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Home My WebLink About08-13-24 Work SessionI Dunn City Council Work Session Tuesday, August 13, 2024 6:30 p.m., Dunn Municipal Building Minutes PRESENT: Mayor William?. Elmore Jr., Council Members April Gaulden, Raquel McNeil, Billy N. Tart, Alan Hargis, and Dr. David L. Bradham. ABSENT: Mayor Pro Tern J. Wesley Sills Also present. City Manager.Steven Neuschafer, Assistant City Manager Billy R. Godwin, Finance Director Cary McNallan, Chief of Police Cary Jackson, Parks and Recreation Director Brian McNeill, Administrative Support SpecialistAmber Groves, City Attorney Tilghman Pope, and Deputy City Clerk Melissa Matti. CALL TO ORDER AND INVOCATION Mayor Elmore called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. and gave the invocation. Afterwards, he gave the invocation led in the Pledge of Allegiance. AGENDA ADJUSTMENT AND APPROVAL Motion by Council Member Hargis and second by Council Member McNeil to adopt the August 13, 2024, meeting agenda as presented. Motion unanimously approved. EMPLOYEE INTRODUCTIONS Assistant Manager Godwin introduced two (2) new City of Dunn employees. Jeremy Martin, Project Manager Jeremy has been with us since April. He is.a licensed general contractor and comes to Dunn by way of Fayetteville. He lives in Eastover. We're fortunate to have him. Alyssa Garcia, Planning Director Alyssa lives in Vander. She is originally from Maryland and has been in North Carolina for ten. (10) years. She came from Cumberland County where she worked in their Planning Department She has a master's in public administration. She is a CZO and is continuing to further her education. She has been with us for two days. ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION AND/OR DECISION Police Performance Wellness Grant Chief Jackson came before the council to ask for approval of the acceptance of a grant from the NC Chief of Police Association. This is a Release Performance and Wellness Grant that we applied for a few months ago. She explained that we were awarded $7,528.00. With this grant, we plan to purchase software that will allow us to start a profile for each of our. employees. With this software, we can track employee performance based on training. Motion by Council Member Gaulden and second by Council Member Hargis to accept the NC Chief of Police Performance & Wellness Grant Motion unanimously approved. Budget Amendment Fiber line City Manager Neuschafer explained that Harnett County provides us with IT services for the City of Dunn. They have expressed some interest in having our backups done remotely. We still do backups in-house here at City Hall. Inside the cabinet our server room 'inside the jail cell. Once the drives are backed up, then they physically drive down, pick them up in a vehicle and drive them back to Harnett County. Right now, they have fiber all the way to the library. They would like to know if we would extend that fiber from the library to City Hall to backup remotely, then they would have an automatic off -site backup at Harnett County on their secure servers there. Of course, it does come with a cost. We've had competitive bids to bore a fire line over to this location from the library. And, of course, it transverses several busy intersections. So, by splitting it out between the general fund and the water sewer fund, it kind of breaks the cost down; but it's the overall estimate from the overall estimate from ,the contractor that was $65,000. That would be a permanent fixed asset for the city. Council Member Hargis expressed his'concern and said, "We .have raised taxes this year because we are short on budget. And when I look in this agenda, I see how much money that we've spent on water; sewer and the things that we've had to do because of the weather and that kind of thing. This is a great idea, probably. I'm not saying it's not a bad idea. I'm just saying that this time I'm not in favor of this. $65,000 to do something that we're currently doing every day already. I think we can do that at a time when we have a little bit better financial situation. That's my opinion." Motion by Council Member Gaulden and second by Council Member McNeil to approve the budget amendment for the installation of a fiber line between the Dunn library and City Hall. Motion passed with 6 in favor and 1 opposed (Council Member Hargis). A copy of Budget Amendment (BA2024-25) is incorporated into these minutes as Attachment 41. - Public Utility Equipment Financing Finance Director McNallan explained -that back in December, the Council approved an agenda item following a public hearing. We approved the purchase of 'a number of pieces of equipment and then also the application to apply for USDA funding. Through that application process I learned that USDA requires any purchase of enterprise vehicles, which would be our water and sewer and stormwater. Those have to be recorded as general fund loans. 399 In order for me to do that - to follow those rules at the same time get the utilities to repay those loans I need to have the general fund by the equipment Set up the loan in the General Fund. The General Fund will pay back the loan to the USDA. But, then I'm kind of on the backside. The water utility and the storm water fund are going to pay the general fund back for the exact same amount that they're paying out If you if you went and bought your child a car. And you can only get the loan because they don't have any credit yet But you want them to pay you back each month and that's basically what. the general fund and the water utility fund are doing. The water utility fund is ultimately funding the loan. I did run this by the School of Government just to make sure they were good with it. They didn't have any problems with it But, in order to do that and get an official approval by the council, I need to have the council approve that. It's just a rule that they have that the general fund has to show that When we do our financial reports at the end of the year, it has to be shown as a general fund loan. I don't know why they do it, but that's just a rule they have. I think all this equipment has already been purchased. And the money was delayed by the Federal Government to our local USDA office. And I got word on Friday that they finally received that allotment. So, I should have the paperwork and know what the interest rates are by the end of this week. Hopefully. Basically, I'm just going to charge the utility funds the same exact interest rate. It's just kind of a flow through. Motion by Council Member Bradham and second by Council Member Tart to approve the recording of advance of funds. between the General Fund and Utility Fund. Motion unanimously approved. Pearsall Street Bridge Project Update Assistant City Manager Godwin stated that the Pearsall Street project is obviously something that's on everybody's mind. It's quite visible around the city and the street has been closed for an extended period of time. We thought tonight would be a good night to bring you a report on the status of the project We get a lot of questions about it. He noticed it in his backyard, so it's certainly near and dear to his heart as well. He introduced Hobe Dori, Engineer with Withers Ravenel who gave a extensive project update and answered questions from the council. A copy of the slideshow is incorporated into these minutes as Attachment #2. 24" Water Line Project Update City Manager Neuschafer gave an extensive slide show presentation showing steps taken to fixing an immediate issue with the 24" water line. A copy of the slideshow is incorporated into these minutes as Attachment #3. Budget Amendment Water Line Project Finance Director McNallan addressed the council and said You've heard the background on [the 24" Water line Project Update]. So, we're basically asking for a motion to approve a budget amendment to allocate $564,000 of our water and sewer reserves and then allocated to the operating budget to pay for this. A copy of Budget Amendment (BA2024-26) is incorporated into these minutes as Attachment #4. Motion by Council Member Hargis, second by Council Member McNeil to approve the budget amendment for the water line project. Motion unanimously approved. Upcoming Meetings Next Regular Meeting will be Tuesday, August 27, 2024 at 6:30 p.m. Next Work Session is scheduled for Tuesday, September 10th at 6:30 p.m. Closed Session Motion by Council Member McNeil and second by Council Member Gaulden to go into closed at 7:55 p.m. Motion unanimously approved. No decisions were made, and Closed Session adjourned at 8:15 p.m. William P. Elmore Jr. ``�eeeeeea�� Mayor Attest: OT.Y OF _` GORPOj�q 22 Melissa R. Matti, CMC, NCCMC, CZO y'• SEAL Deputy City Clerk O .,��CARO%, `