Thank you. The The The I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the the Board of Commissioners, January 8th, 2024. Some calling the meeting to order. Welcome commissioners, welcome guests. Welcome everybody. And welcome, Deborah. Thank you. We got that. Commissioners, next item on agenda is a play devil legions. I recognize his name I guess tonight Tommy Latter would you lead us in a play devil legions. I play with the legions to apply the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One way to change the under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. That's a proper way to start meeting. Commissioner's next item on the agenda is the agenda approval. What's the will of the board? I make a motion that we approve the agenda. Second. I think I got a motion to second. Any discussion? Here now I call the question. All. I think I got a motion to second. Any discussion? Hearing none, call the question. All my favorite raised your right hand. Can you put it black and white? Okay. The agenda hasn't been approved as posted. Commissioner's the next item on our agenda. He has the public comments and Thank you, Deborah. We have two folks Pardon me, but this printout for names it Nick You know what I see it Oh, I see like. Yeah, I just want people to understand. Oh, I see the look at Jay there. So. And then you, it is. It's a judgment. Yeah. Please come up and have your three minutes. Okay, appreciate it. First of all, happy new year, everyone. And thanks for being here to represent for us. So I spoke last time a little bit about some things that isn't a key part of my conversation, but I've been doing research. I'm a bit of a data person at FEC, federal election commission.gov. And my research virtually guarantees that a lot of nefarious activity is happening with Act Blue and Winred. If my numbers, the numbers that I'm looking at represent hundreds of thousands of dollars potentially just through this county have been siphoned through unsuspecting individuals as if they were making those donations. And I'll be following up with that and I'll probably speak to you guys further about if you're interested. But the primary thing I'm interested in is that 2016, they swore up and down that the machines had been hacked in 2020 Saved selection ever and I don't know what Control or opportunities we have to affect that change here at the county But if there's anything that has to happen that causes You gentlemen to choose to use Machines and software and I'm and again I'm a data guy I'm a software guy understand how all that stuff can be hacked left right in center if there's any opportunity where we the people of Ruffford County who have lost all confidence in the electoral process which by the way, in 2020, five positions at the state level, governor, auditor, attorney general, secretary of state, I said four, I think I should have said five, I should have said four. Those positions all went blue. And I don't know that at the state level that there's, or positions other than those four that have more influence over the appointed positions appointed not elected appointed positions here in our county Who are appointed by Cooper none of you guys chose and we didn't choose them If you need a volunteer force to do paper ballots paper ballots that will be processed by hand I can guarantee you I would find the people to do it. And we could do elections in one day. If you can't be there on election day, I'm sure there's methods that could be a track for people to get their vote in and counted. I don't want anybody, particularly our military, who are deployed to trying to protect this country. If there's a way that we could forego ESNS, or whoever it is that gets a big freaking check from Ruffford County to use software that personally I don't trust and I don't think anybody should trust. If we need an option of having citizens of this county volunteer at all the precincts to count those votes, the evening of election day and know the results the next day, I would love to lead love to lead that effort if that's possible. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker public speaker is Thomas Crawford. Mr. Crawford. Can you see you, sir? Yeah, three minutes. Well, I'm Scott Irish, so I guess we can cover some several more demographics here. Mr. Chairman, I'm a career educator and I'm a career educator and I am extremely concerned about how S. School Resource Officers are funded and deployed. Understand the school system has some role in that. But I do know that the grant runs out in October for the school resource officers, that was the state grant that went to the school system. To me, school safety has to be paramount. There is no negotiation, unequivocally, we have to have school resource officers in the school. And there's going to be a lot of fingerpoint and a lot of blame blind placing and I know it's January. You say he's talking about something is going to happen in October, but I've been in the school system for over 30 years and I know how sluggish your bureaucracy can operate. So I implore you to have full transparency on how these positions are funded and to do your best to fix this problem because it is not tolerable if we don't have protection for our children in the school. We're here for tonight. Thank you both. Commissioners, the next item on the agenda is a consent agenda. Is there an item that you'd like to add or remove from the consent agenda? Motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. Got a motion to second. Any discussion? Hearing none, I call the question. All don't have a raise your right hand. Any opposed? Latin wise. Perry, thank you. We have Commissioner Portman's. Next on the agenda is 3652. Portman's terrific County boards and commissions. Black girl recognized are clerk Hazel Haines. Thank you, sir. You have some vacancies. and the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other one is the other board director. The board may wish to add and pass the vacancies except applications and make appointments and future meetings. Thank you, Hazel. Commissioners wants to deliver work. I'd like to make a motion that we approve the advertising vacancies accepting applications and making appointments at a future meeting. Second, motion to second in discussion. Even I've all questionable favoritry right hand. You can pose likewise. Okay. Next item is three six four six. Compliments of the chairman to the 2024 Board of Equalization and Review. According to a resolution that was adopted by the Board in 2017, commissioners must designated a member of the current board commission and says chairperson of the board of the administration and the committee. Commissioner, then what is a member of the board of the LR if the board is to choose to appoint? Make a motion we appoint Mark Benfield. Chairman. Thank you. No, thank you. I'm going to motion the second in discussion. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to motion to second in discussion. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Yes, sir You're gonna call a question on paper. I'll do your right hand. You post lot wise Ladies and gentlemen commissioners and next time is three six one. I'd like to recognize Don Kason. We're on the Rift Academy of Tourism Development Authority report. Don, give the answer. Good evening, Mr. Chairman. Missioners, Mr. Williams, great to be with you here. Happy New Year. And we are excited that we've got our new year coming. I'm going to give you a quarterly update. I promise I'll be short and sweet and go through pretty quick, but I did want to give you a good feel of where things are and where we are. So starting out here, we'll take a quick look at our finances. Both for county TDA continues to be blessed with our own seat tax receipts in our community. They continue to exceed prior years. We're halfway through this year and our first six months are ahead of last year, which was our record breaking year. We are projecting a slower, we continue. I just met with Scott and he reminded me that I keep saying we're going to slow down. And we haven't slowed down yet. So I told Scott, I said, Scott, I'm going to keep predicting we're going to slow down so we don't slow down. So we'll see how that goes. But anyway, we are excited about where we are revenue wise and you'll see that our expenses are running in line with budget and revenues up. So we're looking for a good year this year. Our prior year of financials, we're wrapping up with a fund balance of 4.6 million and with this year we're projecting we're going to commit 4.5 million. If you look at that 4.5 million fund balance, I want to remind you that almost 3 million of that is committed to Rutherford County project throughout the county. And so we're going to hit those highlights here in just a few minutes. So we'll wind up this year with a fund balance of around 1.8 for a projector. Continue to focus on marketing and promoting refer county as a place to visit. We also continue to focus on projects throughout our community, giving again our goals to give one million dollars of our oxytax receipts back into the community for capital, tourism related capital expenditures. As you see, we're going to go through all that in a minute and you'll see that all those projects are quality of life projects or our citizens. And going into that, we are now celebrating Ruffer Bound five years. We've been doing Ruffer Bound. And we have $21 million of projects committed. Jimmy Rock, you see that space one. They're gonna be focusing on the rest of their downtown Main Street and their scope of work is going to continue going all the way down the whole street. Lake Lour is going to continue to focus on their Morris Park and grow and expand that into amphitheater in the future and so forth, but they've got a lot of work to do there and will continue to focus there. Weatherton, they've now got on the plate where they're going to take their old golf course and turn it into the recreation center slash disc golf course. We're excited about bringing disc golf to Rutherford County and future tournaments in disc golf. Kid senses and or the factory is in the process of getting funding for the final leg there and the TDA in Rutherton is Supporting on that we're excited about that project and spend down we've got this North scope North slope skate park and pump track Come on that's going to be a joining the Thermal belt rail trail which is another project that we're just all excited about. And there you see what the rejections of that's going to be. So we hope to be groundbreaking on all of these projects within the next six to eight months. For City, they'll be taking that right beside the Thermal Belt Rail Trail and working with the farmers market and creating back there in For City. and working with the farmers market and creating back there in four city. Ellen Burrow will be continuing to focus and get funding for their co-facts cotton gin park. We're excited about that and want to work with Ellen Burrow there. And then we've got our paddle trails that hopefully will start construction hopefully in the spring. And we've got the funding for both of those paddle trails on 221 and 221.8. Also Rutherford Bound is continuing to focus and collaborate with a number of trail collaborative routes the county and we are continuing to work and enhance trails all over the county. That is a big asset that Rutherford County has. It's trails and we're going to magnify, maximize and enhance all of those trails and continue to work with the state with the year of the trail. The year of the trail was in 23, just finished up, but our state is focused on doing the year of the trail. Every year they are developing a year or excuse me, a trail program. Their goal for the state is for the state of North Carolina to become the number one trail state in the country. We'll refer County and many rural communities throughout the state can work to enhance we all need trails and help the state accomplish that goal. And more to come there on how we're going to be able to help do that. And then you got the legacy soccer complex. That is coming and the TDA will continue to support the efforts there on marking promoting and yes funding dollars will be going into legacy part There's a list of all the different projects that we've talked about And there's a recap almost little over 21 million dollars of funding or Rutherford Bound in the first five years which is incredible Rutherford County can be very proud of what we've been able to accomplish. You've got $10 million worth of grants. You've got the local match of over $5 million and you've got the TDA, almost $5 million putting in and then $897,000 for private and miscellaneous donations. That's how the total of $21 million, five years. So we did $21 million in five. Let's do another total of 21 million five years. So we did 21 million and five. Let's do another 21 in the next five. If not more. So the TDA will continue to market and promote Rutherford Bound building together, building tomorrow. We'll continue to promote and we're going to have Jay here. Jay, we just had a five-year celebration and Jay, if you'll play that video of our celebration that we had at Zimmer Walden States. Key leadership in Rutherford County came together and the question was, what do we feel we want our community in the next 20 years to look like and be a part of? Those leaders voted unanimously to form and participate in a countywide tourism asset development plan. That tourism asset development plan became known as Rutherford Bale. The goal here is to build a better place to live, work and play. And when you build a better place to live, work and play, you build a place people want to visit. By creating a great place to live, you're creating an awesome place to visit. And the two are not mutually exclusive. Because the visitor wants to feel like they are a resident while they're here, the things that we're creating over the last five years and what we're about to learn in the next five years will be legacies for this county that will live forever more. Stint's Rutherbaum again, there have been nine projects completed. Fourteen projects are currently underway, we're in the planning process. Over $21 million has been raised for tourism related in quality of life capital projects. We are a catalyst. We helped inaugurate this project but it's not our project. It's your project. We've garnered a lot of statewide attention as a template, as a model for what local action can be, what a tourism development authority, what a community can be, when it has the courage to pursue the future in an aggressive, positive, healthy way. An ancient proverb said, if you wanna go fast, go alone. But if you wanna go far, go together. Tonight is not about anyone person, anyone entity, it's about all of us collectively coming together and working together and doing what's best for us for him. It is such a privilege to have the opportunity to work with all of you as well as the TDA to help you realize your vision. Thank you. Commissioners on that note, I personally want to thank each one of you for voting five years ago. Raise the oxy tax from 5% to 6%. Because your question was at that time, what are you going to do with that? And the TDA's response was, we're going to put it back into the community. It was your vision, your approval, and your support for a TDA that is allow us, because $300,000 of agency tax is put on the table with this county, the commissioners, and the town. And that $300,000 is now worth 21 million. Thank you all. Thank you, thank you. Now, we're going to continue to promote, and I mean, again, five years, we got another 15 years to go, and we're going to continue to do different programs. We're going to do billboards. We're going to do social media. We're going to make 21 million to come 42 million. Just keep on going. We've got major projects that are continuing down the pipe and will continue to do that. But the TDA's main job is to promote Rutherford County as a place to visit. And we will continue to promote Rutherford County as a place to visit. And that is our primary job and focus. And we will do that with the travel guides and various advertisements and promotions that we do. We will also enhance and work with the state of North Carolina, but also with our agriculture community. We have hired P1 tourism to come on board and help the TDA identify different farms throughout the community. And we want to develop a agri-tourism product and promotion and help our farmers create events out on their farms to help them provide them with some subsidiary income and so forth and we'll see how that goes but we're in the very early stages of that we are excited about where that's going and what that can bring to us. There's some pictures and highlights of some of the farm visits that we had done early on and we'll continue to probe all of our community programs throughout the county. The TDA provides marketing funds for all the talents for all the different events. I'm also excited that the first annual jet ski association tournament was out on the lake there at ICC College. Well, I think we're still on. So we're still heading in that direction. Eighth and a half hour gone. We're still heading in that direction. No, it's second annual. She's one that'll say yes. Oh, Margaret, I'm sorry. Sorry. Yeah, Margaret will help me do that. It's looking good anyway. The second annual tournament, so we're excited. And last but not least, Keith Rothschild and the beautiful. We continue to assist and pick up litter throughout the county. And hopefully we can get less litter, but unfortunately it's becoming more litter. And future changes to that program that I'll be back in the near future to talk to y'all about on what we can do to enhance that program. So that's it, wrap up. Okay. So five years ago, or so when we had our conversation, you know, part of that conversation was, you know, the stay only allows so much money for marketing, so much for capital. And, you know, when we sit down and talk, we was, what can we do to invest these funds in capital projects that enhance the living and livelihood of our citizens and guests. And I want to commend your board because they've come up with ideas that we weren't even thinking of. We were just saying this was less than the tax burden on our citizens, you know, when we have fireworks or whatever. These things will minor things. And your board has come through these tremendous projects that's made a big difference in how they spend the funding that comes their way. So please pass that on to your board. I certainly appreciate what they've done for our meeting. I thank you and don't tell them I forgot to thank them for what they did. That's all. Oh well. That's all right. That's a good question. She found new water. She's for next year. She wants to be one of the riders. That's right. Mr. Gnant? Yeah. She wants to be one of the riders. That's right. Commissioner Cnaut. Yeah, he said that North Carolina is looking to be the number one trails oriented state. In the country. Where are we now? We are probably like three, four, five range. We're moving up. Colorado's ahead of us, but we need to overtake him. Which one's number one? I would think, yes. Colorado's number one. Yes. Oh, we can beat that. Yeah, but that but back to the board being we're hoping that rule North Carolina can come up with some ways to help develop trails all of the community that the state has been thought of. So we're praying for that support. Well, thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're praying for that support. Okay. Well, thank you, sir, for the thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner's next item is 3649. So, budget amendments like director, director, I'll, I'll, director, you do. Good evening. The first item is the unemployment compensation where required to keep a balance at the state and based upon the percentage of payroll in this the adjustment for this year. The next item are unauthorized substance tax distribution this year, if received and that will go into the equipment line. also received donations to do the shop with the COT program and the Pink Patch project. There were also donations received for equipment and then autumn in the grant fund is for the rural downtown transformation grant that's been received. And the last autumn, Asal Thermal had a project for the arena budgeted. The project has since been complete. So they're requesting for that remaining balance to be repurposed for flooring updates. They'll be purchasing the flooring off-stick contract and currently getting bids for the labor and gets three buildings. OK. Good stuff. Thank you. Anything else? Any questions for the board? In page two this general fund as I understand it, please heard from last year. Yes, Are the projects that we had purchase orders tied to them that hadn't been carried forward at this point So I've reconciled now that we've closed out the year with the auditors for the nice part. Perfect Sorry, I forgot that page. I'm here for you so I've reconciled now that we've closed out the year with the auditors for the most part. Perfect. Thank you. Sorry, I forgot that page. I'm here for you. I was kind of hinting course head. How long was it there yet? Sorry. Just before this, I couldn't even get my stuff. My badge wouldn't work to get me in the finance office just a moment ago. OK, do I go to the meeting or do I just go home? I have to. I have to. He's all here. I know. I have to go through our back door to get my stuff. Motion to approve. Thank you. Okay. I'll second that. Motion to second. Any discussion? You're going to call a question off every year right hand. Any post-life wise. Second, any discussion? You're going to call a question off of Richard right hand. Any folks likewise? Carries, thank you. Next items, 3647, actually, there are 24 or 25 budget calendar. I'm not going to recognize our director and finance. First item is to present the budget calendar you all tonight. There's several milestones early February for our departments to submit the request to building maintenance. To IT communications with their phones and requests, as well as to HR or their certifications and reclassifications and or new positions. The next group of milestones are in March. The departments turn the information back to finance. We get it in the system in the last two weeks of the month. They meet with myself, the county manager and the HR director, to further explain the request. In April, there are some dates to be determined that we'll meet with the school board and the community college so that a balanced budget will be presented by the manager May 6th. At that meeting, June 3rd would be the public hearing and the following Thursday a potential budget adoption meeting. The calendar is similar to that in the years past. There are questions from the board. I just want to ask, is there really any discussion amongst the departments that all of the proposed budgets all of the same format, meaning the same structure. They're generally between 2015 and 20 pages for most departments. Now it just depends on the department as to what fits their department and their request. Okay. We do give them the line items to be budgeted that has a three to four year trend on it. Mm-hm. And then we give them some standard forms to encourage them with similar format. Mm-hm. But some departments do. Um, additional there. Present it a lot to probably than others would you describe the form we send out for It's the same for for all departments for real-based budgeting for for training travel and professional services Then we do request that in detail We send out a travel and training form so that they list the conferences and items that they are requesting to go to. So we can see the total cost and we send out the line item request. There's also a department summary form and their department goals that we ask them to fill out just so that they have. They're overarching. Request. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Any other questions from the board? No. Regarding this, I recommend you motion before you, commissioners. And what's the will of the board? I'd like to make a motion that we approve the 24-25 budget calendar. Second. We have a motion the second in discussion. You know, I call the question. I'll pay for raise your right hand. He put us likewise. Okay. Sit. Sit. Mouse. Thank you. Commissioners, next item is a compilation of volunteer fire departments, like to recognize. Crystal hammer. CPA is going to do this. Nice presentation. Good evening. Thank you for allowing me to summarize the 12 volunteer fire department reviews for a fiscal year in June 30, 2023. The 72 page compiled report of all the departments I think was sent to you electronically, and then I did the little three sheet summary to make it easier to get the summarized data. There are two departments with no debt this year, which is a good accomplishment. That frees the way to be. There are eight departments that have built up enough funding to where they have excess deposits and excess of the federal deposit insurance amount of 250,000. The departments still are not spending as much as they were trying to build up some reserves. They still spent on the normal turnout year, SCBA, radios, but no major spending. One department put a down payment on a bumper truck. That was chimney rock and green hill paid for some plans for a station addition, but not a lot of major spending still going on post COVID. Every single department received grant funding. Most of that grant funding was used for turnout gear and SCBA and radios. No significant issues were found during the reviews of the 12 departments. And the financial statements were all issued with modified, with unmodified reports, clean reports with no material statements. And they are reported based on the format of nonprofits with the donor restricted column for the reserved money for the fireman fund. the reserved money for the fireman fund. Each department can contribute to the pension fund for the fireman each year. Only one department did not contribute and all departments that are required to file the 990s and sales tax refunds, fuel tax refunds all have been filed so they're all in compliance. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. I'll ask you a question. I don't know if you'll be able to answer it but I know you look at all these. Are you seeing most of our volunteer fire departments take on staff like full-time staff? Most of them there's one or two that still have not, but the rest of the volunteer part is kind of going away. They're being paid at least for one person to be man in that station pretty much around the clock. So, and then the ones that don't have a role, a staff person, they are paying them per call like a $10 stipend or something You know, so there are some call reimbursements happening to cover the gas and their time Yeah, I just noticed that you know volunteerism is the word I use is is going seems to be going away It is it is that's the trend yes, and you, volunteer fire departments depend on it. I know my kids are volunteer, but I know they depend on that. But also, I know there's a trend where it's going to more paid staff. Right. They do have a long volunteer roster of firefighters, but there are almost every one. There's two or three maybe that I think of off the top of my head that do not have payroll. The rest of them do. Yeah. Any other questions? Commissioners, I recommend you motion before you and what's the will of the board? Make a motion we accept the compilations for the voluntary or fire departments for year ending June 30th, 2023. Second. I think I've got a motion to second. Thank you, Commissioner. Any discussion? Oh. Hearing none, call a question. All the way to the right hand. Need it both lightwires. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Nick's item to tax the collective support for this information only and then one more item left on the Tonight's agenda is the motion to adjourn Got a motion second the discussion You're gonna call a question on a favor. Raise your right hand. You put a lot of eyes. This means all thank you