Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you tonight to this July 6, 2021 Commissioners meeting. And to call this meeting to order, I'd like to start with asking Chairman Dow to do an implication and lead us in the legislature's always name. OK, with our heads please. Okay, Lord, it's with our heads before you. We call on you many blessings because I know that there's a God somewhere that blesses each and every one of us. Thank you for guiding us through this weekend without any desperate, anything bad happening to anyone in the county. We need God as a director as we prepare for this meeting tonight. God is a holy name, amen. Amen. Amen. I believe that we need to provide a clean and safe space of America and to the Republic for which it trans one mission under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Does any board member or the county clerk have anything to add to the meeting agenda tonight? I do not. I do not. I do not. I do not. Mr. Chair, members of the board, I would like to remove Mr. Brandon, the man direct from emergency medical services. He was to present some contracts, but the county attorney is still in negotiations with those companies and he needs some more time to finish the negotiation process. Motion to approve the meeting. With that change. Sir, move second. Got a motion in a second. Any comment? All in favor say aye. I'm unanimous Assuming everyone had a chance to review the minutes of the 2021 meeting in discussion Do I get a motion motion? Got a motion in Motion. Second. I got a motion in a second to approve those minutes in your discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Inanimous. Okay. Everybody's looked over to consent agenda. Do I get a motion to approve? So moved. Second. I got a motion in a second in discussion. All in favor say aye. Unanimous. If we have any public comments, if you look in column up, I would appreciate it. Mr. Chairman, I know one of the side of the public comments. Any one like to make public comment? No public comments, Mr. Chair. Okay, moving comment. No public comments, Mr. Chair. Okay, moving right along. I would like to ask Melissa Kennedy to come up, please. Good evening. Good evening, ma'am. The first thing on the agenda we have is to hold a public hearing to name a road or a lane off of some of those crossroads and a 900 block for a sitting in a flip-back or see-a. And they have chosen Rancho or see-a lane. Okay, that's the second. That was your second thing on our list, but that's all right. That everybody on board, this was out of three okay I'm making motion that we open the public here and for that second okay got a motion in a second on the paper say aye okay public hearing is open any comments from the public the pilot. No, we're here. We're here, then. I get a motion to close the public hearing. From move. Thank you. Motion, public hearing, close. Now I would like to entertain a motion for the request of our senior Garcia. I don't know if I need a little help with that. He goes back, they go back to Garcia. He has two names listed there. When they came in, the little girls said that they go back to Garcia. That's the senior in Felipe. Okay. Name at the lane at 927, some land Crossroads, Kenisville, North Carolina, and Kenisville Township, Rancho Garcia Lane and accordance to the Dupland County addressing and road naming audits. Take it a motion. Got a motion in a second in discussion. All in favor say aye. Unanimous. Okay. And the next one is to request the public hearing for the August the Second Meeting to name a lane for John Williams in the Rock Fist Township off of the 400 block of Providence Church Road. Okay. I need a motion to approve the request to schedule a public hearing August 2nd, 2021 Regarding requests for Jones salvage Williams to name a lane offer probably church road teaching North Carolina Ruckstaff township Savage family lane and the Accordants with the Dupland County addressing and road Name and coordinates. I get a motion. Motion. Some move. Motion. Second in discussion. All in favor say aye. You're an animus. Thank you. Thank you. Now I would like to ask Joe to come up please. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. I'm here tonight to discuss two topics. The first is a request to use American Rescue Plan Act funds to fund the Dupland County Skate Improvements Project. And so we've been trying to get funding for this project. We have not been successful. And the estimated cost of the project is 1 million 621 thousand. Again, we have tried to obtain grant funding with no success to this point. The county, I think, has slated to get over $11 million in the ARPA funds. And so, the Estimated System is certainly indeed of being replaced, there's components in the system that are 26, 27 years old. And technology has changed a lot over those years, and it's gotten to the point where spare parts are very difficult to find. I could certainly go into a lot in detail. I'm just going to... At this time, ask if you have any questions that you would like to ask me. Before I ask for a motion, is there anything for sipping that somebody would like to ask him to talk before we get a motion on the floor. Out of a couple of questions. Yes, sir. One, when you say that you were attempting to get funds, I'm assuming that you've been successful in the past. Can you share any details as to why you... There was a mistake that the funding agency made the first time. And due to COVID, they did not have a meeting prior to and so they made the announcement like the date before they met. The last time we were going to spend an application for the week of September of this And when we ran the numbers, the county has too much money to be eligible for grant fund. And so they take a lot of your financial statistics, and they take all that consideration when they consider whether or not you're eligible for grant fund. The most you would have been eligible for 25%, if you follow them into the other criteria that you would typically meet. Mr. Chairman, if I may, this system is 26, 27 years telling me it's failed if it fails in our well sites our elevated storage tanks will not be able to talk back to the water office here in Kingsville so they can monitor the amount of water in the system and we're gonna have to deploy our water tanks out to feel to constantly monitor this stuff. So it's very needed. And we've been using this system, like I said, and he said for 26, 27 years, it's time that we upgrade it. The last time we had to go and search for parts, I think it finally found something south Carolina. But maybe we won't be able to find parts next time. I think this is a good expenditure for our arpa funds. Water sewer and broadband infrastructure are some of the things that are allowable and mischess and I've already looked into it. This is an allowable expense. So I think it's a good expenditure for arpa funds. So with that said, it this time I'll entertain a motion. So move. So I got a motion and a the socket to approve Dukeland County to commit the use of American Rescue Funds, ARPA Funds for the construction of SCADA improvement for Dukeland County water systems and authorize the chairman to execute technical service agreement with the engineer in his question With the 25% match if we were to get that grant that's $400 some thousand. That's really not chuck change Understand and if we are if we went that right off the credit office you'd have to wait until at least April of 2022 to apply I Know for sure that based on your current financial statement that you're currently or not eligible for any grant. Are they looking at the county as a whole or just our enterprise fund? Only they only look at the enterprise fund. We have about $7 million or more in their fund balance which is very healthy so we should be proud of that. But to the grant authority at the state level, they focus on systems that are quite as healthy as ours to give them grants to help with their improvements. We're just getting, I mean, I don't even know what all my thing, I don't have a problem with updating the system at all. I understand what you're saying, what Donna has done, but you know, I don't know what all we can use this money for. We haven't had any guidance other than we're getting it, and probably only got $5 million of it. We've got half of the grant now in the conference calls that I have attended, which were at the state level with the lead of municipalities and the commissioners association. The conference calls I've been on is if they say that this project will qualify for the state grants by purpose. So if a state grant would provide for a SCADA, then this would also be the eligible for your ARPA funds. But yes, in SCADA, the ARPA funds are for water, broadband, other types of infrastructure. powerful water, broadband, other types of infrastructure. It is based on your, it's based on your yearly financial statement. They, they look at the last three years of your financial statements. Well, the questions. Yeah. I've been today I read the information from the NCC and relative to the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and it did state that we could use it for water sewer and different type of things like that for county emancipalities. And I think it's a viable resource that we need and it's a viable source of revenue. So I agree with you. But in turn, this would also support any of the towns in terms of some of their challenges that they have with some of their challenges that they've had with some of their water systems as well. Well, the towns will receive their own direct allocation of ARPA funds, but our system is interconnected with the town systems. Donna can tell you more about that. It helps supply them with water in times of peak need, or if they have a main waterline break or something something we can help supply them to back feed them. Like we did a few months ago here in Kenisville when they had the major water breakage up at the courthouse. And this system will really help us be more in tune about what's exactness instead of assuming or trying to draw dots with it. It's really no dots correct. Yes, sir. It'll help us monitor our system significantly better. I think in what we're talking about. It will. All your water system personnel will monitor the system from a cell phone or from a laptop at home in any way that you can have access to the internet. And the information will flow faster. The Poland cycle will be greatly reduced. Poland cycle is how it takes. By the time you tell a well to come on, by the time it communicates back, he even says, hey, I'm running. The Poland cycle will probably be reduced by 75 percent. And that's valuable to Donna. So yes, the new systems out today are, you know, you look at looking at what a computer did in 1990 versus what a computer does today. And it's relatively the same thing. You changing it from an XP platform to what? Well, you would be with us during the operating system when it comes to 10 days just right? Possibly when those 11 days are here, I'm just coming out soon. I don't know. Thank you. Any further questions? No, I'm not one quick one right here. The enterprise fund is Growing every year correct. It's not mean exponentially, but it keeps keeping up every year correct. If you mean customer base, yes, and if you mean fun balance, yes. Yes. That's why I mean the fund balance. Yes. It keeps taking up. So my question is to his board and the manager instead of using 100% of these monies are we better off to use a portion of this and a portion of the fund balance because and save some of this money for other uses. It's that's certainly an option for the board. You have not this tonight we're not in ring and two any type of a budget ordinance and so that decision could be the allocation could be decided upon later. Certainly a very good question. We as a board or I certainly I can only speak for myself, but I don't know exactly that Have it had time to sit down and look at the knees that we could use that 11 million dollars to spend and and I don't have a problem spending The 1.6 million dollars to do this project, but is it something we can pull half of it out of the enterprise fund balance and half of it out of this money and To make this money go further because this is one time money This is not gonna be reoccurring money. Well the one thing we have to consider that it may be a one-time go We have to have things booked by the 2024 and turns of what you're gonna use the funds for and then about 2026 it has to be spent So when you look at what the challenges I believe the water treatment facility is having and based on the fact that we are at 27 years and this thing can take off in any minute now it may be more of a greater cost to us then if we were to wait. I think it's more of a situation where I'm on this sort of stay of waiting I'm saying, does it need to come out 100% out of the risk you should be defending from the state or coming from the state through the federal government? Or do we need to split it between our vet money and the enterprise fund balance? Well, I'm thinking that the money if it's still growing the way that it seems to be growing in our fund balance That at that time if we need to shift something at a later time It may be better served because but for right now we have these funds We need to utilize them as best we can for those situations that really have been struggling for quite some time So that we do today what we know we can do planning for tomorrow with those things as they continue to escalate down the road. As Mr. McKee me stated, you're not coming out with a budget tonight. You're committing to use ARPA funds for the construction. I don't know that that would have to be 100%. If the board wants us to explore looking at alternate funding sources to help supplement ARPA funds, we can certainly do that moving forward. I just think this is a project we want to go ahead and get moving on because we see that it's a great need, it's a necessity. And that's why the sense of urgency. For clarification, the motion and the second that's on the table that we're fixing to vote on is just given permission to use that fund so we can get started. Yes sir. Correct. Just clarification. I just call for a vote. I'll in favor say aye. I'll oppose. Kerry. Okay thank you. The next item has to do with the Duplin County Golden Leaf Foundation grant funding that was used to replace three generators at three of your well sites. And the work is now substantially complete. We've had a final inspection. And so the generators are on standby radio to crank if there's a power failure. In order to close the project out, I've got to have a final adjustment change order. Overall, it's a deduct of $9,616,1.30 and the final construction amount is $261,183.70. On page seven of the agenda item that I sent is a resolution and it basically just says that the amendment is needed due to contract number one change order number one and it authorizes the it approves the budget and authorizes the chairman to execute all the documents assigned associated with that change order. On page 8 is your budget and it shows that construction deed up of $9661 and change and you see that your contingency balance increases. This is not your final budget. We have tried to, Donna has asked for some things to try to use the contingency balance for and so far the funding agency has denied some of those requests. And so we may want to try to, we at least need to go ahead and pay the contractor for work to perform. And we may want to also look at the seed, but we can spend the additional contingency balance if possible. On page 9 is your change order. And it simply is a amount from $270,000, $145, down to $261,183, $70. I am giving the contractor an increase in time to 69 days. And that's because the manufacturer of the generators took a whole lot longer than anticipated. It was completely out of our control, out of his control. But the moment they were delivered, he was there within a few days and he completed his work. So I have no qualms about giving him the additional time. What was the additional time, sir? It was for the main factor. The main factor was the time. Oh, 69 days. That's on page nine at the bottom of page nine. Okay. You think all you've done? Well, I was just going to go through the change order on page 12 is the automation of the change order. The first was the load bank allowance and we decided that was probably not a, uh, was not going to work out well. Uh, there was a couple of changes with, um, the staking allowance and also the contractor put in some additional stone. Um, so in wet times, the county would not have any trouble getting vehicles in and out, especially the fuel generators. And so the stone went over by eight cubic cubic yards which is square yards, square yards is huge and which is only $120. So overall I think it's a very routine change order and I'm glad answering any questions that you have. Okay, I need a motion to move forward. Second. I have a motion and a second to approve the resolution of the men in capital project budget ordinance regarding the Dukeland County Golden Leaf Generator project, which approved to change order and amends the project budget in discussion. All in favor say aye. All opposed? Carried. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. McKin. All right. That brings us to Mr. Tracey. Just that. Good evening. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, I would like to request that we hold a public hearing to receive public comment on Dupland County's acceptance of $1.3 million in loan funds from track county EMC to help with the construction of the new animal control center. You have emotions to move. Seconds. I got a motion in a second to open a public hearing. Public hearing is now open. Any comments from the public? With none, I need a motion to close public hearing. We've got a motion in a second. Close public hearing. And I would also like to request that the board adopt the resolution that's included in your packet authorizing the finance officer to make application to the local government commission as required by General statute for approval of the funding. So move. Sorry. I have a motion in a second to accept the funding from Tri County, UMC, in the amount of 1.3 million in loan and to adopt the resolution to make application to the local government commission for approval of finance and of the animal care, control and adoption facility. Any further comment? All in favor say aye. You're an animus. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. All right. that brings us to Mr. Joe Nuban. I'm here today to get some contracts approved. One is for my small animals with Warsaw Animal Hospital and one is with my large animal. It's Reagan's Equine Association of Castle Hane. I need to entertain a motion. So move. Second. I got a motion in a second to approve the contract for veterinary services for large animal between Dupland County and Reagan Equine associations of New Annover County. And the contract for small animal between Dupland County and the Warsaw Animal Hospital P.A. for a small animal for the period July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022 discussion. All in favor say aye? All opposed? Carried. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That brings me to Ms. Hatcher. And I believe we got to stand in. Good evening. I'm Bridget Huffman with Cooperative Extension. I'm standing in for Amanda Hatcher. Thank you, Bridget. Thank you. Cooperative Extension is seeking permission from the board to apply for the substance abuse, prevention, and treatment block grant, which is being administrative by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. The grant funded would extend an already existing County position, which is currently funded through East Point at 29 hours a week to a full-time position. The supplemental grants budget would include funding to extend the 29-hour work week for the current employee to 40 hours a week, provide benefits for a 40-hour work week, and provide health insurance, as well as provide an increase toward expenses such as travel and supplies. Cooperative Extension understands that although this position is a county position, the position may revert back to or remain at 29 hours a week if additional grant funds cannot be obtained since county funds will not be used as a supplement to full time. The grant request will be 22,000 per fiscal year and the grant funds will be required to be spent by March 2023. The application is due July the 19th of 2021 and notifications regarding funding will be sent July the 30th of 2021. With the additional time added to this position, more of the following is expected to benefit the citizens of Dufon County. Merchant education meant to reduce the incidents of underage sales of items such as tobacco and alcohol. Youth education meant to reduce the incidents of drug, alcohol and tobacco use. And technical support to provide prevention, excuse me, meant to provide prevention information to community centers, schools, government agencies and others. Cooperative Extension will prepare the grant application and the project will begin as early as August 2nd, 2021, if approved. Cooperative Extension is requesting the board to approve applying for this funding through the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant to extend forage prevention's ability to support Ducland County from a part-time position to a full-time position to extend the reach of programming providing grant funds are available to fund this extension. I want to stress at the board that cooperative extension will not be asked in the county for any funds once the grant is and if additional funds are not available the position would revert back to part-time. I entertain a motion. are not available, the position would revert back to part time. I entertain a motion. Some move. Second. I got a motion in a second to approve carbon extension to apply for the funding through the second abuse prevention and treatment block grant to extend for each prevention ability to support Dupland County by going from a part time to a full time position providing grant funds are available to fund the request and that it is understood that the position may revert back to a two or remain a 29 hour per week if additional grant funds cannot be attained since the county funds will not be used as a supplement to full time. Question. I appreciate the explanation that you gave us and answered every question that I had and a lot of people don't realize the value of the cooperative extension in the county. Thank you. Thank you. Paul in favor say aye. Uh, all opposed. Gary. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good evening. That brings us to Mr. Gary Road. Good evening. Good evening sir. I have another surplus property. I have a final bid. This bid in on partial 09-21-12 on June 9, 2021 in the amount of $1600 from Talora, Saran, Denise Stokes, and Lynette, Saron Stokes for partial land that the county obtained through foreclosure on August 5, 2019 for $200,056. The board may accept this bid and instruct the county attorney to do a deed over the May reject the bid. What's the pleasure to board? I make a motion to accept. OK, I got a motion to accept. Do I get a second? Second. I got a motion in a second to accept. The final bid of $1,600 for partial number 092112 located on Pastor Branch Road, Rose Hill, North Carolina Island Creek Township and authorized the county attorney to prepare a deed or to transfer a property to Torlo, Suron, Denise Stokes, and Lynette, Seron, Stokes, Mother, and Daughter. Any comments? All in favor say aye? All opposed? Carry. All right, Mr. Rose. Well, Mr. Chairman, the town of Wallace approached us a while back to the county about collecting the taxes for the town of Wallace. They have a dot bed and agreement, which is pretty much the same agreement that we've done from Magnolian Rose Hill, Kenan'sville War Solid Clip Soap for six other towns. And I'm presenting this agreement to you all tonight. Intertaining motion? Motion. I've got a motion in a second to enter into a interlude call agreement for the collection of taxes between the county of Dupland and the town of Wallace. Further comments or questions? All in favor say aye. All opposed? Carry. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Any comments have anything? Mr. Manager? Mr. Chairman, members of the board I have one thing I will not be here. The Monday July July the 19th meeting. Mr. Future will be standing in for me. Miss Haaskins will also be here. But nothing else. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn until July the 19th, 6 o'clock. You can do the road has broken serons today. We can, yes sir. Road concerned. Yeah, I didn't see it on my list. I didn't have it on there. That's our oversight. I think Mr. Chairman and I apologize for that. So I'll now take nor accept any road concerns from members of the board or general public so I can pay them to a little kind of apartment transportation. Obviously I don't have any. Okay. I'm good. I'm good. All right. Mr. Down. Yes sir. We got two. All right. One I need them to check the 1934 West Wars bridge road the relative driveway and also 161 B's in this road make no little colline of driveway. Those come from the citizens. Okay. Any member of General Public have a road, I have made the OT aware of it. I'll follow up with him tomorrow this Maynard. Mr. Brinson, any follow-up or regards to the discussion that's taken place in Warsaw? Was that in regards to what this may have just put there? Hers was a different one, but I have not followed up with Mr. Sommelund. He was going to look into it as well as Mr. Rhodes at DOT. I'll follow up with Mr. Rhodes again tomorrow. Okay. Thank you. All right. Anything else? Now I'll entertain a motion to the adjourn until July the 9th, 6th clock. Sure, move. Second. I got a motion in aclock. Sir, move. Second. I got a motion in a second. All in favor say aye. Anonymous. We are adjourned. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your time.