the whole grade approach. 2022 this this study was commissioned by the general assembly and the current uh implementation from this past year is only the whole grade model and you're going to see why in just a minute. Little bit of background. This work is taking place in fourth and seventh grade. It is only in math. It is during the school day. Many school systems across the nation say they're doing high dosage tutoring, they'll do them after school. We do not. Uh we believe that we've got to capture

082our kids while they're physically in the building. Uh and so this is taking place every day for all students in grades four and seven and identified schools. This is a pullout model. What that means is during your math block or math time, uh, students are leaving the classroom and they're going to a dedicated tutor that they're assigned to in a 3:1 ratio. So, three students for every one tutor. Uh, and to be clear, this is not viewed as an intervention. This is not viewed as taking the place of something else. So, our students are not missing PE. They're not missing art. This is actually part of what we deem as core math instruction. If you were to walk into our schools when we were in session, uh you would see pictures that look like this.

083Uh we have uh students that are divided amongst different uh cubbies and classrooms where we have available space. Sometimes you'll see our media centers being utilized in this area with whiteboards that surround them, small group tables, and again that very small inclusive environment that is no more than a 3:1 ratio. The other important part about this that we're really proud of is this is not something that we purchased or got off the shelf. Our own staff, our teachers, our curriculum team, we built this from the ground zero back in 2017. The curriculum is ours. We provide the lessons to our tutors. It is very datadriven. Uh and it is consistent implementation across all the schools that are currently utilizing this approach. Uh this is also non-certified personnel. So these are not always licensed teachers. Uh

084these are individuals that uh can pass a math assessment that we created again back in 2017. Uh they have to be able to know math to teach math and to tutor math. That's really important. We do a very robust onboarding as well as uh mandatory monthly training for all of our tutors. Here are a few of the non-negotiables. We have a curriculum binder that all of our tutors use on a daily basis. We also ask all of our schools to identify what we call our champion. That is the support personnel for the tutoring initiative. They evaluate uh implementation efforts, progress monitoring, and then obviously you have to have a dedicated space for the tutoring to take place. It's 30 minutes per day. Again, uh we do not impact core instruction. And then we provide all

085the tutors with their materials and resources. So, here are some of the results pre- pandemic. What you'll see in the schools that we we that were implementing this, uh, we had about a 12% increase in students that were proficient uh, from 201617 to 2018-19. Uh, we sustained that student performance over a 2-year period. And during that time, four out of the six schools that were implementing this actually exited low performing status, which we are very proud of. the pandemic hits and then everyone takes a little bit of a step back and we try to regroup. Uh this is what it looked like in seventh grade. We had a more significant jump in our middle grades uh going from 36% proficient to 62% in schools that were identified. So clearly before this evaluation was even commissioned,

086we knew we were getting a high return on investment in terms of getting more kids academically prepared for the next grade level. post pandemic. So for 2021 22 22 23 23 24 remember our our accountability data has not come out yet from this past year. What you'll notice here is we had a sharp increase for the two years that we were in a different kind of educational environment. Heavy rebound in 22 23 when everyone was back face toface and then we had a little bit of a dip. The reason for that dip was remember we were implementing two models right we were implementing this targeted model which was identifying kids based on an EOG score so not everyone in fourth and seventh grade but then in some schools we were implementing the whole grade model

087uh I will tell you this we firmly expect from this past school year where we've only done the whole grade model we will see that line go up significantly we believe and this is seventh th grade little bit of a better picture. Continuing to s to see sustained improvements over time and again based on this past year's accountability scores we project that to be sustained if not improved upon. So again uh and all of you received a copy of this report that I sent to you. Here's basically what the evaluator said. There were five findings. I'm not going to read all of this uh but number one the impact of the whole grade model was was robust. A year ago, I sent you the interim qualitative report that basically said, "What you're doing is great,

088but you're not getting as much return on investment as the targeted approach." And that's why we stopped doing that this past school year is because we knew the whole grade model was working much more successfully. We weren't getting the ROI we needed. So, this past year was only whole grade, similar to what we were doing post or pre- pandemic. Uh number three, uh the effects of the tutoring program were concentrated in the students that were at or below grade level. So while all students were making progress, those that were at or above grade level were making even more significant progress. The fourth finding uh we students with exceptionalities, those that were receiving our EC services did not benefit. We would expect that to a degree because our exceptionally children's uh students they are actually served

089also by an individual education plan. Uh so there are other interventions that take place for those students on top of these uh of the tutoring. And finally uh really important it was cost-effective. It proved to be compared to other interventions this model was was extremely cost-effective. So this is kind of the researchers findings. What does that mean in layman's terms? So, take a look at the first bullet. Uh to summarize this, what this first bullet means is on average, students who were uh in our tutoring program in identified schools and grade levels on average gained a 12 percentile point increase in their math proficiency from one year to the next. And that effect is similar to national studies that have been done such as the Tennessee class size experiment. And really important for us and

090for our schools is the effects and the impact are not just about fourth grade. These are students that are carrying that achievement over into fifth grade and they're not regressing or declining their performance. The other part about it which I mentioned is it was cost effective. uh that when you look at our cost-effective ratios uh they are either comparable or superior to many other interventions that are more costly such as extending the school day, increasing salaries, class size reduction. So what we're getting is a high return on investment for sure. And lastly, so where do we go from here? Uh this is a national model that we believe uh is replicable in any school system in North Carolina, but it takes uh leadership. It takes decision-m and it takes alignment with your priorities. We are

091preparing in the future to continue our whole grade approach in the schools that are receiving this. Um we hope to sustain this. You all have helped bridge that sustainability with funding from this past year which has allowed uh funds to go to schools that we believe will hopefully exit low performing status at the end or at the end of this year. Uh and then I will take note that we have been advocating now for years at the state level for our local delegation to allocate funds in a state budget of recurring dollars to help support these efforts and to say to other school systems, if you want to learn or implement, we're willing to give you the curriculum to help train your teachers, come see us, but we need the funding to do that. Uh

092and so I would ask that you help partner with us and our school board on advocating uh for our house budget and senate budget during negotiations that that allocation be placed and remain. Again, I thank you for your support. We're very proud of this. Uh very proud of the work of our teachers, our school leaders, our tutors. Uh this is a total team effort that you know the bottom line is we've always believed that this strategy was making a difference. We now have the research to back the fact that this is working and is impacting students across all of our schools. We're happy to take any questions or comments and I thank you for the time. Thank you, Dr. Hulahan. Does anyone have any questions? Commissioner Sods, I have a question. When are we going

093to get a tour of Forest Hills in East Elementary? We are working on a ground or sorry, a ribbon uh cutting ceremony. Hopefully that will take place in August. But we are on schedule to open those doors on day one in August. So, Dr. Hulahan, back to the presentation tonight. First kudos to everyone um that has supported you over the last several years, especially since 2017 when you introduced um this tutoring um model and you targeted, you know, certain grades, you know, to make sure that an elementary student would would be better prepared in middle and that a middle school student would be better prepared in high school. Um and and the statistics for our graduation rate um in Union County, I believe were the best in North Carolina. Yes, number one last year. And

094um so you know clearly these models are working and you know again that you know that's um many thanks to our tutors, our um our teachers, our parents at home and forcing their children to do what it takes to improve at school. So, you know, it takes everyone. But while you were, you know, doing this here in Union County, and it clearly caught attention because they asked you to come speak in the general assembly a couple of years ago and ask you a lot of questions, you know, how did, you know, was it four schools come out of low performing? Um, did the state help um incentivize Union County to be able to do um you know this testing to figure out which model worked best? Did the did the state offer the school system

095anything to help um continue this so they could get the data? So the funding from the state came directly to the evaluation team from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm not sure and Dr. Tyson may answer this question. And I'm not sure if the school system received any funds as well on that piece. I don't believe we did, but I may be wrong. We did not. We did not. He says it went straight to the to the university. Uh and so to this point, from the very beginning to now, uh this model is only utilizing local funding or where we can use state funding uh in some of our schools that are called restart, which gives funding flexibility. They have the ability to use the money they way they want. they the

096way they want similar to a charter but there is no not been another appropriation to the school system and there wasn't a grant that was given to you to do this study no so basically we can thank the Union County taxpayers for helping improve the education outcomes for our students the funding for this study has always been local funding uh and or state funding through other sources but there has not been an appropriation of state funds directly to the school system for this. Did you have any questions? Oh, uh, Commissioner Helms. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, Dr. Hulan, Ju, just a quick comment. So, first of all, thank you for being here. Um, you know, many of us have long supported this program and certainly appreciate yours as well as all your staff's efforts in

097making this happen. Um just my personal opinion is is that this tutoring program um is delivered results and uh this should be an example to our state lawmakers that even a small investment um in programs like this can offer huge returns um as your study has proven. Um one other comment that I'll make is is that the effects of this tutoring program go way beyond the numbers that you showed us here. That's correct. um the the effects of this tutoring program uh well is is personal relationships. Um I know that I've seen, you know, those relationships firsthand um in UCPS schools. Um I've seen children go up and and hug tutors. I've I've seen children go up and thank their tutors uh when they got an increased score on their EOG. Um and so it

098has made a difference in more than one way. And so I more than happy to uh to support this in any which any way that I can. Um including, you know, urging our our uh state legislators to to help us out. Thank you. But but thank you very much, Commissioner Helms. Uh thank you for being here, Dr. Hulan. Uh when you get this year's number, would you please pass it on to us? Absolutely. We'll be glad to update this PowerPoint deck and with the additional information and let you know. Y and I want to um if you haven't already, I'd love for this presentation um to be sent to us um you know because there was a dollar figure I don't know if you want to go back but it was um the dollar figure

099per pupil so an annual cost and and if I'm not mistaken you in the presentation at those at those spec chosen schools um this was for every student in fourth fourth grade that it wasn't just you know you know a percentage of students. It was every student in fourth and every student in seventh. So, no one student feels, you know, pointed out or they got pulled out or everyone's getting it's now become a uh several conversations we have of them now when they're in fifth grade or eighth grade is where's my tutor? Like, when's my time for my tutoring? And I equate that to to golf in a way that even the best PGA tour players have a golf coach. Like, this is about coaching and helping you get better. It's not about uh what

100you can or can't do. I like that. So when you when Union County Public Schools um releases their per pupil expenditure, is that in there? Um and I know it and the reason I ask is because we have 53 schools, but how so how many schools are getting this target this whole grade tutoring? I'm going to get this wrong, but so preandemic you're talking about six to eight. Post pandemic, you're talking 15 plus. Oh. Um because this model had early success, principles and school leaders saw this was working. Uh we weren't yet after the pandemic in 9th grade, but we are now. We've developed the same approach for math one at high school. Uh we also have been allowing students to peer tutor if they also pass the math assessment for 9th grade math 1

101which has been another layer of this. Uh so I would say that as of this past year uh you're looking at approximately 10 to 11 to 12 schools which has been significantly reduced from 15. Uh and again, these would be schools that were identified as either low performing or uh on that bubble that this was kind of a proactive approach before they became a low performing school. Wow. But the cost that you see there would be included in the annual publication of the per pupil expenditure because these are all local dollars, right? It would just be flushed out among the three. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, um does anyone else have any comments or questions um definitely keep us updated um when you get that anticipated good news on this year's test scores, whatever, please

102include us because we we're extremely proud of Union County Public Schools. We'll do it. We appreciate your support and thank you all for being here tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you. Give me just a minute to get back on track here, guys. [Music] Okay. Next on our item of business is item 25-384, senior nutrition municipality participation. I want to recognize Deputy County Manager Patrick Nyl concerning this item. U Madam Chair, I I have a short presentation. I know we have Senate Bill 205 to talk about um the applicants for the reszone. I didn't know if the board wanted to consider moving them up to maybe be able to get them out of here a little bit earlier. It could be a long night, right? Let's take care of that. So we will um I

103believe was that 25-36 3660 or 366. So let's take care of that reszoning real quick. Thank you. And I Yeah. And this is when um you can step out of the chamber, but do not leave the building. Stay away from those cookies. Okay, everyone. Um, we have language here in front of us regarding the proposed amendment to the Union County Zoning Map CZ-2024-01. We have an option here. Um, the Union County Land Use Board recommended recommended for our meeting tonight that the Union County Board of Commissioners approve the resoning petition CZ-2024-01 from Angel and I I can't get the last name. Um, Jav Javana. Javana. Thank you. Requesting a revision of the Union County zoning map by reszoning a parcel totaling 2.4 acres appearing on the tax map as tax parcel 09-372-050 in the Monroe

104Township for from RA20 to RA40 with conditions. Um, we have the choice to approve or deny. What is the wishes of the board? Motion to approve the petitioner's request. Thank you, Commissioner Sides. Are there any comments, questions? I just Yes. I just want to make sure that the the board understands the motion really should include the adoption of the consistency and uh statement and reasonable statement because those are part of that motion. Just want to make sure that's clear. Oh, I was waiting until someone um Okay, Commissioner Sides, if you if would you like to amend your motion to the language stated there on the page? So, amended to include that language. Motion to adopt the ordinance approving revision to the official zoning map of Union County, North Carolina, and to adopt the consistency and

105reasonable statement for approval. Gotcha. Thank you very much staff and commissioner sides. Are there any comments or questions? Motion on the floor. All those in favor say I. I. I. There you go. Thank you for being with us tonight. Best wishes for everything. Good luck. He hadn't escaped. He's eating cookies. He went to the restaurant again. Welcome back. We hope you saved some chocolate chips for us. A few less. Okay. Okay. So, we're back on track. Um I'm going to turn it over to um to you, Mr. Nin. uh Commissioner uh Christina Helms at the last meeting had asked for an update on uh senior nutrition and where we were on some of the municipal participation. So um have some good news to share tonight and I'll go through it very quickly. Um we reached

106out to all the municipalities. This is about the third or fourth time we had talked to them throughout this uh senior nutrition discussion. Um and we asked them to confirm if they wanted to participate to take care of some of the individuals on their weight list. And six municipalities have confirmed that they are going to take care of the individuals on the wait list. One of those municipalities is actually going to take care of their ETJ members as well, which is not technically a a a city resident, but more a county resident, but they are close enough to that town that they are going to do that. And that would be the town of Wingut. Um that total participation is $41,722. Um there are two municipalities that have discussed it, have shown interest, but have

107not made the decision yet to do so. So that would be Waxaw and Unionville. If Waxaw and Unionville do decide to participate, that's another $32,000 that would come in to the senior nutrition program. You can see the initial weight list uh back in December of 2024 when we talked about this was 572. Our staff has worked extremely hard to verify the current weight list to get as accurate and as numbers as we can. Um as you know, this weight list is ever evolving. It changes daily. So, um, these numbers are as close as we can be at this current time to being accurate. Uh, you can see 32 people will come off the wait list because of that municipal participation. If Unionville and Waxaw decide to, that'd be another 22. Um, so that's 54 potential

108weight list people coming off because of our partners in the municipality. Um, we we heard from Fairview and Indian Trail that they they would not be able to participate at the current time. um everyone else that is listed on there, we didn't hear everything back. Um we sent emails to the mayors and the managers of those town. I will say that there is nothing necessarily special about July 1. If a municipality wants to come in in the middle of the year, they can absolutely do so. So, this is a an open invitation to all those municipalities that may wish to participate in the future. So, going back to Fair View and Indian Trail, um I just remember when we first started discussing this, you know, several months ago, I remember the largest weight list, um,

109you know, being Monroe and Indian Trail, which is logical because they have large populations, especially Indian Trail being our largest municipality. Um, but we only have six seniors on the wait list in Fair View. Um, did Fairview give you any feedback? Um, you know, could they not help one, two, three, or they just said they weren't interested or couldn't? Just said it was a budgetary uh concern that they didn't think they could work it in their current budget. We will continue to reach out to these municipalities to let them know that to your point, if you can't support everyone, if you could support one or two, we can still work to get those people off the wait list. But they did indicate it was a a budgetary concern. And um before we go to the

110next slide, Unionville and Waxaw, you've been um in conversations with them to join um the the other seven. um do they have an upcoming meeting where they're going to consider um helping their constituents on the wait list and do they understand if they can't do 15, can they do five, 10? Um what what are your conversations and do you happen to know do they have meetings coming up where they're going to consider it? It I do believe they both have meetings coming up where they're going to discuss it. it has not been directly communicated to them that if you can't help everybody, you can still help some. So, we will certainly do that. Um, we can send out follow-up emails tomorrow to those municipalities to um let them know that that is an option. Commissioner

111Helms. Well, and also if you could the the ones with no responses, especially Monroe, um since they had the highest of 77 currently on the weight list, you know, again, everyone that we can help is one off that list. But, you know, um and and continue to reach out to the other municipalities that even if they've declined to still say, you know, can you offer help to you know, a few what what can you do? Sure. like maybe we can match them if they if they take one, we'll take one. Yeah. Um just just to try and take some of these um senior citizens off the wait list. We can certainly do that additional outreach. Yes. Thank you so much. Mhm. Uh just to give a program update. Uh in the budget you just adopted,

112there was $127,000 to maintain the existing level. So that is the increase in food costs that we saw over the previous year. In addition to that, there was $244,000 um to address weightless clients. Um what we are planning to do is reserve about $50,000 of that to assist in any future weight list participants from our municipalities that wanted to uh participate because what we don't want to do is um you know those those municipalities a Lake Park, they paid for four to come off the wait list. Two weeks from now they have two more that come on. We don't want to go back to them and say well now you have six. Um, so we're going to keep a little bit of a buffer to be able to help them. So hopefully we can keep

113them off the wait list for the entire year. Um, remaining funds beyond that, we can deliver hot meals cheaper than we can deliver frozen meals. So we're going to prioritize trying to get those hot meal routes filled um because we can serve more clients by doing that than if we just looked at um, you know, proximity to a town or unincorporated residents. we we can do the most good with those hot meal routes. Um, with current staff, we can add up to 110 seniors. Now, that that includes the the seniors we're adding from the municipalities. So, you can see if Waxaw and Unionville ultimately decide to join, that's 54 of those 110. So, that would leave us about 56 people that we could add on our own. That gets us to the maximum capacity we

114have from a staff standpoint to verify eligibility because they got to do it initially and then they got to do it every six months as long as they're on the program. Um at at that point, um our option would be to look at the part-time person we have that is helping with that program and reclass that to a full-time position. If we were able to do that, that would get us probably another hundred people we could add or take off the weight list. um we don't have funding to add those 100 people. Um but say a Monroe or an Indian Trail wanted to come into the program at some point and they were willing to pay for it, we could reclass that staff member and be able to take care of those individuals. We're not

115there now, but it gives us that option that if we do have additional municipality participation throughout the year, we could do that. Um so that is a very brief update. There is an action requested. Um we have interlocal agreements which are essentially just contracts with these municipalities and you can see um we have Wingut, Waxaw, Mineral Springs, Marvin, Unionville, Lake Park, Wesley Chapel and Weddington. I added Waxaw and Unionville in there just because we are in a summer session now. We have one meeting a month if they do decide to do it at their next meeting. I don't want to have to wait until July and come back. So this would authorize um the six municipalities that have agreed to sign on and then the two that have actively talked about it. So with that

116I can answer any questions. Um and if not we just would ask for a motion. Can you go back another slide? Okay. Okay. I was surprised not to hear from Stallings or Stallings. Um and again this isn't, you know, we're not done. We will continue to to engage them and um and talk to them about some of the options you presented to where you know if you can't help anybody or everybody, can you help some? What can you do? Sure. Okay. Did you have a question or comments? Yeah, Ju just a quick comment. Um, sorry, Patrick, if you can go back to that. There you go. Um, first of all, I just want to say thank you. Thank you to uh to Lake Park, uh, to Marvin, to Mineral Springs, to Weddington, Wesley Chapel. Um,

117and Wingit, uh, Wing It ETJ there. Um, good good for them. Yeah. So, uh, so again, yeah, thank you to those municipalities who have, um, who have chose to to partner with us. Um, you know, we we certainly appreciate that collaboration on this, uh, on this program and and I meant to single out Wesley Chapel because they were the kind of they were the first ones to start talking about this and the first ones to vote on it. So, we really appreciate them kind of taking the lead on this, being the vanguard and getting this whole thing started because I don't know if they had hadn't done what they did, any of the other municipalities would either. So, we do appreciate the partnership there. Absolutely. Commissioner Sides, could I switch gears on you a little

118bit? Uh, with the budget that we just passed, do you have a feel, and I can get with Miss Payne on this, uh, how much of an impact we've had on the waiting list for inhome services? Uh, for inhome services, no, I do not have that information, but we can get that to you. And that was um something I had asked about in our last meeting and it it's going to be an ongoing conversation with staff. Um, I think there are some ideas that maybe we're going to be able to work on um in July or August or in the coming months. And and we've had a conversation when we were setting this agenda um that we've had that conversation about inh home and there might be some opportunities for us to um you know

119tweak some things here or there and work on it. So, it's it's going to stay on stay in conversation for us to keep addressing it. Yes, ma'am. It's not going to go away. So, um anything else? There is an action item requested on. Okay. Okay. Is this okay? Where are Did I get a copy of that or is this where that's where the Do we just need to read that? I believe this motion is just on the slide there. You got I'd like to make a motion that we authorize the county manager to negotiate and execute agreements with Wingut, Waxaw, Mineral Springs, Marvin, Unionville, Lake Park, Wesley Chapel, and Weddington within Union County for the purpose of receiving funds from the municipalities for the county senior nut nutrition program and exercise any renewal or extension

120terms option set forth in the agreement and terminate its agreements if deemed in the best interest of the county. each in the county's manager's discretion. Very good. So, we have a motion. All those in favor of the motion say I. I. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next on our agenda is item 25-323, appointments to boards and committees. There are eight boards with vacancies for consideration this evening. These vacancies have been advertised in accordance with the board's rules and procedures. Applicants have been applications have been received and information regarding the vacant positions may be found in the background provided for this item. The first board with a vacancy is the agriculture advisory board. There are three vacancies on this board. Three members have applied for reappointment and a fourth application has also been received.

121I will now entertain a motion for nominations to the Agriculture Advisory Board. Madam Chair, Commissioner Helms. Madam Chair, I'll make the motion that we appoint uh the following um individuals to the agricultural advisory board. Uh, first William Bradley Harut, second Tony Lane Helms, and third Logan Watson. Are there any other recommendations? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion say I. I. I. Thank you very much. The second board with a vacancy for consideration this evening is the Centralina Workforce Development Board. There are three vacancies for specific positions on this board. The first being apprenticeship representative, second an adult education and literacy representative and third higher education representative. We have received reappoint applications for each of these as well as one additional application for these positions. I will now entertain motions for nominations for

122this board. Madam Chair, Commissioner Hams. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um I'll make the motion that uh we appoint the following uh to the Central Workforce Development Board. Uh, first would be Scott Panagroso to the position of apprenticeship representative. Um, second would be Kelly Stigall to the position of adult education and literacy uh representative. And then third would be Heather C. Miller to the position of higher education representative. Are there any other recommendations? Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion say I. I. The third board with a vacancy for consideration this evening is the jury commission. There is one vacancy on this commission and we have received one application for reappointment. I will now entertain a motion for nominations. Madam Chair, Commissioner Helms. Madam Chair, I'll make the motion that we appoint Gary Salic

123to the jury commission. Okay. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none, all those in favor of the motion say I. I. I. The next board with vacancies for consideration is the land use board. There are vacancies for two regular members and one alternate. We we have received two total applications for these three vacancies. I will now entertain a motion for nominations to the land use board. Madam Chair, Commissioner Helms. Um I'll make the motion that we appoint the following individuals to the land use board um for um sorry, bear with me one second here. So we we would need two regular members and one alternate. Is that correct, Mr. Cler? That is correct. And there were three vacancies. Okay. So So we have two applications. Two applications. Have enough to fill. Okay. All right. Then

124I'll make the motion that we appoint the following to the land use board as regular members. That would be uh Douglas E. Mloo and then also Charles Walup Jr. Okay. All those in favor of the motion say I. I. The nursing home advisory committee also has two vacancies for consideration. We have received two applications for reappointment to this committee. I will now entertain a motion for nominations to this committee. Commissioner Helms, you're up. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I'll make the motion that we appoint the following individuals to the nursing home advisory committee. Um, the first would be Maurice C. Robertson. Second is Sandra Guuan Adcock. Okay. Any other recommendations? Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion say I. I the next board with vacancies for consideration is the region F area

125aging advisory committee. There are vacancies for two regular members and one alternate. We receive two applications for reappointments and one additional application. Only two of these applicants are eligible for regular member appointments. I will now entertain a motion for nominations to this board. Commissioner HMS. Um, thank you, Madam Chair. I'll make the motion that we appoint um to the region F area aging advisory committee as regular members, Kathleen Deansky and Hannah And then as an alternate member, Alleta Galuchia. Okay. All those in favor of the motion say I. I. I. The South Pedmont Community College Board of TR trustees has one vacancy. We received an application of reappointment and two additional applications for this one vacancy. I will now entertain a motion for nominations to this board. Commissioner HMS. Madam Chair, thank you. Um I'll

126make the motion that we appoint Christopher Dugan um to the uh South Pedmont Community College Board of Trustees. Are there any other recommendations to be heard? Hearing none, all those in favor of Chris Dugan, please say I. I. Finally, there it actually says that finally there there are two vacancies on the Marshville Planning Board port board of adjustments. The two vacant positions are extra territorial jurisdiction representatives. We have received one application for reappoint and one additional application. I will now entertain motions for nominations to these positions. Madam Chair, yes. I'll make the motion that we appoint um the following um Tracy Stansel and also Brandon M. Love um to the Marshall Town Council um or I'm sorry, the Marshall Planning Board and Board of Adjustment ETJ members. Very good. All those in favor of the

127motion say I. I. I. Okay. We have a couple of other items we need that were moved um to business. I want to begin with uh a the resolution on SB 205. Let's do that one first. Let's see. Where did I put that? [Music] Here we go. There we go. So, just as a background, there's been a lot of discussion in um all over Union County, a lot of the municipalities um and unincorporated Union County, there has been a lot of concern about um SB765. Um, we have even uh heard discussions from the North Carolina Association of County Managers. They have been actively communicating um and sharing information across across North Carolina. This is not just a Union County um concern there. There are counties all over the state that were um very discouraged and

128concerned about um SB765. And um early last week um I happened to be in a central line meeting when um when conversations came up that um a lot of the items from that um we were hearing um had died and it it had kind of gone away. Well, they slid those into a pool um um bill and moved items um from 765 into this pool um bill. And um and then you know once other counties um understood that um it our board again became very very concerned after we were assured that um 765 um had died and not to be worried. Well, it's just under the disguise of Senate Bill 205 now. So, here we are again um ready to um discuss a resolution to oppose Senate Bill 205 just as we did several weeks

129ago for 765. And I will turn it over to Commissioner Helms. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um so, I'm sorry, Commissioner Merrill. It's been a long day. Um so, Commissioner Merrill is exactly right. Um SP 205 began as a two-page swimming bull swimming pool bill and it was quickly passed in North Carolina Senate. Um it found its way into the House and and a lot of the same sponsors from um HB765 had some input on the addition of many different provisions um that have increased the size of SB 205 to uh from two pages to I think about 16 to 18 something like that. right now in the final revision. Um, and so, you know, you might be be asking, well, how does that happen? Well, it happens because um, well, you got different committees looking

130at it. Um, and they all make different additions or subtractions to it. Um, but currently what, um, SP 205 does is it it's got many different things in there about land use. So, if you take it page by page, you're looking at page five. It eliminates required number of parking spaces. Um, so you can build a 42tory building, but you don't have to have parking at all for it. Um, it places financial burden of roads on municipalities and counties. Um, it eliminates local control of driveway traffic direction. Um, but how this really impacts Union County and and other uh municipalities or counties our size is that it eliminates open space requirements. And you may you may recall, but this board had a lot of discussion about open space requirements in December um of last year,

131but open space requirements has been a a huge um you know topic for us uh because well you know it it's a density issue. And so what they're doing here is they're essentially um they're not spilling out density requirements, but what they're doing is they're reducing the tools that local municipalities as well as counties have to to try to control density. And density is a huge topic of concern to the residents of Union County. Um density is one the low densities that we have countywide is what really gives our county the character that we've all enjoyed. So uh but it goes on. There's other things in here as well. So, um there's subtle changes um in there from like zoning regulation to development regulation. And that's a key that's a key thing. So, even a

132small change in general statute can have huge effects. So, what you're doing is is you're essentially saying, you know, okay, well, we're going to we're not going to um going to sit here and look directly at zoning. We're going to make that a much broader scope and make different rules apply that would limit the authority of local government and ultimately move that authority away from the people. So there's other provisions in there about split jurisdictions. This was in um HB765. So basically what it does is it gives a municipality that has the ability to offer utilities zoning and planning rights over that parcel. Um, this is uh pretty interesting because it certainly applies to what we do on this board, but on page 15, it eliminates the waiting period after a withdrawal or a resoning

133application. So, currently on on our board, that's 12 months. So, if an applicant brings a resoning to us um and that that resoning or that application is either withdrawn, which we saw a few months ago, or if it's denied, then under this uh bill, then that applicant could potentially bring that back the following day. So, it also um removes subdivision authority from the governing board. It makes it administrative. It also removes all conditions and appeals for subdivisions. So, there's conditions on the appeal process under this bill. There's no more conditions. Um, let's see. Uh, page 16 of this bill, it goes into allows civil action for land use decisions. So essentially an applicant or a developer or a home builder can sue the county government or a municipal government if they don't like the result

134really. So listen I there there's a lot to unpack with this. Um, but ultimately I think that that the people need to understand is that our state representatives have been calling this, and I'm using that term generally, um, but the folks in Raleigh have been calling this a compromise, a compromise from HB765, something that we can all get on board with. And, uh, and you know what, I do agree with them on that. That this is a compromise. This compromises government that should be for the people into one that is for special interest. And this is not something that's good for Union County. It's not good something that's good for our state. And I personally cannot support SB 205. And I'm certainly in favor of this resolution. Thank you. Are there any other comments, questions?

135Commissioner Sods, did you can you u can you pull up the sponsors of this bill and where it exactly stands right now? What committee and uh if any of our local delegation um are members of of said committee that is responsible right now with this sits looks like um mind names Mr. Okay. May be looking for that information. So to to the chair. Um yes, Commissioner Helms. So the um so SP 205 originated the original sponsor was Senator Jarvis. Um but perhaps Mr. K can shed some light on some things that occurred in the house. Uh so we have limited records to go on, but that is correct. The primary sponsor of the original bill is the one that shows. So, the original bill to deal with local boards of health and regulation of private

136swimming pools, that's the sponsor of that bill that shows uh this was amended in a House committee. Um, and there are a number of folks on that committee. I'm trying to put my my hands on a list there, but we don't have a good record of who voted how on that. I do believe that information is out there. I just don't have it handy off of the legislative website right now. So it it sits in what committee right now? It came out. Sorry, we're doing this on the fly here. I believe this was last in rules calendar operations of the house on 611 of 25. That's the last information that we have here. I looks like it was changed in house that we received in email. Um I was looking to see if I could

137um answer that for you. Commissioner Sides, give me just one second. Let's see. Because it seems like we we did get get some information last week with some um names that had joined that, but it is not. We may have to send that to you. If we could just Mr. K, if you could just re do a little research exactly where this thing sits. Um, who who are the players behind and just if you want to just email us out tomorrow and the next day? Absolutely. There there may be some additional information that's that's out there. But in terms of what's recorded on the general assembly's website, it simply went to the rules committee and was substituted there. They did not take a roll call vote. It simply is noted that it was reported as

138favorable, meaning that a majority of that house rules committee voted for the committee substitute. So this is fairly fairly along in the process. It's not lingering, it's moving. Yeah. You you Commissioner Balkam. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, not too long ago we were told HP765 is dead. Nothing else to see here. Yeah. Move along, folks. Move along. But here it has the the principles have resurrected and SP 205. And I just want to express my frustration and concern with the state representatives. It doesn't feel like it doesn't seem like they are fighting for the people or working for the people. It certainly has the appearance of working for special interest. Um we can't forget Union County of all the counties nationwide, Union County is number 13 and loss of farmland. Not statewide, nationwide in the

139nation. This is this is a real concern. I feel like our representatives should be in the corner fighting with the people and it's truly disappointing. These decisions on zoning and these decisions that will affect us here in the county need to be made as close to the people affected as possible. So that's truly all I have to say about it, but I do wish we had greater representation for the people. And um along with um those comments, I do want to say that I've received um a couple of phone calls. I think all of us have received phone calls over the weekend and today from Representative Dean Arp. Um I was able to speak with him um two times today and I and I just want to say on his behalf that that he has

140expressed um you know um a request from us to return his phone call and for us to work with staff um to give you know to look at 205 and give him you know some things that he can um advocate for Union County in Raleigh. So, with that being said, I do want to to say that the that Representative Art has worked diligently in trying to reach out to us today and um and I've had a couple of conversations with him today and I appreciate him making that effort. Commissioner Hounds, well, I'd like to reiterate a few things that Commissioner Balkam has touched on. Union County is one of the fastest counties in the nation to be losing farmland. Um, and as we all know, no farmland, no food, and that's something that there's not

141a soul on this planet that uh isn't relying upon. Um it's it's quite scary that some of our state representatives locally that are so willing to sell um Union County out even though one of the um main talking points in this county that I know I've heard on the campaign cycle is how they don't want any more development. They want it to slow down drastically and try to preserve Union County as it is. Um, so those counties that are in favor or were in favor of HB765, um, why not write local bills for those counties that want development? That seems like an easy fix because the more majority of the state from my understanding is they don't want this. They've heard from I'm thinking the majority of the counties have said no. And I don't

142understand why they can't understand what their people want when they said stop. This is not a good thing for the majority of the state. If those counties want the development, then write a local bill. Write a local bill. Um, so I I'm I'm very disappointed, especially in my representative here in Union County. Um, how he's not listening to us. Um, it's more of what's in his best interest. And I'm very sad to say that. Um, and you know, there used to be a joke going around, especially at the federal level, that elected officials needed to wear NASCAR jackets with all of their sponsors on it. Well, you know what? I think some of the state representatives need to wear NASCAR style jackets. That shows who has bought and paid for them. Appreciate. Thank you, Commissioner

143Helms. Any other comments? Um, can't say it any better than that. I was hoping I would be able to find that list of names um for Commissioner Size. So, we will have to we'll we'll follow up with that. um on because there were some names um attributed to um the the new and improved swimming pool bill. So, um you know, apparently swimming pools, um has a lot to say about roads and land use and parking spaces and open spaces and buffer, um buffer zones and who can sue who and um you know, and um going from a 12-month waiting period to reintroducing it the next day. So, um I had no idea pools um had that much power, but apparently they do. They do now. So, um do we So, we have a resolution before

144us um opposing Senate Bill 205. Um and and I want all of us to um I know that when we talked about this a week ago or whatever, we were encouraged, you know, reach out to your your um your North Carolina House representatives, reach out to your North Carolina um senators. I believe we have uh Dave Craraven and Todd Johnson in this area. And then we have um Representative Dean Art, Mark Brody, David Willis. Am I missing anyone? Okay. So, um, you know, I encourage everyone, um, to, you know, return calls, have those conversations so that, you know, for someone like Representative Arp who does, you know, want to, um, you know, hear from us on, you know, what we would like to see removed. And, um, I, um, I think I think he needs

145to hear it from each one of us. So, they all do. um not just the the one who um who called and you know wanted to touch base um with Union County. Um so we have a re have a resolution. Um I would like to make a mo a motion that this board add consideration. Um well, we've already added it to the agenda. Um, so I would like to move that this board adopt a resolution in opposition to provisions of Senate Bill 205 that reduce local government's ability to shape and respond to its community. Is there any conversation about this motion? I I just like to mention in the past when I've had discussions of opposing legislation, the previous legislation, the responses have been, well, we'll carve out Union County or we'll set thresholds for

146population so that Union County is not affected. I think that is a is a sheep and wolves clothing because those can change in a heartbeat. the next census could throw us into the wrong category or the next tweak when it hits the next House or Senate committee could remove those provisions. So, to me, it's very simple. It's either yes or it's no. It's not yes, but or no, we'll we'll make sure it doesn't bother you, but uh I've got to I've got to support this for somebody else um in order to get what I want on something over here. This needs to be a very clear voice. We oppose this legislation. We oppose any type of accommodations that would put Union County in a safe zone for time period uncertain. Vote no. Kill this thing

147and let the people closest to the decision-making process in the municipalities and the counties make these kind of decisions, not the special interests in Raleigh. I couldn't agree with you more. Um over the last several weeks, I mean, it has been very clear. They told us that this was to address um housing needs in six counties, six of our largest counties. Well, clearly not because now it's back with swimming pools. So, um, you know, because if this were truly about the six largest counties, then, you know, the other, um, the other 94 wouldn't be affected. So, um, I believe Commissioner Helms wanted to make a comment. Thank you, Commissioner Mer. All right. So, so just real quick, um, I I'll just add this. Um, first of all, I agree certainly reach out to our local

148delegation, but I would also encourage folks to to reach out to the rules committee u where this uh this bill may still reside currently. Uh, but reach out to all of your state representatives. They they all need to know. They all need to know um that this is a statewide issue that um that affects us all and it's something that that the people don't want. Um second of all let me say this too that on the topic of affordable housing you know so so HB765 that was a huge topic there and the argument was that okay well we have to have you know massive residential development because we have an affordable housing crisis. The study was commissioned by the homebuilders association. The study was commissioned by the North Carolina Real Estate Association. So, you have

149to consider the source, okay? When you when you see these things, you have to look beyond face value. Um, and so I I would argue that, you know, based off of, you know, what I'm what I see professionally is you have a surplus of houses right now nationally and most likely within the state of North Carolina. So, um, so I don't know that that holds water. Um, but but again, first of all, let me say this, too. Thank you to everybody that reached out to your state reps for 765. Um, uh, your voice is extremely powerful and, you know, our board, our county, our state needs all of you to do that again with 205. So, thank you, Commissioner Helms. And I'd kind of like to piggyback on what Commissioner Helms also said, um, that

150there was a housing crisis. Last time I looked, I believe was on Zillow. There was over 1,500 houses on the market on Zillow. Now, they're saying a pricing crisis. Well, we can't control the prices. And I can almost guarantee I'm 99.99% sure that if more homes are built that the housing prices are not going to go down. No. because the builders aren't going to take a hit because they're used to making x amount of dollars. They're not going to reduce their prices. They're willing to let these houses sit on the market until they get sold for the price that they want. This bill does not address that at all and it's not going to help housing prices. We still haven't rebound from 2020 when it went through the roof and it's they are coming down

151slowly, not a lot. However, this bill is not going to do anything to help those that want a house, especially the younger generation that are out fresh out of college. It's not going to help them. This bill does nothing but add money to the pockets of developers and realtors. Exactly. So, this bill does not address what they say it's going to address. And again, there is not a housing crisis in Union County. Again, look on Zillow. You can find, like I said, over 1500 houses available today. Madam Chair, yes, I was able to find that email that you were referring to earlier. Um, and what I did also find in the legislative history is that the bill while it sits in House rules now today, it appears to have been amended in the uh regulatory

152reform committee of the house. Um, the key legislators to note on the legislative alert that went out from the state association are representative Jeff Zanger from Forsythe who was an original sponsor of House Bill 765. uh Mark Brody of Union County and Matthew Winslow of Franklin County who were also primary members of U House Bill 765. Uh Representative Brody is the only person who was on that regulatory reform committee that passed out the amended substitute and then the list of committee members for House Rules does not include anyone from Union County on that committee. What was the date of that email? so we can find it quickly. Let's see. That was the 10th 10th of uh June. Uh about noon at noon. And who was the sender? Uh it was the uh Kevin Leonard at

153the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners. Commissioner Helms. Just um one more point, one last thing. Um now, Mr. K. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but the North Carolina General Assembly publishes their occupations. Correct. They publish the occupation that is listed by the members um themselves. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And and I mentioned this when we discussed HP765, but but those uh three um members that Mr. Cage just brought up, well, obviously they have direct ties to to home building um within the state of North Carolina. So, and that is public information. It is listed on the general assembly's website. Thank you. And uh donors, I think you um addressed that in a previous meeting. Okay. So, we have a motion on the floor. All those in favor of the motion um opposing Senate

154Bill 205 say I. I. I. Okay, I think the last item that we moved to business was item number 25-389, the joint resolution interlocal agreement amendment. Um, execution and implementation. I'm not going to read the whole thing. Um, the dissolution and liquidation of the Monroe Union County Economic Development Commission. I would like to that was tabled. Oh, we t it was it was removed for a further for later. I apologize. I had that on I had that written down to take care of it tonight. Yes. Okay. So, how soon do you think we'll be able to bring that back? Well, our next meeting is on the 14th. We can certainly have discussion with that unless of course we feel this need to have a special meeting. Okay. Okay. So, um, no later than July 14th.

155Correct. Okay. So, I assume you'll be reaching out to the city. Yes. Yes, we will. Absolutely. Yes, sir. Okay. So, that takes care of the things that we pulled off. And let's um I believe that will take us to the county manager comments. Yes, ma'am. So, first I'd like to say thank you to the board uh number one for the adoption of the budget, for your confidence that you've given in in myself and the staff. I know it's a lot of work that goes into it on your part. You've got to really dig into it. You have a short amount of time and really appreciate your time and your attention. Um, and I also want to thank the staff. um they worked very hard to get this in front of you, get a balanced budget

156to keep that revenue neutral or as close to revenue neutral as we could. Um and that's so I really commend our staff for all the hard work they did and thank you very much. That brings us to commissioner comments. I'm going to begin um with Commissioner Balkam. Thank you, Melissa. Um, I'd like to take just a minute to honor and remember um, Mr. Tim Blair. He was a teacher, a teacher, uh, Pedmont High School. He taught He taught me. I think we were first class that came through with him. And I would say there's no greater example of dedication and patience. Yeah. Than Mr. Tim Blair. Yes. Um he influenced so many young country boys, girls, uh including our own Commissioner Stony Russian who we lost, you know, recently. Um he was a great influence

157on all of us. So I just would like to remember and honor him. Thank you, Commissioner Helms. Um, also if you knew Tim Blair, um, he was a spectacular man. He was just one of the kindest souls. Um, he would occasionally come out to our farm and get straw and we would just talk, you know, he was really good friends with my husband. Um, and taught my husband and my son for that matter. Um, so he was just a great great man and um I hate that Tia lost her daddy right before Father's Day. Um, but he he really was a blessing to the community. Um, but also like to um wish all the gentlemen uh that are listening that are daddies a belated Father's Day. Um, I hope those of you that still have

158your daddy, um, I hope you hugged and kissed his face. Hugged his neck and kissed his face because I sure did miss mine. I thought about you this weekend, Christina. I'm going to skip over myself and go to Commissioner Brian Hams. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I I too knew Tim Blair and uh I might have a slightly different recollection than than Commissioner Balkcom and Commissioner Helms do because uh you know he had a lot to do with wrestling out there and uh and I had to run a lot in high school. Um so so uh again well my condolences to that family. Um it's good to see Commissioner Sides back with us. Um I I miss you buddy. So, uh, so I'm glad that you're back and you know, we've got, uh, Independence Day

159coming up. Um, so we will not have another meeting, uh, between now and Independence Day. And so, um, just like to wish everybody a very happy and safe Independence Day. You know, obviously Independence Day is, uh, is is such a great day where we get to celebrate um, our independence, our freedom here in the US. And and so again, um I hope that you all get that opportunity to spend with your families, celebrate what our what our what makes our country so special and so great. Um and thank you. That's all I have. Commissioner Sides, um might I inquire? When is our August meeting? The 11th. Mhm. I would like to request formally request an agenda item for the August 11th meeting entitled Replacement Union County Jail. And Mr. K. I will require your assistance

160to prepare the appropriate motion that I will offer at that meeting and encourage a discussion and participation of my colleagues as as they see fit. and then I will offer a summation and we'll call the question regarding the construction of a replacement Union County jail facility of no less than 500 beds with a 600 bed core on the current site. and uh we'll uh look look forward to the thoughts and and comments of my colleagues and a vote um as they as they do vote their their conscience on that issue and I request that for the August 11th meeting. And I want to thank my colleagues and staff for their hard work on this budget. Like most budgets, everybody doesn't get everything they need or everything they want, but uh I um can appreciate the

161hard work that went into developing this to do our best to meet the needs of our county and uh thank everyone for their hard work. And it is uh good to be back from a short absence after a little repair work um shall we say. But anyway, um, and I wish everyone a good evening. So, I'll just close with this. I I want to congratulate uh the class of 2025. Um, our our um high school graduations. I wish them the best of luck um going forward well prepared whether they enter the military, the workforce, or pursue higher education. Um I believe um any student who had the privilege of growing up in Union County, I believe you're well prepared to do to be to do well in life and we um we hope that they'll

162stay in touch with us and let us know what what they um will be doing. I also want to uh recognize um all of our army service me members and the army in general for their 250th birthday. Um, my youngest is now an active duty army soldier and um, for the past three years I've had the honor and privilege of working with all of our military veterans and doing case work on a daily basis and um, so um, our military is very near and dear to my heart and the people that I get to help every day in our office. but a very special um 250th birthday. Um you know, take representing and taking care and serving this great country. Um I do want to thank our staff and our county manager and um everyone

163in Union County government. Um, I just continue to be um so pleased with what I I learn and see and uh the work that everyone does on a a daily and sometimes on weekends um having to answer questions and um Patrick, you've been a a great person to work with. um you know, each one of us, you know, have special things in our county, the um services that are provided, including council on aging and um and I want to assure the community that this is something that staff, whether it's inhome services or trying to work with our municipalities, we are so grateful and thankful for um the the municipalities that have looked their budget and contacted um the office to say that they wanted to step in and help um take some of our seniors

164off the weight list. Um it it's it's truly been remarkable and I want to thank Commissioner Sides for you know really push pushing us to get creative and find um alternatives um you know out you know beyond the e you know the easy yes or no answer and looking for a maybe and coming up with yeses. So um with that I I just want to wish everyone a good night. Thank you um for the hard work again on um next year's budget. We look forward to continuing the conversations whether it's on the jail or um you know what we can do to help recruit and fill those vacancies on our sheriff department. Um we'll have to make sure we have all of the information back from the um consultant in order to have that conversation

165on August 11th. So, Commissioner Sides, you know, please bear with staff as we were, you know, following a timeline and we'll do our very best um you know, to honor uh your request if we have all the information ready to have that discussion. So, with that, I will um accept a motion um to adjourn. All those in favor say I. I. Good night, everyone.