Planning Board Meeting

this live stream via YouTube. And we'll move now into the commencement invocation and pledge of allegiance. But first, I want to read a diversity statement. The town of Apex values and celebrates diversity and inclusion. We see diversity as a strength that binds our community together. Inviting members from different faith communities to deliver the invocation at the beginning of our council meeting supports this unity. Recognizing that that not everyone practices the same traditions, we welcome you to have a private moment of silence or reflection. Tonight, what I would like to do is offer a word of prayer and reflection. So, if you would please join me. Father God, I thank you for this time. I thank you for allowing us the opportunity to assemble as one community. May the spirit of love, unity, and collaboration lead us recognizing that we may not agree on everything, but at the end of the day, we're still one community, and you have blessed this community for many years. And may we continue to be guided by the principles again of love, unity, and purpose. We give you honor and glory for it. It's in Jesus name I pray. Amen.

All right. If you would join us, if you're able, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it nation stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Thank you so much. Um, for reflection, I just want to [clears throat] say this. I know we're all here for different things and we appreciate you coming out, but I just want to make one clear statement. It's going to be all right. [laughter] It it'll be fine. That's what we do in Apex. Everything will come together. But I want to recognize some former town council members as we look at Apex today in 2026. How do we get here? The success of leadership. We have some strong leaders

that came before all of us that's seated up here this evening. I want to recognize the following people. Michael Jones, Doug Mackis, Christine Hilt, Carl Hilton, Donald Grimes, and Wes Moyer for decades of experience for leading this town. So, if you would please stand and be recognized. [applause] Also would like to thank um as always uh our Apex Police Department for being here. Officer Sher, thank you for providing security tonight. So, we'll move now into the announcements and petitions by the governing body. We'll start with Mayor Pro Tim.

No comments, mayor.

All right. No comments. All right. Move now to council member Gray.

I just want to make uh one brief uh comment. I think it's important for uh just a moment of reflection. Um I know that we didn't have uh meetings uh we did not have regular meetings in July, but there were plenty of other meetings and things that we were doing during the course of July. So calling it a vacation I think is a huge misnomer. But I do think it's important to note that uh you know today we kind of kick off the second half of the year. Um I know we're all invigorated and ready and excited and eager to continue the business of Apex and we're excited about a lot of the things that's been happening and we're more excited about the things that are going to be happening going forward. So that's all I have.

Thank you so much. Councilman Council Member Ziggman.

Uh just want to say welcome to everybody. Uh yes, we had a little uh break from meetings over the uh over the July month, but uh good to see everybody back in these chambers in force. So, welcome everybody. Um good to see my colleagues on the on the day here, too. Um it wasn't the same without you. So, other than that, no comments.

Thank you, Councilman. All right, Council Member Moot. Um, I just want to say um I wish everyone is having a good summer and I want to express my gratitude to our public safety members, our police officers, our firefighters

and everyone uh and first responders, everyone who is out there every day risk their lives to protect our community, protect our residents, no matter matter how bad the weather is for that I'm deeply grateful. Thank you. That's my [applause]

All right. Thank you, Council Member Moo. Council member Ree.

Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. I want to say uh I want to dedicate my time to honoring Lynn Council who many may remember um in the 1950s was um uh endured an attempted hanging um and uh want to uh recognize that former police chief John Lety uh installed a bench honoring Mr. Council who passed away um a few days ago at the age of 93 years old. Um, and just want to say that uh may his memory be a blessing to all and especially his family. And the second thing I wanted to say was it's so great to see a packed house and so many people engaged in local government. Um, and whether uh you like things that are going on or not, just thank you for being here and thank you for contributing.

Thank you, mayor.

Thank you for that for recognizing Mr. Council. For sure. All right. I don't have anything to offer tonight. We'll move to adoption of the meeting agenda. Are there any recommended changes before approving the agenda

under consent? We'll have some changes.

Okay. Very well. [clears throat]

Move to adopt.

Move to motion. Second

discussion. All in favor indicate by saying I.

Oppos? No. All right. Motion carries. Move now to consent agenda. Mr. Clerk, recommended changes.

Yes, we have two recommended changes. Uh consent item number four is the [clears throat] agreement multi-year Axon for air drone sense program and interview interview room camera system through June 30th 2030 deferring it to the public safety council committee and then clarifying the motion for consent item number 23 and I it should read as

follows. Motion to approve revisions to article 7, holidays and leaves of absence section 18, family and medical leave of the town of Apex personnel policy. and B motion to delete article five conditions of employment section 10 employment of relatives of the town's personnel policy and replace with a new article 5 conditions of employment section 10 nepotism and employment of relatives and authorize town staff to format and renumber as consistent with the existing personnel policy.

All righty. Thank you so much. All right, with those recommended changes, is there a motion? Motion to approve.

Motion Zman second.

May prom.

All right. Discussion. Hearing none. All in favor say I. I.

Oppos. No. Motion carries.

All right. We'll move now to town manager report. Mr. Bossburg.

Good evening, mayor and council. It's uh great to be back. Had to, like you said, it wasn't a break. We got quite a bit done over the month of July, but hopefully everybody's ready to go. I did want to take a second to introduce Mera Nelson. She's a rising junior at Virginia Tech. She's an Apex resident. Uh she did an internship this summer at the General Assembly and then uh did some shadowing in local government. And so we invited her to a meeting. I told her she picked pretty doozy of a meeting to attend. And I told her don't feel obligated to stay for the entire meeting. Now

she got a whole meeting.

She may but she may dip out. So but thank you for being here. [applause] All right, I have a few updates. Uh, I'm going to save some of the capital items. You have a work session on the 18th, I think there's one, and you have one this week as well. Uh, this week though, is the one where parks and recck will be giving some updates on a lot of their capital projects. So, I will save those for that meeting, but have a few other updates. On our meter update, we have replaced 26,500

of our electric meters. uh that represents about 80% completion. So that project continues to uh get towards completion. Originally it was projected for fall, so we're still on track for a fall completion. Uh then getting into uh utility billing collections and payments. So some data here I'm going to throw at you. Uh we've got payment plans that are starting to uh be enacted. So the numbers I'm going to give you right now we have passed due and this does not include what's under payment plan. So, I'll give you that number separate. We are looking at $4.3 million in past due balances and that's an estimate or a rough uh number. It's 4.309. Uh then there's 1.2 million that is that are under payment plans. So, when you put that together, you're looking at roughly 5.2 uh 5.5 million. Uh so 4.3 is outstanding that is not under a payment plan. 1.2 is represented under a payment plan. If you recall when we started, we were over $6 million. So that number is continuing to come down. It's roughly a little over half a million down from that peak. So we anticipate more payment plans will be put in place and that number will continue to come down. Uh we are currently looking at around 1,091 customers that would hit a modified um threshold of $1,000 for cutoff. Uh there's been some play in that number because of the the nature of the prolonged nature of some of the um payment that haven't been made. Uh that's a temporary threshold of $1,000 as opposed to $500 which was our traditional limit. Um so right now, 191 customers are at $1,000 or above and then would be subject to potential disconnect. Uh based on our payment plans, I mentioned the number, we have payment plans approved. Uh the value again is around $1.2 million in those payment plans and uh we have seen a few

come in and set up payment plans. So this is an unfortunate occurrence where we have 39 plans that we had to void already. Uh some of those were they moved away disconnected. Uh but some of them were they enacted a payment plan and then didn't follow through with making payments on that payment plan. Uh so we have seen 39 plans that we had to suspend because of not making proper payments. We did on our last cycle uh bills which represent cycle one because we resumed standard billing procedures, we did institute late fees on those bills. Um so you'll start to see those uh roll out and um we anticipate as we work through to educate on what cuto offs look like. We're putting late notices together. We're putting push on payment plans and then of course last resort would be looking at cuto offs. Uh we believe we're somewhere and Sean jump in if I'm wrong on this number. We're probably four to six weeks before we'd be looking at our first cut offs. Uh and there are other policies that are at play that will come to you on the 18th at a work session. We have a lot of our utility billing policies uh which I've talked to you individually, some of you individually about some policy tweaks related to um extreme weather conditions. So all of that we will bring on the work session for the 18th to look at policies. Um there is some language I noticed. Um also Duke is nearing this. We've had a pretty hot summer and this week is projected to be pretty warm as well. Uh so recognizing that as we experience heat and people's air conditioning is running, being mindful that bills are probably going to climb with that. Uh so just putting it out there. Duke's doing an educational campaign on the extreme weather and how it's causing higher bills. Uh so just want to put out awareness that we do anticipate some higher bills because it has been an a hot summer. I don't know if unusual is the word anymore, but it's been a hot summer and people have been using air conditioning as we all have. So, that's it from a utility billing perspective. More changes in the policy, like I said, will come to the work

session on the 18th. Any questions on that before I move to other items? Okay. All right. Couple updates. I'm going to go through these relatively quick. The Apex uh senior center will be closed from August 18th to September 7th. that is for our floor um renovation there and we had toyed with the idea of having it partially opened but because of the process and um different odors with the floor process we just got it it's best to shut it down get the work done and move forward. Our seniors have been very gracious on this uh because all activities will be suspended in the facility during that time. Uh so I did interact with a few seniors at my last um ask me anything event and they were excited about the investment we're making into the facility. So, so far the feedback's been been great. Everyone's a little disappointed you don't have those activities, but uh they're understanding. So, that's awesome. Couple of capital updates. The Salem Streetscaping project during the month of July, we switched over to phase two, which is the other side of the roadway. Uh we're rocking and rolling on that. You should start to see uh some activity where, of course, anytime we open up the road, there could be surprises. Uh so, we've had some utility items that were in the roadway that we opened up that were not where they were supposed to be. I'll say. So, we're working through uh that utility issue and how we kind of work around, but very soon we hope to see the soil boxes going in the light pole foundations. So, you'll start to see that work continue on the other side of the roadway. We are shift next to the Peakway Southwest Connector project. This is the one that bridges over South Salem Street and the CSX rail line. Uh this project continues to trend well and we are anticipating a fall opening of this project. Uh which depending on what timeline you're looking at, this is as much as a year ahead of schedule. Minimum eight months but up to a year depending on what deadline you were looking at. So that project is trending well. Knock on wood. Of course all of these are subject to if

we get any extreme weather then that could delay us a little bit. But right now we're looking at a fall opening of the Peakway connector. Tonstl house talked briefly on this. There are a couple components. So there's the site work that's happening at that location and then there's also the renovation of the house itself. The work on the house is supposed to be done uh somewhere in the neighborhood of October. So a couple months looking at the house piece. Uh and then the site work should wrap in January. Uh so that puts a final completion of the total site work and housework to be probably beginning of February at this point. So, that project is moving along as well. We've got the [clears throat and cough] affordable housing project on South U Street. If you'll recall, that's the acreage that we own um off street that's planned for some kind of affordable housing project. It is currently in the stage of seeking community input. So, we have two community input sessions coming up in the next week. Uh the first one is on August 15th which is a Saturday that will be at the senior center and the second is on August 19th at the Halley Cultural Arts Center. So two input sessions on that. More information available on our website for those. I did there's been a lot of talk about pecards. So uh for transparency from town of Apex I wanted to mention um our numbers. You've seen some reports on Car's numbers and some of the other jurisdictions. uh we have 124 individuals with town pecards that represents about 16% of our workforce. [snorts] Uh so the average around the state is is around 16%. So we're on average uh some of our neighbors have reported that number that's much higher than that but we are at 16%. The spend because that has also been discussed uh the town's PECARD spend totals for fiscal year 2026 it was $2.7 million. Uh, I think there was another number thrown out in another jurisdiction that was significantly higher than that. Um, but we we believe 2.7 million is reasonable and wanted to

just mention it real quick. Uh, that there's a rebate program that's associated with our PC cards. Uh, so if we had the option of I'm putting $100,000 on a purchase order or $100,000 on a PC card, I get nothing in return in terms of monetary on the purchase order, but on the PC card, we get a 5% or there's a percentage rebate. It may vary, but it's just like if you have your bank card and you get cash back on that. So, there is an incentive with moving things onto a PC card to get that cash back return. Uh, so for what that's worth, but we're we want to be transparent with our numbers and get those out there. All right, a few events and then I've got maybe a couple items and then I'll move move on. We've got our passports in the park program that's going through August 17th. That's the program where you can visit eight featured parks. You solve a riddle or a puzzle at each of those parks. Once you solve it, you come back to the John and um and Brown Center and they give you a stamp and your passport and then there are prizes if you complete your um passport and you turn that in then you can get prizes. We also have a local spot passport program which is supportive of our downtown um the local spot which is our social district and that passport is available at any of the locations that participate in the uh local spot sip stop. Uh you can also get it at the depot on Salem and it's kind of works the same way. You go around to the businesses that have um that participate in the social district and you can get uh signatures on that passport and then take it back to the depot and enter it for a prize drawing in the end. Uh that's you don't even have to purchase at those businesses although we would appreciate purchasing and supporting those local businesses. U but you can just visit them and they can sign off on that passport program. I won't go through. There are a ton of events. I encourage you to check our website. We've got rhythm and reels concert coming up. There's uh on the steps concert. There's all kinds of activities, concerts, movies coming up. Please check our parks and wreck website to get all the dates and get the participation. Uh we've got a great uh

Southeast Pollinator Census which is happening Friday, August 21st. We've got Neon Nights Silent Disco Friday, October 28th from 6:00 to 8 at the Howie Cultural Arts Center. So, a lot of good activities that are going on as we celebrate kind of the the end of summer and approach back to school. Uh capital projects, I went through most of those. You'll get an update on the Pleasant Park baseball fields when Parks and W covers that. Uh we'll talk a little bit about our public safety renovations uh in a moment in the presentation. We've got a renovation planned in this building on the first floor. Uh when you come in the building on the lefthand side, it's where finance used to be located. That will be the new location of HR, but that renovation will begin on August 17th. That renovation will start. We've got our Town of Apex wayfinding signage program that will launch. Uh it's in the fabrication stage now. Uh and that should work over there two phases to that. So, we'll do some of that wayfinding this year and a little bit in 2027. Uh and then the stage that you'll recall was partially funded uh through our capital plan and then partially funded by a grant from the county that uh architect has been selected for the stage here on town hall property and so that project will be kicking off shortly. So a lot of projects happening and you'll hear even more at the uh work session. With that that's the update and I have two items. Uh if you're ready I can keep going and proceed to those

please. Yep. Okay. And and before you do that, I just want to make it known. Um I see we got some floor seating. You're welcome to stay in here, but we do have overflow seating on the third floor. There's staff out there that can direct you accordingly. So um if you want to be more comfortable, we [clears throat] do have seating on the third floor.

Okay.

Okay. Go ahead.

All right. I'm going to hit the first item um after updates which relates to fire station number one and the proposed market analysis and feasibility study. I am going to invite Tim Herman, our fire chief, who is here in the maze. Yes. and also uh Joanna Helms, our economic

development director. You want to come up now or you can wait till it's up to you. Do you want Tim to do his piece first? Okay, Chief, you'll do your presentation first and then Joanna will come up and uh then we'll have questions from council.

All right, manager Vossberg. Good evening, Mayor Gilbert and council, town staff, and certainly all the citizens here tonight uh to talk about this important topic of fire [clears throat] station one. Uh so tonight's meeting included a budget amendment request within the consent agenda section related to a market and feasibility study for fire station 1. In full transparency based on the recent attention to fire station 1's property downtown, we suggested to remove it from the consent agenda and to uh give an update uh to give you an option to ask questions and talk about it and go over timelines. So, uh, myself and Joanna Helms, our economic development director, uh, will tag team this presentation and hopefully provide some insight and some information to where we're at. So, that item has now been moved to the regular meeting agenda, which is later in the meeting. [clears throat] So, I'm going to go through a couple slides here. Uh, so the agenda for our presentation of this, we're going to update you on plans and timelines related to station one. I'm going to go over a brief overview of some emergency operations related to stations one and three and then Joanna Helms will come up and talk about the market and feasibility study. [clears throat] So this screenshot right here on this slide is a web page created recently on our website. Um and this web page was created uh to provide information and timelines. And you can get to that website by going to apexnc.org. org/downfirestation. This page provides a timeline that starts back in September 2019 through

tonight's meeting as it relates to decisions made that have brought us to this point. It includes links to council presentations, studies, information, and plans that have shaped these decisions. As part of the adopted downtown master plan in 2019, the decision was made to re reimagine the fire station one site as a new civic or mixeduse development. Fast forward from 2019 to February 2024, I presented a plan to council that recommended not rebuilding a fire station as part of the new building, but to maintain the fire department presence in a meaningful way that would number one honor the history, the legacy of the Apex Fire Department, past, present, and future. and number two, to ensure our presence and community interaction in our downtown space was not lost but enhanced. July 1, 2025, the adopted budget included funds to design fire station 3's renovation and addition to support moving emergency operations from station one to station 3 on Hunter Street. July 1, 2026. The adopted budget provided construction funding for the fire station 3 renovation and addition and the design process is wrapping up in the next 60 days. Before we dive any deeper, I think it's important for everyone to understand a few things that played a role in the decisions made. Why was the decision made to forego the station on Salem Street as an operating fire station? This information was was shared in great detail during multiple council work sessions [cough and clears throat] and data from both internal and third-party studies were used to make these this important pivot. It comes

down to several factors and I want to share a few of them with you tonight. This next slide is a map of our fire district. And anytime I have an opportunity to talk about our fire department to the public, I I love looking at a slide like this because it tells a big story about a lot of different things. It shows our entire fire district, 60 square miles. We protect both the city limits of Apex and also a large area of unincorporated areas within the county. And when I'm teaching or talking to community members and we look at this map, most recently at the Peak Academy, we're able to talk about things of how do we locate where the next fire station will go, what goes into that decision. And I love talking about that because it's a dozen data points that we look at before we plant roots and build a fire station. Uh just for an example, when looking at this map, you can see the points on there are fire stations, but we're we're currently planning our next new fire station on the west side. So looking at this map, we can talk about different things of looking at a gap and looking talking about response times and and why we need to put a fire station there. But nine times out of 10, while I'm talking about this, somebody will ask the question, well, why is stations one and three so close together? And I like to talk about the history and why that occurred. And I want to speak about that tonight. I think a lot of you, the council, understand that because we've had multiple meetings about that. And I'm sure several folks, I know for a fact behind me know the answer as well. But I just want to make sure everyone hears, you know, how that decision was made to put two fire stations 7/10en of a mile apart. So in the early 2000s, the town of Apex contracted with the volunteer fire department to provide fire protection. But a conversation was had for some reason and I don't know why but the town was going to start their own fire department. So they picked out this land and they started to build the station on Hunter Street. So it was going to be two separate fire departments. The town of Apex and the Apex Volunteer Fire Department. Before

the station opened, I think they made a great decision and that was to become one and merge together and not be two separate entities. And that occurred. So in 2002 they merged. They became one fire department, the town of Apex, and they took on all the volunteer firefighters, all the assets. However, they were left with two facilities 7/10 of a mile apart. And we've been operating that way ever since 2002. So that gives a little bit of history and background. This is not an ideal fire station distribution model. And I want to talk about that. I've got a slide here in a moment that gets in the weeds a little bit about why this decision was made. But this next slide talks about a couple things. It's not optimal to have a fire station that close together. Now, you've got to understand one thing. The these two stations operate as one fire station under two roofs, two separate buildings. It's a two company station. There's a fire engine downtown, and a fire engine is what carries water and puts out fire. At station 3, there is not a fire engine. There is a rescue technical rescue apparatus that is used to respond to all different types of calls, but it doesn't suppress fire. So, when we look back at that district, that's one fire district protected by that one engine. So, it's really one station under two roofs. The picture to the right is an aerial picture of of fire station one. um it is not an ideal location. So we're stuck here to make a decision. Are we going to maintain two separate fire stations in the same district at this current model and that is a very tough place to operate in today's time. Apex is growing, our fire department is growing and if we have to make a decision of where renovations need to occur and where we would rather operate from, it would be the Hunter Street location. However, it's very important that we maintain that presence down

there. And I spent multiple meetings in front of you, multiple work sessions talking about the importance of that presence that we do not leave downtown. But what does that look like in today's time? And we went over that. So, I want to address some current and some current needs and some growing needs for AFD. We have surpassed the life of of station one and we have outgrown fire station 3 and Hunter Street has the space to address those needs. It sits on five acres. I do want to make one correction to bullet point number three there. It talks about that plan facility will house emergency operations and also administration. I want to be very transparent and clear. This new station three does not include administration. That's a separate building. So, I didn't want to mislead anybody with that. But that station will house emergency operations and logistics. Creating a central hub to support our daily operations is what we need today. We have certainly outgrown both stations as it relates to resource space, personnel space, and open space. Both fire station 1 and three are in major need of renovations and upgrades to ensure our current staff have the space that they need to do their jobs and more importantly upgrades that are in modern fire stations to help address physical and mental health. Initiatives to prevent cancer and improve sleep habits while on duty 24 hours a day or more. This would be things we see in our newer fire stations like station six that we just recently opened. only storing fire apparatus and equipment in the bay with clean lobbies in between the bay and the living quarters. Dedicated decon areas with separate showers, laundry facilities for firefighting gear and uniforms. Dedicated storage for PPE and separate ventilation. Ample and separate bedrooms with improved station alerting methods to enhance healthier sleep

habits and overall improved living quarters. This is a rendering that most of you have seen. It's I think it's been on our social media accounts uh of Hunter Street, what that renovation and addition looks like. Again, we're are 60 days from wrapping up that design. Uh and then we're we're in the middle of the design for the office building behind this station with a goal to do both of these projects at the same time. We have an opportunity to make a good choice related to fire station locations and for us as a town to maintain or rebuild again 7/10en of a mile from another fire station is not a good plan or best practice. Merging the stations not only makes operational sense, but it also is more financially responsible.

[clears throat]

Let's talk briefly about emergency operations. I've already talked about this model of one station under two roofs. I've talked about the resources at each station, the engine versus the rescue. Um, so there's been some talk about response times. Uh, in full transparency, anytime you move any resource, there's going to be a shift in some response times. We're fortunate though that this district that we cover, we're meeting our response time goals and benchmarks. But again, you got to remember this is a fire engine versus a rescue truck. So that fire engine at station one at times goes right by station three heading to a fire where they're not going to it depending on what it is. So we can go both ways. Response times are going to improve once we move it to certain areas, but I can assure you the overall district is well covered with our response time goals. And we talk a lot about stations one and three. One and three. But this shift of the engine to station three actually improves our overall distribution. It improves the utilization of station 4.

Station 4 and station one are currently 2.4 miles apart. This move makes them 3 miles apart, which is more ideal. Uh so we we're better utilizing station 4. It also enhances station five a little bit. So looking back at the overall map and this shift of the fire engine to Hunter Street actually improves our overall distribution model. Um I want to talk about ISO and accreditation model real quick. And the reason I want to talk about that are those three bullet points right there. [clears throat] These are two associations that we are associated with and get information from that we have to be graded by ISO. And the last time I stood at this podium, it was a presentation to you uh of renewing our ISO 1, reducing our ISO grade in the county from two to a one. And all this is related to datainformed decisions, best practices, and a third-party review. Um like I said, we're a class one fire department and achieving such a rating is not by chance. It comes with proper planning, data informed decisions, and proper alignment with our emergency response model. The plan to merge stations one and three was vetted with the North Carolina Office of State Fire Marshals during our last inspection to ensure zero impact to our grade. Additionally, we have been going through the fire service accreditation model for the past three years, preparing to become an accredited fire department. I don't want to jinx anything and I'll knock on wood, but next Thursday, uh, members of my team and I will stand before the Fire Service International Board of Commissioners. There's 13 of them, uh, next Thursday at 8:30 in the morning. And that's where they will vote on us next week to become an accredited fire department. And I have no doubt we will achieve that. So, why do I bring this up? Uh, why am I talking about this? This model is rooted deep in risk assessments, response models, and the in

the making of best decisions for our community. Following this best practice model assures you that we're making the best decisions for our community. Lastly, you see a bullet point there for station location studies. We have an amazing staff, uh, two of them are sitting over here, that can run station models and GIS models and look at where look at data and and analyze data. uh and we do that in house. However, we want to be checked as well. So, we just recently contracted for a station location study, a third-party study. I presented that to you in May of 2025. And the first recommendation was to move the engine from station one to station three on Hunter Street. Final thoughts and next steps. We we must continually adapt to our everchanging needs and environment. We've got to meet the service demands and ensure that our facilities remain modern, efficient, and equipped to support the needs of our staff and the community we serve. Second bullet, we are committed strongly of honoring the history and preserving our legacy. And I I spoke on that multiple times and Joanne is fixing to come up here and go over a couple slides, but it is very important to me as your fire chief. It is very important that we maintain presence downtown. And I firmly believe we can do that even better than we do it today. But the emergency operations, the plans that have already been put in place, the budgets that have been passed, it is it is absolutely what we need to do to come out of downtown as emergency response model. But let's work together uh with this group behind me. And again, Joanna's going to talk about this firm and I'm going to turn it over to her to her in just a moment. But one thing that that we had nine, I believe, folks uh put in for this uh this firm to do this feasibility and market study. And what drew us to the firm that we've selected is their emphasis on community

input. They did their homework and they know Apex. They know the Apex Volunteer Fire Department. They mentioned the fire bells. They mentioned the spaghetti dinners that they used to have to raise money for the explorers. And that's actually one of their ideas is to hold a spaghetti dinner, invite this crowd in, and let's talk about this. Full transparency, we are open to suggestions. We want to make this the very best it could be downtown, [clears throat] and we can do that with the help uh of this group that's here to support that today. So, with that, I'm going to call Joanna up to go over her slides that's related to this feasibility and market study.

Thank you, Chief. Yes, sir. Presentation Good evening, mayor and town council members. Um, as chief said, I'm going to present to you just a high level overview of the downtown site redevelopment, market analysis, and feasibility study for fire station number one. First, so we can understand um and all be on the same page for the scope of work. The scope of work states it will elevate the design vision for this downtown site, to educate the community about its economic impacts, to celebrate the fire department's long and meaningful history, and to create engaging opportunities for residents to participate in shaping the future of the site. So, how are we going to do that? One part of the study will be a very robust public engagement plan. Um this is um so it will have multiple ways we're going to do that. It will have I'm just going to go back to my notes. Sorry. There will be meetings and workshops. There will be interactive events. There will be strategy sessions. all for the purpose of bringing in the public, bringing in the community, bringing in the residents to let their voices be

heard. They'll do that in a variety of places. There'll be um different times of the day, different days of the week. Um all in an effort again to make sure that we have as many folks that can and want to participate let their voices be heard. After all that public engagement um is going on, there will be a review and an evaluation of all that information, all that research gathered from the public. Then there'll be some next steps. Some of the next steps include the market analysis piece and the feasibility piece. We need to make sure that we understand what the market can support today and also for the future. And we need to see how that can be feasible. Part of it will also include um an analysis of a proposed P3, a public private partnership for this site and for this redevelopment. So that's going to be looked into very heavily as well. Uh so after all the public engagement happens after all the research is done there will be some preliminary recommendations that that come out of that research in that process and that'll be about a 9 to 10 month process. There'll be a draft action plan that is proposed and then there'll be a public presentation that will be a presentation to you and a public forum where you can engage and ask questions and see um what that public presentation uh looks like after all the research um and all the public input. And then based upon that conversation back and forth with you, um there'll be our final report. That final report will be be yours. That will be property of the town of Apex, but it'll be also available to the public. And um then you can do with that what you wish uh for the future. And finally, in summary, I did just want to remind you about our vision for vibrancy brochure. This is a brochure that was um done as a um synopsis of the much larger, much more lengthier downtown master plan and parking study and it just uh captured some key goals and some key ideas from the public input. Um so just want to remind you

that um one of the top 10 projects in the vision for vibrancy was to reinvision the fire station as a civic and mixeduse development. Chief alluded to that a minute ago. And then also there was a key goal and that was to honor the history of downtown with a re-imagined fire station on Salem Street. That is my report. I'm happy to answer any questions.

All right. Thank you so much. Any questions for Miss H?

Uh just one. I think I heard you say that the public engagement part of the study is 9 to 10 months long.

The whole study is 9 to 10 months and there will be public engagement throughout.

Okay.

Thank you. [clears throat] And I just wanted to confirm um that the public will be able to offer comment in person at workshops. There'll be a bunch of those. Some might be week weekday evenings, some might be on weekends. Uh and also written opportunity. So like if if you're working hard and don't have a chance to make it to some of those events, you would still have an opportunity. Is that correct?

That's correct. The goal the the goal is to have multiple types of interaction um workshops, interactive things, um meeting focus groups. Um the goal is to have them in multiple locations across uh the community to have them at multiple different times of day and night so that people again can fit that into their schedule and then have an online version as well.

Thank you.

I had one question. So I think this came up in one of the meetings that we had um downtown. We have approximately 30 plus volunteers that are still around. Will there be an opportunity for them? I I call them living legends. How would they be factored into the public input?

We would absolutely hope that every single one of the 30 comes to one of these public sessions, if not all of them.

Thank you. Would it be accurate to say based on all this information um to summarize that we're moving the engine and the staff supporting the engine from fire station one to fire station 3. It's in progress. That decision was made two years ago at this point. It's been funded. It's being

designed. And as far as fire station one is concerned, we are just starting the process right now and deciding what to do with the site and no final decisions have been made. Correct. We are starting with a clean slate

and this feasibility study is going to give us the options that'll work for the site based on will it look at the condition of the building and how it can be transformed in other ways or not based on whatever.

Yes sir.

Okay.

I want I would like to um say that thank you and the chief you know um for your work and the presentation. My uh question is I remember uh you said that we had one public input, right? Uh we had done before like uh since 2019

during the um downtown master plan and parking study process

um that was about a 18month to two-year process. It was adopted in 2019 December. So the 18 months prior to that was a whole slew of public input opportunities. Okay.

And so that's where some of this information that you're seeing in here and on here um all that came out of public input.

Okay. I see. So we had the public input and we're going to do another public uh input.

Right. Because this public input is very broad. The these are the top 10 project and the key goal. Those are very broad. the market analysis and feasibility study will be much more in depth and allow the public now because there may be be folks today that were not engaged in 2017, 2018, 2019. So this gives them a chance today to give their input and let their voices be heard.

Thank you. I like the idea. Thank you. Yes.

Any other questions? I think there may be more after we hear from,

you know, the community. So, thank you.

All right.

All right. So, we're going to move to the next item, which actually keeps us

downtown. So, [clears throat] as you recall, I gave an update on the Salem Streetscaping project, and uh as we've been underway with that project since January of this year, and the original completion date was somewhere in the realm of October. That has now been pushed to October,

end of October, sorry. Uh yeah, almost November, but end of October. That date has been pushed into December. And so as we um took and feedback from many of the businesses downtown and you all have had several interactions with them as well. Um I know in particular Council Member Ree, we've talked quite a bit about this. Um we we've heard from the businesses uh how much they're struggling in downtown. Um and so we wanted to think through what are opportunities and we've had interaction meetings with the group as well. Uh and there have been several asks and some of those we've tried to implement. some of those under our uh state law we cannot implement. Uh so we wanted to think of a way that we can spur some activity downtown during the the remaining construction period and as we approach the quote unquote season uh for retail and and kind of the high point of business. Uh so what I'm asking of council today is uh a commitment to the concept of giving some seed money so to speak totaling $25,000 uh that we can look at events over the next five months starting in September. So September, October, November, December, and January. We're going through January because that is the technical turnover and completion that we're anticipating. It might be substantially in December, but there's an official turnover completed in January. Uh so trying to think through what like a grand opening event, a ribbon cutting that could be December, it could be January. Uh but we wanted to to make sure we're covered. Um so these wouldn't be uh like typical downtown festival events. These would be events that we're going to work in coordination with the business community in downtown

uh to maybe focus on some off nights. Um it could be music in the depot parking lot. It could be street performers. it could be uh that it's limitless. I've got a a whole packet of ideas so far from staff and that's before we've heard total engagement from some of the business owners. Uh I've also worked to coordinate with because we want to act quick on this. Um, I worked to coordinate a small committee of downtown business uh, owners and it's four of them and from my understanding of downtown they operate and um, kind of represent multiple businesses down there through some of the partnerships and projects that they've done. They've also been very active as they've approached us on different uh, aspects of the downtown project. So, I'd like to get them together. I've got I was hopeful that tonight would go well. So, I've got a meeting scheduled with them. I think it's Monday. So, we've already got it on the books and anticipation that council would support the concept. If not, we'll meet and talk about other things, but we've got that group together that's set to be actionoriented about what event can we get or what string of events can we get started in September in our downtown. Um, and some examples because we've already got some things planned like the Witches on Salem is in October. Uh, so the concept would be maybe you show um a Halloween themed movie on one of the buildings in conjunction with that. Maybe you do a pumpkin patch in conjunction with that. get a vendor that does that. Uh these dollars would act as the seed dollars for us to uh either contract with vendors or kick off those events. Uh so we don't know exactly what the events are going to look like. We don't know the days and times because we want to engage with the development or the business community to work through that. Um all four of the business owners were excited about this opportunity. They're willing to participate uh and they will take that back to the other businesses as well. But we're excited about the ideas. We'll work with economic development staff. will work with our entertainment division uh staff within parks and wreck. Uh so we've we've got a lot of synergy that's building and we've got to do it kind of quick. So um made a fast pitch on it, but the overall the ask at this point is

commitment to $25,000 for the next five months roughly. That's 5,000 a month. It might not work out exactly that way. We might find that we need to spend seven in September and then only three in um October or vice versa. So, we'll work through those details, but uh so I'm asking you to to trust me a little bit. Let me run with these dollars and see what we can do to spur activity downtown to bring people in and support our businesses downtown in a nutshell.

Okay. Any questions for Mr. Posber on that item?

And you would consider this just economic development spending?

Um yes, but I'd also considered entertainment spending too and and activities in our community. It's a combination

parks, cultural resources,

right? And that's why we're involved in economic development also and parks and wreck. Um it's similar to dollars we would spend on festivals like bringing activity and and life to downtown. Um it doesn't go to the benefit of individual businesses which have been some of the asks, but that's where we struggle as a local government on what we can do. So the next best thing in my mind is we can bring people down there that will then support the businesses and give money to the businesses if they come out to the events. And at this time, this isn't a request for a budget amendment. This is going to be spread, I guess, through economic development, parks and wreck, and a couple of the other departments,

right? We have the luxury of being pretty early in our budget. And so, we have pockets of money that would be reserved for activities like this. So, we would spend there, but then the thinking is nine months down the road when I've spent the money for an event that was planned, um, I would need to come to you and say, "Hey, remember when we spent that money downtown? I need to replenish that for the event that's coming up in whatever month it is. So the budget amendment will come but not anytime soon.

It's not um I mean u it's not asking for more money. It's our pocket money.

Uh so ultimately it is going to be I'm I'm asking we'll be asking for the money probably from our reserves. Um but it it depends. Maybe if an not that I want

this to happen but if an event nine months from now got cancelceled that cost 25,000 we won't maybe have to come to you and ask for that. Uh but if everything plays out as we think we will spend, then I will have to come and ask for that money to be moved over um into the accounts to shore them up for for this type of activity.

Thank you.

What type of music can we get past blueg grass?

We are [laughter] we're open to a lot. So whatever will bring the people out.

Is there a motion? Motion to approve 25 no more than $25,000 over five months for our downtown project.

All right, we have a motion. Councilman Ree.

Second.

Great. All right, discussion.

I just wanted to say um thank you to manager Vossberg. Uh thank you to the downtown business community. I did just want to add on to the one of the sentences just for clarity. We talked about um businesses struggling. Many of those businesses were downtown were part of the downtown plan that you just saw some of the slides um and absolutely support this plan and knew that this would be a period kind of like getting braces where you know it's kind of uncomfortable for a little while. Both my daughters have braces right now so I'm going through the you know what we can't eat. Um but it's a finite period of time. there will be a wrap-up date and then we're gonna have a beautiful uh set of pearly whites downtown. So, I just wanted to say thank you for uh your support.

I'm excited, you know, looking forward for all of those activities.

Please come downtown during August before we get this thing kicked off.

See? All right. Is there any other discussion? Good.

All right. All in favor indicate by saying I.

Any oppose? No motion carries unanimously. All right, moving on.

Thank you very much.

Town clerk's report.

Yes, uh mayor and council, good evening. We have uh three appointment items. One is for the board of adjustment um to clarify some of the term memberships and then the other two are chair and vice chair confirmations. But I'll start with the first one for the board of adjustment. Uh, this is four different motions, but a motion for Heidi Sicko to move from the alternate member to the regular member, keeping her term unchanged. Moving Casey Angel from alternate two to alternate one on the board of adjustment. Term remains unchanged. Moving Aaron Barnes to alternate three from alternate three to alternate two on the board of adjustment. His term remains unchanged. And motion to confirm William Jiard as alternate three on the Town of Apex board of adjustment. And again, his term remains unchanged.

We need four different motions,

but we could do one for all those.

All right. Um, mayor, I'll make a motion to move Heidi Marcyo from alternate one to regular member to move Casey Angel from alternate two to alternate one, to move Aaron Barnes from alternate three to alternate two, and to confirm William Ghart as alternate three on the town of Apex Board of Adjustment. All terms remaining unchanged.

All right, we have a motion from second.

Second. I think I heard he wants to give it to Ziggger. Okay. All right. [laughter] Any discussion? All in favor indicate by saying I.

I.

No.

Motion carries.

The second one is a motion to confirm Uish Pi as the vice chair of the board of adjustment through December 31st, 2026. Uh the board of adjustment met back in June and unanimously recommended his appointment.

I'll make a motion to confirm Ume Pi as vice chair of the Apex town of Apex board of adjustments.

Second.

Motion Z. Second. Member per Tim. Any discussion? All in favor say I.

I.

Post.

Motion carries.

Uh similarly the culture and arts um has their chair and vice chair positions that are on a fiscal year schedule. Um they have met and recommended um Tom Cwell as the chair and um

the vice chair as Bethany Bryant. I'd like to make a motion to appoint Tom Cwell as the chair and Bethany Bryant as the vice chair of CAB.

Second.

We have a motion from Ree, second from was it Mayor Pro Tim? All right.

Any discussion? All in favor say I.

I.

Opposed? No. Motion carries unanimously. Moving now to public forum. And Mr. Clerk, if you would read the new process for the public participation policy we have in place, please.

Sure. So, uh, beginning June 9th, 2026, the town clerk's office piloted a new electronic registration process. The current public participation policy states, "Individual comments are limited to three minutes. The public form and public comment period shall not exceed 36 minutes or 12 individual speakers, whichever comes first. If the signup list exceeds 12 individual speakers or 36 minutes per the adopted policy, the town clerk will prioritize the list of speakers to those who have not spoken in the last 30 days. After those individuals have spoken, the list will continue in order by the individual that signed up until the 12th individual speakers or 36 minutes is reached. Individuals who still wish to speak will still be given the opportunity to do so at the conclusion of the business portion of the meeting immediately before close session.

Okay. Thank you so much. And how many does it show right now that we have?

We have 18.

18. Okay. All right. Thank you so much for that.

All right. We'll go ahead and get started. Uh the first speaker tonight is Rory Moore. if you would please come up. And he has a group. You have four or more. If you would just raise your hand if you would. Mr. Moore,

just raise your hand.

Okay, we got So that's nine nine minutes.

Come on.

Christ. [clears throat] Good.

Mr. Mayor, town commissioners. Um, unfortunately, Brian Yates could not make it tonight. So, he did ask me if I read an email that he sent. Um, so I'm going to do that on his behalf. Uh, first off, I'd like to provide a brief summary on the history and the process that led to the town of Apex acquiring the fire station. The Apex Volunteer Fire Department was established in 1939 with approximately 16 members whose names are displayed on a plaque out front. For many years, the department operated through a combination of county tax revenue, donations, fundraising, and contract funding from the town of Apex. In the late 1990s, the town of Apex began experiencing significant growth with many new subdivisions and businesses being developed. As a town continued to annex property, the funding, which we received from the county began to decline over the years. Unfortunately, the town's contribution did not increase at a level sufficient to offset the funding lost through annexation. The volunteer fire department repeatedly requested additional funding. that we could continue providing the same level of fire protection and service that the citizens of Apex and the surrounding areas had come to expect. The town, however, expressed concerns that the amount of funding being provided was already more than it was comfortable with and indicate that it was wanted greater control over the fire protection service. In 1998, we reached an agreement to turn over the town staff to the town [clears throat] of Apex. We believe this would be a positive arrangement for both the town and our employees. By 2000, as the town continued to annex property, we again found ourselves seeking additional funding. At that time, the town proposed a merger of the fire protection service. The town had also purchased a fire truck and had made some plans to construct its own fire station on Hunter Street. [clears throat] We worked on a merger agreement for approximately a year and ultimately reached an agreement in late 2001. Brian was a department president

at the time and was responsible for explaining the proposal to our 39 members and convincing them that this was the best option for allowing us to continue serving our community. For Brian, this was particularly difficult because his father was in his 30th year of service and his uncle was in his 37th year. His grandfather had also been a charter member of the department. There was a tremendous amount of family and community history tied to the department. The decision to merge was not an easy one. It meant giving up control of the department that many people had spent more than 60 years building and supporting. Throughout the process, one question consistently guided our discussion and decision. What is best for the citizens of our district? We essentially had two options. We could merge with the town or we could allow the town to take responsibility for its own fire protection while the volunteer fire department continue contracting with the county for as long as the county was willing to renew our contract. Ultimately, we signed the merger agreement and transferred all the department's assets to the town in exchange for the opportunity to continue serving the community for a term of 20 years. One of the main points of discussion and concern throughout the negotiation was that this fire station was this fire station. We wanted it to remain a fire station because of its deep history and significance to downtown Apex. We wanted a provision that would ensure it remained a fire station forever. Although we understood that such a permanent provision would be difficult, if not impossible, to put in a contract at the time. However, everyone involved, including the commissioners, agreed that they could not envision a day when this would not no longer operate as a fire station. I personally would have never agreed to the merger that I believe that this station would eventually have closed and be demolished. We do we do not know all the reasons behind the current consideration for closing and demolishing the station. We respect the fire chief's professional judgment and understand that he must make decisions based on the town's current and future operational needs. We would never presume to challenge him regarding those needs. Our request is simply that the town give serious consideration to finding a way to continue utilizing the station as it exists today, allowing it to remain a place where excellent fire protection can continue to be provided to the citizens of Apex and has been for more than 85 years. The station rep

represents more than a building. Is an important part of Apex history and holds tremendous meaning for the many men and women who have served the community throughout the volunteer fire department over the decades. It represents the dedication, sacrifice, and commitment of generations of citizens who gave their time to protect their neighbors. I often hear the town council speak about doing everything possible to preserve the historic downtown character and threat of Apex for future generations. I believe this station presents an excellent opportunity to put that commitment into action. We respectfully ask that the town consider the historical significance of this building, the commitment that was made when the merger took place, and the many generations of citizens who have served from this location before making a final decision about its future. Thank you for your time, consideration, and service to the town of Apex.

Thank you. Next speaker. [applause] I I would also ask the council that each speaker be allowed three minutes to talk about this very important issue. I stand before you today as Christine Hilt, 204 Hinton Street. as a member of the town board who sat across the table from Brian Yates and the Apex Volunteer Fire Department during the merger negotiations over 25 years ago. As the liaison from the town and its governing board, it was my unenviable responsibility to lead the negotiations. The first thing I did as a responsible steward of this town was to just listen. Through heated emotional exchanges, I learned how much blood, sweat, and tears the volunteers gave in protecting our community. I also learned of the bonds that were forged amongst the families that loved our community so much that they risked their lives to protect it. It was immediately obvious to me how important Apex Volunteer Fire Station

number one was to our firefighters and how important it should be to all of us today. Fire Station number one stands today as a living legacy to our storied and cherished small town past. The only downtown building that functions in the same capacity that it did from the first day it opened. The small town fire station in the middle of our downtown that still stops traffic and onlookers as sirens go off for the call. The kids that look on in awe as the apparatus roll by. And the rolled up bay door that invites children and the young at heart to walk around and sometimes in the fire trucks just like it did 70 years ago. Irreplaceable. As we grow so w rapidly, I think it's easy to forget that as stewards of this town, it's as important for you to protect the past as it is to shepherd its future. If you see this building as just old bricks and mortar that's getting in the way of progress, then you're failing to see the small town cultural experience we who live in downtown and visit the downtown get to experience every single day. That fire station encapsulates why many of us moved here. It is Apex. You know, I'm very glad I took the time to just listen 25 years ago. And I'm asking you to do the same thing tonight. And in the coming months and years, they're living legacies. They should be heard. And I'm sure you've gotten practical feedback on why this building should be demolished and replaced with something and shiny and new. We did, too. This is the group that approved fire station three. and got it built. You're listening to

the same thing we heard 25 years ago. But in me doing the listening that I did in the community, we realize that fire station number one is a proud legacy for which there is no replacement. You all have a huge responsibility as stewards of our beautiful town to take loving care of it. That's why I believe in my heart that you'll do the right thing in protecting Apex volunteer fire station number one and planning for its future. Thank you. [applause] I

I do want to this is a very important topic. I mean it's obvious many people are here to for this topic. So colleagues of the request made for three minutes for each. Is anybody in disgrace to that? I think what we should do is we should move make a motion to um I guess adjust the the um the meeting list to add them each individually rather than having them speak as a group. I think you want to make that

I think I think and and and then to do that that would still bring us still within our 36 minutes but that would ultimately still allow them to come back in. So that's the motion I would make is to amend the current list to allow the addition of the additional speakers on that list

at this time. at this time, right? So that would still allow the roll over for after 36 minutes or anybody else that would be there. Okay.

Just to make just to keep it procedurally consistent because I think it seems like the intent was they maybe a group.

That's correct.

But they were speaking individually. So um that's kind of what

because it was on the same topic,

right? It seemed like that was the intent. So we can that that would be my motion.

Okay. Okay. Second.

Second. Ziggman. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I.

Motion carries.

Three minutes.

Good evening. Uh my name is Roy Moore. I've been served as a firefighter here in the town of Apex for 22 years. Majority of my time was a volunteer, paid for about six. Mr. Yates and the member of the 2002 town council have shared with you history behind me. Uh there's people behind me that are wearing Save Apex Station One stickers. I am the person who is behind this. It's it's mine. Representation uh to the many people who support keeping this active fire station. The petition has received more than 1300 signatures in 3 weeks. It's pretty significant. I've given you a copy of the February 16th town council retreat day two where the chief talked about fire station one downtown and it states in that plan for a single engine fire station with a museum. How has that changed in such a short amount of time? When the town and the volunteer fire department merged 25 years ago, the volunteer transferred all of the stations, all the apparatus equipment to the town at no cost. Today, station one alone is valued at probably around $4 million. Maybe split the remodel cost between station three half and fund station one. Yet, public record indicates that no capital building uh no capital funding has been invested in this building since in which 6 to8 million is spent on brand new fire stations. Station one is around 9,000 square feet. The average cost to build a new station is about $500 a square foot. So that would put station one at $4.5 million. In 2019, when the discussion about station 1's future

began, volunteers were not included in those discussions. Gre greater transport, transparency, and collaboration are much needed. There is no b relation tool than that active fire station downtown. Seeing the firefighters with the bay doors open, interacting with families, children, and visitors is a part of what makes Apex so special. Once an active station is gone, that tradition cannot be replaced. Once station 3 is under construction for the next 16 to 24 months, station one is expected to house both the engine and the rescue truck. That's eight firefighters serving out of that locations. Concerns have been raised about operating large apparatus downtown, but these firefighters have extensive emergency vehicle training and have safely served our community from that station since 1954. Just final thought, station one, it it you know replaced with a museum or fire prevention classroom. While those ideas have values, they don't replace our commun what our community wants and needs. An active fire station. A museum honors the past and an operating station protects the future. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for speaking. [applause] [applause]

Next speaker, Timothy Mclane. Timothy Mclane.

Good evening, Mayor Gilbert and town council members. My name is Tim Mlan. I've been an Apex resident for 20 years as of this year. And I want to add my voice to the chorus that's pushing back against ALPR's flock and police drones. [applause] Thank you. I just want to say there's a reason that people all over this country are fighting back against these cameras

right now. We've all seen it on the news in Michigan, West Virginia, New York, residents have out of desperation cut down these cameras. Uh in California, a driver a driver just rammed his truck into three of them in a row. And in Florida, there's a retired man who has spent his days sitting in a lawn chair holding up a piece of cardboard just to block the camera's lens. These people are frustrated. They're worried about being tracked. And sadly, these people felt the need to take matters into their own hands. Nobody wants that. I don't want that. I know you don't want that. And it's not only individuals. City governments are cancelling their flock contracts in Colorado, Oregon, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Washington State. Some of the biggest cities in the country, Los Angeles, Austin, Seattle, Flagstaff, have walked away. And even closer to home, Hillsboro and Pittsboro have just done the same. Why? It's because the misuse keeps happening. There are not enough controls in place. In Arizona, a police officer used Flock to track his own wife. Uh in Morsville, closer to home, an officer was just arrested for using Flock to follow an ex-spouse. And in Georgia, six police employees were fired for searching the system to look up family members and acquaintances who had nothing to do with any investig in any investigation. Six people fired in one department. And I want to be clear, every example that I just gave to you happened in the past seven days, not the past year, the past week. Look, here's where I land. I trust our apex police. I trust and respect our chief. I trust them with my life and my family's life. We all do. They were trained and they're doing this job. They've been doing this job long before any of this unchecked

and unwanted technology existed. And I know that they are capable enough to keep us safe without a camera on every corner or more drones in our skies. We are Apex, the peak of good living. We are not Apex, the peak of surveillance. I This is what I want to say. No more cameras, no flock, no axon, and absolutely no drones. Thank you. [applause] Stephen Burke, I just want to appreciate the energy for sure, but uh as we continue down the list, you're cutting the time down for the speaker. So, if you could hold your applause to after they speak, I'm fine with that, but we got to keep this going or it's going to be labor meeting. So, um Stephen Burke Hi, Steve Burke, GNCA. Uh, I am local to the area. I can share an address if I need to privately, but I had prepared some remarks for this. I'm going to deviate from them though because um the signup form I noticed is digital now. I think previously it was written. How long's it been digital? We just did it like a

June. So it's it's insecure. Um so all of the data that people are putting in there is visible on a double click. Some of that is public information. A lot of it is not. So there's not necessarily an email address that's tied to a physical address, a name, and a phone number, but they are there. Uh the AI option was also enabled in the browser. or someone here noticed it and turned it off. Um, these are problems

that sends data back to Microsoft or Google or whoever the browser is. This is a data security issue. [clears throat] Apex also at the beginning of this I noticed you were talking about overdue balances for utilities. Apex was previously breached in 2024, I believe it was, right? 22,000 people, I think. That data included, I'm going to list it off. This is from Apex's website. Social security numbers, driver's licenses, government issued ID, passport numbers, financial account information, credit or debit card numbers, email addresses, usernames, passwords, dates of birth, dates of service, health insurance information, medical conditions and/or treatment information, medical record number, patient account number andor telephone number. This is on the Apex website. This was from a breach of I believe you can correct me if I'm wrong. I believe it was the utilities website. It may have been more. So, you know, I guess where I'm going with this is now we're talking about Flock cameras where Flock, as I understand it from the Dlock website for Apex, you have currently over 15 million plate scans in Apex. If Apex can't keep the data safe for the 18 people speaking here today or for the 22,000 people on the utilities website, I don't think Apex is prepared to handle the security nightmare that is collecting 15 million plates to date. It's completely insane. And this is not just an apex problem. It can be foreign actors of other states. It can be domestic actors who are just bad actors. All of these people are vectors to tie that data to all the other data breaches out there. And I

checked everyone on this council is in major data breaches online. It's purchasable, easy, like all of you. Uh and that's what everyone's at risk of with Flock as well. Thank you for speaking. Thank you, [applause]

George Hogan. George Hogan.

George Hogan, Apex resident, DFlock Apex founder, and one of your neighbors. So, what happened this summer? We didn't get to meet for a couple months. Uh, as a previous resident said, across the country, city after city pulled the plug on this surveillance system. Not just Flock, ALPR, all of it, the whole thing. Council tore up contracts. Towns voted the cameras down. Thousands of your neighbors listen to all these people. It might have been me in the beginning, but they are here and they are not happy. Our members have done the press. Councilman Ree has done the press. The mayor has done the press. And it looked like progress. But while your committee, your public service, public safety committee sat waiting, the whole country is moving. Apex is not. There's bipartisan legislation in Congress right now to stop this nonsense. Bipartisan in a country that agrees on nothing. The left and the right looked at the machine that tracks every single driver in America and said the same word. No, we're done with it. The people pushing this surveillance, plenty of police departments, and even some on this council, they might call us radical. Wanting to drive to work, drive to church, take the kids to school without the government mapping where I'm going, that's not radical. That's the most American thing you can do. Photographing every car in this town, that's radical. Logging it to a private system owned by known right-wing billionaires is radical.

This is radical in this room tonight if you do not make a decision on taking it down. I am not the radical one here. This council is the radical one. So go back to 2023 when you approve these cameras. Apex was at the lowest crime rate in history. In history supplied by the FBI. The lowest ever. No wave, no emergency, no monster at the door. You bought mass surveillance with our money just because. And for the record, there is absolutely no independent evidence that flock or ALPR reduces crime. The studies that claim that trace right back to the vendor. Violent crime has been luckily falling all over the country and in the towns that have these cameras and don't. It is the exact same number. There is no impact on this. And there's research that's blanketing the community and surveillance erodess trust in the police. If you want to back the blue, you want to be proud of the cops, this is not how you do it. Not at all. Now, I want everyone in the room that watch what might happen. Someone up here is going to offer to switch flock with action because that's the easy choice. That is not an acceptable choice. Council, you are not the police department. I am not the police department. The chief works for this town and it's your job to govern it. That is the whole reason we sit here and you sit up there. The radical person in this room is not the neighbor asking to be left alone. It's the government that chose to track us all. We're remembering. You guys bet wrong. We noticed. And we're not going anywhere. [applause] John Wagstaff. John Wagstaff.

Good evening. Um, so I'm a resident of Apex couple years now. I'm also a 10-year veteran law enforcement officer in a neighboring jurisdiction. And I offer a little bit of a opposing perspective. what you heard uh keeping it on the consent agenda um item. They're kind of co-opting critics of LPR's against the the Axon contract. Um and I really want to validate calls for transparency and accountability. Um however, I really think the sentiments nationwide are being overblown and I would caution Apex um seriously to think about that. We cannot afford to be misguided on topics where lives and property are at stake. If a flock hit tonight puts the lead on a stolen car coming into Apex that prevented a home invasion of a child being killed, that's a game changer. So, I chose to move to Apex because as I respected the direction of town governance, I particularly appreciated the intentionality of capacity building and public safety as the areas continue to experience overwhelming growth. I've lived in the triangle for decades. Criminal activity from non-residents is overwhelming in suburbs like Apex and a phenomenon that will continue to challenge the resources of our town for decades to come. Durham, for example, has fewer officers than they had in uh 2004 when the population was 100,000 less. Raleigh, similar numbers. We are fortunate to have extremely competent and thoughtful leadership in our police department. Chief Johansson has built a culture that's attracting some of the brightest officers in the triangle to the department. I'm confident in them to make informed yet measured decisions about what's best for public safety. I urge you all to remain steadfast in that support of them. Again, Chief Johansson and his staff are the experts in law enforcement. Recognizing that you are doing so does not mean that you don't have to hold them accountable for transparency and accountability in this process. What everyone in here against LPR's and Axon suite of technologies is advocating for. I agree with that. It's right for the

citizens to demand transparency and accountability from their government. What's not right is making public safety decisions based on suppositions instead of empirical evidence and expert leadership. I get that some of it's scarce, but I've emailed you some resources on latest literature showing that this might not be futile. Uh in a gist, a lot of the call for transparency and safeguards discounts what is already being tracked. Every day when we walk around, we're being tracked by corporations for private interests. If you walk around with your cell phone, even older cell phones with Bluetooth beacons, we there's advertising and marketing firms that have those beacons in airports and and malls that have been tracking you for years. So, we're allowing these corporations to track us for their own profits. Why are we not putting surveillance, if you want to call it that, in public places to capture information to maximize law enforcement capacity to do their job? I implore you to think very serious about it and think about the repercussions that could be a life or property damage without it. Thank you.

Thank you for speaking. [applause]

Um Derek O'Neal.

Hi. Uh my name is Derrick O'Neal. I live at 3329 Bwell Ridge Drive. I've lived here since 2019. Um, I was going to have a different set of remarks, but I think instead what I'm going to do is tell you a story. When I first started working for my company about six months in, I was uh technical support. I got an email. Uh, local registar was having trouble with the business intelligence software that we sold her. Uh, wasn't giving her the number she wanted and she wanted some help with the data. That email contained a CSV with 265,000 social security numbers on it. in one email. That's what a data breach looks like. It's not some hacker in their grandmother's basement hacking away at a

keyboard trying to penetrate Flock's defense systems. What it is is a misguided public official accidentally giving access to someone that shouldn't have had access to it. it's accidentally leaving on a feature on your web browser when you're taking public remark applications that not only saves it to that laptop but sends it to Google for analysis. If that same email would have landed in my inbox this year, that email would have been read by Microsoft. It would have gone into co-pilot's training. I could have asked my co-pilot what the social security number was of John Smith, who's an undergraduate. That's what a data breach looks looks like. Our flock system for Apex Police Department has been has granted access to 1191 different agencies across the country. Now, we were told that no federal agencies would be involved and as our chief described, a snafu happened where they accidentally gave access to two federal agencies. Snafu situation normal. All effed up. I don't want that to be the normal situation. Also, to the point of we have corporate overlords tracking our every moment, that's not like a goal. Um, Google Graphian OS if you want to not have stuff tracked in your phone. But anyway, agencies across the country, one of them is the Florida Wildlife and Fish Police Department. What do they need? Did we catch too small a bass and keep it? What are we doing? I I'm beside myself. If If you think that out of those, 911 agencies, not a single one of them is laundering requests from the federal government and then just quietly emailing a CSV with the results. I have a bridge to sell you.

That's not how this stuff works. That's not our our FBI, ICE. They are not behaving themselves. Washington University already uncovered this exact thing happening. Federal agencies are getting access to local municipalities data through side channels. It's happening today and for the past year.

Thank you for speaking. Thank you.

WELCOME. [applause]

KAREN, YES, you're up. Thank you. Thank you for speaking tonight.

Karen Delvinthal, 507 Homestead Park Drive, Apex, North Carolina 27502. And everybody in the world has got my information, so I ain't worried about it. And thank you to the police chief for keeping me safe. I'm not against anything about the fire department or the volunteers. I appreciate you all. What I don't appreciate is you ain't going to want more money to do another study about a study that we already did. Okay? Because we did it in 2019, 2017, a long time ago. It's been done. We've had all kinds of hearings. The budget has been set, right? It's been set. I ain't got no more money. I'm sorry. I'm broke. If I have something come up, refrigerator goes out, need something done, I got to cut something out of my budget cuz it's already set for the year.

I ain't got no more money. So don't come to me for no more money. Including that $2500

25,000

25,000. Okay, I stand corrected. $25,000 that you're going to want to come to me later on early next year for more party stuff. Ain't got it. Don't come to me. You got your budget. live within it. I have nothing more to give. If you want a suggestion on where you can start cutting to make up for another study or $25,000 for another party, I suggest you look at the stage and get rid of that first because you ain't going to be able to get it out of me. I'm done. I'm out of here.

Thank you. [applause] Speaker is Maverick Ashbornne. Maverick Ashborn.

Oh. Uh, good afternoon. I I I've come here today to talk about flock cameras and the ways it can be misused by a myriad of people. With lock cameras being widespread as they are, I would like to highlight a few cases of the way the system can be abused to surveil innocent people. Uh the flock cameras. The flock camera system has multiple known vulnerabilities which were published in the national vulnerability database which is funded by the department of homeland security. As widely publicized by Ben Jordan, these vulnerabilities allow for bad actors to easily access the data created by the cameras, allowing me, you, and anyone who is in this room to be tracked by anyone who wishes to do us harm.

These cameras can also be exploited by police officer. For example, as mentioned before, in the town of Morrisville, which is about 6 milesi north here, uh where was that? As reported by ABC, the officer allegedly used the Flock camera network to track her boyfriend's ex-wife 31 times, and that is unacceptable. My final example, according to the research done by Jason Hunar, by using flock event logs which he obtained by using open records request in Dunway, Georgia, he found possible evidence of flock employees using their camera systems to violate the privacy of the residents of that town. This means by using flock cameras in our air in your area in our area you will be allowing the possibility of the employees of a private company to violate the privacy of every single one of your voters and their families including the most vulnerable members of our community the children. The role of the town council is to create create laws that protect its citiz create ordinances that protect its citizens includ including their privacy. I hope this I hope the example I provided today will be enough to convince you to ask for the removal of the cameras and to fulfill your duty and represent the town's best interest.

Thank you. I I passed the sheet with the QR codes

that that has like information on sources and how I came to conclusions. So

if someone disputes me or if you don't believe me, you can kind of understand how I came to conclusions I did.

Thank you for speaking tonight. Appreciate it. [applause]

Okay, we uh I was just informed by the clerk we're six minutes left. Okay, six minutes of two speakers. So the next speaker is Rosemary Senoski

Dolls.

Good evening. This is about environmental the environmental advisory board data center subcommittee meetings. [clears throat] I had planned to attend last Wednesday's subcommittee meeting but couldn't make it. So, I figured, well, I'll just go on YouTube and find the live streamed recording. Imagine my surprise when none of those are on YouTube. Could not find it. Why not? I found parks and wreck meetings, culture and arts meetings, and multi-modal transportation meetings, but no recordings about one of the most important and pressing issues facing our communities. These meetings covered data center water and energy use. Again, I ask, why are they not livereamed? It demonstrates a lack of transparency. This is what we feared when you all voted against Mayor Gilbert's proposal to have residents more involved in research during the one-year moratorum. These are the constituents who had already spent a lot of energy and time researching data centers. We were told, "Don't worry, Apex and the EAB could handle it. We see how you're handling it by controlling information. This is unacceptable. Minutes of meetings are not enough. Resident call-in and subcommittee meetings should be combined so that the public can ask experts questions. Moving forward, we expect to see livereamed data center recordings on YouTube as well as links to the homepage on, excuse me, links to minutes, transcripts, and meeting announcements

on the homepage of Apex website and also announcements at town council meetings that would be more transparent, which you claim to be. Thank you.

Thanks for speaking. [applause] And final speaker for now will be Don Cosalino. Don Calino.

Don Caselino, you have my address and all and my data. Uh, good evening tonight. So, I think we've heard a lot of themes. Uh, we've heard transparency themes, leadership themes, themes that are lacking. Um, you know, just mentioning the consent item, consent agenda item, 27 items. I know we had some changes on it. These are supposed to be routine items. Holly Springs last town council meeting passed $20 million in 20 seconds. You passed whatever you did in less than 10. Okay, that's not governing. That's just dictatorship. Like, I don't know what that is. So, I'll speak to what Randy brought up because I I could go into a lot of directions here, but I think the pecards is a very important principle. So, Carrie had a you know, the auditor report. I'm sure you kind of saw that, right? 2600page report. It's very interesting. So, I'll be interested to see what comes out for Apex actually. Um because we will see that truth brought into the light. It is right now in the shadows. So you mentioned Randy that you h we had 16% Apex had 16%. Right. So what's interesting is those aren't individuals. So what the pecards the people that hold the account they're not a single person. There's there accounts like building inspections, electric, fire, APD, as well as the

planning department, cultural arts, things like that. So when you count one card, it's a card for many. So it's actually that metric is very deceptive. I would really love to know the metrics on actual spend because that's really what we want to know, not not be uh distracted with knowing, oh, we're in the range. Well, the real fact of the matter is I do have some data tonight and I thought it would be great to just share a couple of things. I mean, there's thousands of records, but I could just share a couple of things because um on the same day, February 18th, 2025, this is um Ry's um so Sandy Burke is your assistant, but this is your card. Um, eggs up up grill $1,58704. It must have been lunch. Chick-fil-A the same day 1,648 and.31. Um, we have a lot of people like Chick-fil-A out of everybody for three years. Fiscal year 23, 24, and 25. $18,000162.34. Uh, Yang's Cleaners. Um, Mr. Coleman, three years of of Yang's Cleaners, $4755 cents for 2324 and then for 2562205 Yangs Cleaners Randy 36465. I'll share more next time. Thank you very much. All right, that [applause] so we have eight eight speakers left signed up and we will move those to the um to the end of the regular meeting agenda. So moving now to public hearings. We have annexation number 8312412 Olive Chapel Road. [clears throat]

Applicant has requested continuence to Thursday, September 10th. Right. Applicant has a request to

continue.

All right. Move to continue to Thursday, September 10th.

All right. We have a motion. Second, Zigman. Any discussion?

No.

All in favor say I.

I.

Opposed? Motion carries. All right. Okay.

All right. We'll take a How much time y'all need?

10 minutes.

10 minutes. All right. We'll be in recess for 10 minutes a chance to get out of here. Yes.

I think she went to the bathroom.

You're live. Okay.

All right. We're back in session. Thank you so much for the break, the needed break. We'll move now to public hearing two and three together. So, Miss Cal,

uh, good evening, mayor and council members. U, this is annexation number 828. It's 2913 Evans Road. It's associated with reszone case 26 CZ4. So this is located in the south uh western part of the town 2913 Evans Roads 0.46 acres. The current zoning is rural residential and it's within the ETJ. The applicant is requesting town services. Now we go on to the reszone case. Uh the existing in conditions include a single family and two accessory structures. Um the structures are not historic. The uh current zoning as I stated is rural residential. The um surrounding uh zoning and uses are south and east is medium density conditional zoning and that is the um single family subdivision manners at Bellacasa and to the north and west is rural residential and the use of single family um home and then bacon across the street. The uh proposed zoning district is and the 2045 land use map is medium density um and it is consistent with the proposed zoning. The applicant conducted two neighborhood meetings March 23rd and June 22nd and that's included in your packet. A Wake County public school system letter stated insufficient capacity for future students for middle and high school students. Transportation to schools outside of the area should be anticipated. And then school assignments

within the next five years may address concerns at the middle um school grade level. Due to the size of the subject partial, they are exempt from EAB and housing staff did not recommend an affordable housing condition. So the proposed conditions include um for use as single family and accessory apartment and there are four architectural conditions as stated on page two of your staff report. The um proposed uh zoning is exempt from frontage improvements per UDO section 7.5.1B. Required improvements and exemptions um they fall under two for a subdivision plan that does not propose a subdivision into more than four lots and then number three um less than 150 per day. Therefore, um the transportation infrastructure development staff recommends a condition for extension of the curb and sidewalk to avoid potential future impacts if and when a public project for sidewalk connect construction is initiated along Evans Road. So the recommended um condition is the developer shall extend curb and 5- foot concrete sidewalk from the existing terminus south of the property to the north terminus of the property frontage alongs road based on the 27 foot backto-back minor collector street section on the 60oot dedicated ride ofway. The applicant was informed of staff's recommendation and has uh not yet agreed to that condition. So the 2045 land use map classifies the subject properties as medium density residential. The um proposed resoning to medium density residential conditional zoning is consistent with the land use classification. The proposed resoning is reasonable and in the public interest because the proposed resoning provides stricter architectural conditions that the UDO

requires and allows the property to be developed in a manner that is consistent with the resident character of the area. uh planning board held their um public hearing on July 13th, 2026 for resoning and unanimously voted to recommend approval of this resoning 26 CZ4 as presented with the uh staff recommended condition. In planning staff does recommend approval of the resoning 26 CZ4 with the addition of the staff recommended condition. And if you had any questions for staff and then the is also here.

Okay. Thank you, Miss Calls, for the presentation. Any questions for

I I do have a question. Um, per the packets, uh, the applicant would like to build two houses on the on this lot. Uh, so that means that there's a shared driveway. Do we have any concerns on on that?

Did you have any concerns from T? There's an existing, so they have

it. It is classified as a minor collector street. Um, so per UDO, they would be allowed to have separate driveways. If they wish, they could have a shared driveway or they could have two separate driveways for the two separate homes.

Okay.

All right. Any other questions for staff?

Um, I do have a question about the uh sewer connectivity as well. So, my understanding is that the applicant would like to tie into the Bellacasa or the the line that runs kind of on the Bellacasa side uh on the right of the picture here. uh but the Bellacasa HOA has not approved crossing their property. So what would happen if that condition or if that suhookup is not feasible for this property?

Evans Road is the um NC DOT and so the applicant I think he can catch us up on the status of going through NC do and then connecting up with um sewer on Amalfi Place.

Good evening. Thank you for your time this evening. Uh so like I you've read and heard before um I've tried to reach out to the HOA first just asking for the easement. No strings attached just asking for a 10-ft easement with a drawn plan or a sketch of the plan. Uh was rejected. Uh then again I asked for another month and a half. Uh made an appointment or went to their offices, the management offices and asked to speak with the board. again was rejected uh unanimously even after offering money or some kind of uh you know just money essentially to pay for the easement and you know return it to the way it was uh was before. So now the plan is to pull off the end of a malfi the sewer at the very end and pump it around the corner essentially to the front with a grinder pump. I'm still in the process of working with my engineer to get that settled and finalized and all that. Um but still still up in the air on that end. So

thank you.

All right.

Does the applicant have any other information you want to present? You're good.

Just that the recommend you know you saw the UDO and the recommendation uh for the extension of the sewer goes against the UDO. That's all. Uh they presented it very well and I appreciate that from the the planning board uh for presenting in that way. So

thank you Mr. Hall. Appreciate you.

All right. Any questions? All right, moving on. We'll open up for public hearing comment. No one signed up to speak for both annexation or reszoning. So, it is public hearing for comment is closed and it's back to council for also motion.

I just want to ask a question kind of the elephant in the room. Could you talk about the sidewalk and the disagreement with staff about um why uh you're decided not to offer the condition because it'll that'll create a gap on Evans Road now, right?

It would it would not create that gap.

As you can see, this sidewalk ends at Bellasa, which that development was in charge of

in charge of uh taking care of since they had way more than four lots and a lot more people to fund that development. Um there's no sidewalk to the right of that lot going down Evans towards back the um there's no sidewalk on our side of the street for I don't think until the other Bellacosta meets up with it. So there would no be no gap but

but if that were to develop then there would be a gap because in your property wouldn't have

there would be but I you guys do have the rightway in the front of our property to do the sidewalk yourselves whenever you choose to and I don't think it's in it's definitely not in the NC do three-year plan and it wasn't anywhere on the next three to five years of Apex as well which is why I'm exempt from the in love fee as Other questions?

Thank you.

Discussion.

That's where we are now.

Okay. Yeah. Um so um I do um I do worry about this the sidewalk gap uh understanding that there's no sidewalk extending you know further north at this point in time uh were that were those properties to develop you know we would have similar conditions on those properties as well to fill in the the sidewalk gaps. [snorts] This is uh this is what has gotten us into trouble historically where we have these little gaps around town in uh in sidewalk coverage right and that the town retroactively that needs to go uh clean up and and fill in those those sidewalk gaps. So, I am making a motion to approve the uh the annexation and resoning request with the added recommendation by staff to include the 5oot sidewalk for the length of the

property.

I can't do that.

Just to be clear, unless the applicant consents to it, it can't be

Oh, okay. Sorry.

Did not pick up on that. Thank you.

Okay. Any any other comments, discussion?

Can I ask uh transportation like is it true that we have the right away for sidewalk construction including any construction easings that might be necessary?

I believe you, but you know, trust and verify. [laughter]

It's a tricky question. Um yeah, we haven't looked into it as a public project in detail as far as how that goes. Typically what we run into is whether we have the rightway or not. it's going to be disruptive to whatever homes are built on that property. So, there would be additional grading. Um probably some need for easements outside of that. If there's drainage, that could impact the property as well. Um so, we prefer um when applicants come in for subdivision and resoning um that we do everything we can to fill gaps. Um so, we're not having to deal with those in the future as a public project um and be disruptive to those future residents that'll be living in those homes. So, hope that answers. Yeah, I guess we don't really know till you unless you have a design, right? But there could be a slope easement and certainly some distance of construction easement where we have to step on the property.

Uh, correct. Yeah. And there'll be driveways there where we'll have construction going across driveways and there may be issues with those driveway grades at that time we have to deal with. That's right.

Other discussion. I mean, I I get the I understand and can appreciate the tension on the sidewalk issue because it's we're essentially looking at a gap that will have to be filled at one point in time. And the concern is that, you know, one of two options. We either figure out a way of strong arming an applicant into making this happen or we basically make sure that we've got the things in place right away easements

everything else necessary to build or you know close that gap ourselves. That's kind of where we're at on this. I wish we didn't have to be in this position. Um but recognizing as some of these developments as as they have essentially formed themselves, they've created this problem. But I I I reflect back on our larger goal, which is we want to have connectivity, we want to have walkability, and um you know, as long as we've got the ability to have the, you know, the the rideway, we have the ability to to get the additional easements, we have the ability to put the necessary infrastructure in place to make that gap closed. I'm comfortable with that. So I I I'll vote in support of this.

Do we though? That's the question is like we don't know who might own the property if we want to go build the sidewalk in 15 years. And then we might go to them and say, "Okay, well we need to slope your front yard by 15 ft. We need you to dig up your driveway." And I might say, "No." Oh, no. We'd always have to do I mean, if that if it get to that point, I mean, the rightway probably isn't going to be sufficient enough for us just to close it. We're going to we're probably going to need some additional land. I mean, that's just the nature of how this all works. So, you know, it does it mean that in the future we're going to be, you know, essentially negotiating again with the land owner on these things? I Yeah, I foresee that happening. Um, you know, if the question is, do we essentially say no to this to strongarm the owner to providing the closure of this sort of thing? I'm not sure if I'm there on that on this on on on property of this size. I think we made a policy to to make these exemptions for a reason.

I uh respectfully disagree like this is exactly how we end up with these donut holes in town, right? And so I think we need to be consistent when we talk about connectivity and and sidewalk construction. Uh you know, this is something that I believe is important for the future connectivity of the town.

And uh with that in mind, right, unless the applicant is willing to voluntarily um commit to the additional um recommendation, I will not be voting this report.

I don't think we're disagreeing. I think what we're saying is you're saying we need to close these gaps. I'm saying we need to close these gaps. I'm saying that if we want to do that to these inevitable sort of conditions, we should just change the policy and not exempt these sort of properties from here on out.

[snorts]

Are they exempt from the sidewalk requirement? Like what what is this exemption for? I know there's a small lot,

but this is still a pud, right?

They are. If this is not a pud, they are exempt because they are less than four lots. It will ultimately be an exempt subdivision um to create the two lots. And the reason why those standards were set in the UDO, the few exemptions that you had on this slide um was and somewhat based on rough proportionality standards. the cost of the improvement related to um the the benefit of the uh of the development approval. Um staff was still recommending this one to keep in mind it's a cost savings to the town. Get get the sidewalk and curve aside now, but also to avoid the disruption to future residents when this would occur. And um during the planning board meeting, the applicant said he's likely to build one house at a time. he would only have to install the curb and sidewalk one lot at a time. Wouldn't have to do it on both up front. Um so and other things we've discussed with the applicant is at least getting the construction easement in case if he's not willing to do the curb and sidewalk, at least getting a condition to dedicate um an easement so that the town is able to get in there and that issue is resolved and we don't have to think about that in the future. Yeah, we do. I mean, we do look at these case by case and we have to consider the context and what we're presented with. I mean, with this, I mean, you've got adjacent curb and sidewalk already. Um, you're looking

at about 100 feet of frontage. So, it's 50 feet of frontage per home. Um, it's not what we would consider an extremely long distance to cover for a single family house in terms of typical curb and gutter and sidewalk installation that's included in many subdivisions throughout Apex. Um, I think the the UDO has certain exceptions written to cover a a broad range of issues we might run into. U, but when staff are faced with conditions for reasonzoning, um, whether it's a conditional reasoning like this or a PUD, we consider the case that's presented before us and look at what we think is reasonable and in the public interest. And in our opinion, it's reasonable in the public interest to ask for at least sidewalk extension, but in this case, curb and gutter as well. We're not asking for a four-lane road widening. Um, you know, it's not it's not a thousand feet of road frontage for two units, you know, which would be obviously a disproportional in our opinion. This is relatively limited amount of frontage for this for this case.

And you got to have a concrete truck out there anyway to do your sidewalk or your uh your your driveway, right?

Correct.

It's already there, man.

You know how much it costs how much it would cost me? I don't want to uh estimate for the applicant, but I think when we've looked at these before, um you know, maybe around $15,000 per unit in this case, so maybe um 15 to 20. So you're looking probably 30 to 40,000 um depending on what's involved. Um,

yeah.

So, the number is actually 70. So, I used consulted my engineer 67 330 something. We used the Excel spreadsheet that you guys have for the Enlua fee and plugged in the numbers for it. It would cost me to do the same thing for water and sewer, curb and gutter, sidewalk, all the way down my 100 foot stretch as far as they're asking. So, 60 almost $68,000. So,

from your spreadsheet,

from your spreadsheet, the one that everyone has access to. I don't know if it's on your website, but my engineer was able to find it and plug those numbers and

get that over to me.

Maybe it's a

maybe it's a utility utility spreadsheet, but

yeah, I and sorry, I was just saying like you're going to have a concrete team out there for your for your driveway and like they'd be the same guys to do it. So it'd be like the the actual cost would be the delta between the two bids like like when it was take to do the the driveway it'd be whatever and then how much you had this curb and gutter and then there'd be a difference there. That would be the additional.

Yeah, that makes sense. But you you guys would also have your concrete guys out there to pour whatever because I I know the lady next to me is pretty old and they probably won't be reszoning for a while anyway. So trying to get them to do their concrete next to me to connect and that kind of thing. So

we wouldn't we would wait for her to sell and then they would have the same conversation with us.

Who does a lot?

A lot of money though. But what's where are we headed here?

I have a question and I don't know where this starts with the applicant for consideration or legal with uh feasibility or applicability. But is uh some sort of match 50% situation is there any I don't know where that question starts. Do I start with legal? Is that a possible I guess it's it'd be a question that I'd be asking the applicant to consider. When you say m imag mag imagine

like a 5050 of this 7 $68,000 um bill that's split in half.

If we were to agree to paying half of that at the time it's being constructed. Yeah. I don't think you could do that at this time. Um as as essentially as a condition. I sounds like what you're asking is is maybe like a payment of a fee in L type of contribution that the town would use whenever it's constructed. I'm not sure if that's

I guess. Thank you. Would you consider if we were to figure out some way for there to be a 5050 match on that? I

understand the exorbitant cost is $68,000 if that were 34.

I'm hesitant because the exemptions do read as they do for a reason and they're pretty cut and dry. I don't think it's up to opinion of the council on what gets an exemption, what's not. That's why you list out ABC D, what gets an exemption, what doesn't. I don't think it's a, you know, broad. If you're looking, if you're talking 80 90% of that number, we could I could make a deal for that, but 50% I don't, if I'm exempt, I'm exempt. I don't think there's like a blurry line for the exemptions in my opinion.

I'm still a little clear on the exemption thing. the exemptions don't don't they apply to like the regular zoning districts or are you saying they apply to a conditional zoning if there's an exemption here? So you're saying it's exempt but we're asking for

it's it's a broad UDO exemption. So in other words if if this was just coming in as was already zoned coming in as a subdivision with no zoning condition then they would be exempt under our UDO. That's correct. Yeah. But again it's a broad exemption to cover a large amount large array of cases. So when reszoning comes in, we consider the context of what's being reszoned.

I think it's clear we it's exempt.

I'm not sure it's too broad because four lots very specific details and I know at the very bottom there's another one for a certain amount of percentage if it's over four lots that kind of thing. So

um Mr. Mayor, I'd like to request a close session to consult with.

All right.

Got a motion. I got close s second. Am I happy? All in favor say I.

I close session.

All right, we're live. Mr. [laughter] Mr. Coleman, we're live.

Yep. All right, we're back in session. We're back in discussion of this item. And is there any more comments before we move to any possible motion?

I'll just make the comment that I, you know, I understand and I mean I I fully believe in our desire to make sure that we are closing these sidewalk gaps. I think the problem that we have here is our policy creates this sort of scenario where we have property like this that will fall into an exemption that doesn't require the the the necessary pieces for us to be able to require them to build the sidewalk. To me, that's a legislative issue that we should take a look at down the road, but I don't think that it necessarily fits this scenario right here. So, I'm still voting in support of this and I'll move to um move for approval.

All right.

Is that your motion?

That is my motion.

Okay.

For for annexation and for uh the conditional reasoning.

Okay. So, we have a motion for both items.

I'll second.

Second. Move.

All right. Any further discussion?

Yeah. Um, I think the fair thing to do here would be um if we feel like this is too small of a project to to ask for the the exemption. Um, in recognition of all of our shared belief in connectivity, if the applicant were to offer us the easement, uh, I was discussing with staff, 30 foot from the center of the roadway plus 10 foot, uh, uh, temporary construction easement would be enough for the town or someone at some point in the future to construct it. And that would save all the issues that I've worried about with um, uh, you know, having to deal with a potential future homeowner who who may not be in support of the project. we just get the

ducks lined up and whenever the project comes along, we get added on to it. So, I'm not in support of the motion um unless a uh uh a condition of that nature were to be added to allow the town to uh to to facilitate construction for the town.

So, they want to amend the motion.

I mean, that seems like a fair ask. I mean, let's get an idea from the applicant as to whether or not that's something that would [clears throat] probably get them beyond at least get them to three. Yeah, I think we would just need to if you're okay. We're what they're saying is for the dedication of the ride ofway and for a construction easement.

What What would that look like in terms of my building where I could build that kind of thing when it comes down to Yeah. Setbacks? Am I still 25 ft off the road? And MD is should I be asking Russell that or who who should

it would be 30 foot from the center of the road would be the standard right away which might already be there and the 10 foot temporary construction is beyond that for us to or whoever to move equipment around it. So you wouldn't

I could put anything I want there but knowing that you guys could tear it up the day after if you guys were put in the sidewalk.

In theory my I mean again I'm not a lawyer but like you could put whatever you want there but we could tear it up. So like if it's a bush it's fine and but if it's like a house that might be bad but if it's just like landscaping

Yeah. Yeah.

That's the cheap part of like

has to be a certain distance off my property line.

It already does right off my property line.

Yeah. I'm saying yeah and and 10 foot t temporary construction should be

we don't have the e we can't build the sidewalk at all.

The the construction easement would not affect the building setback. Building setbacks for measure from the property

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So it' be 10 ft from my property line

easement.

10 ft from the end of the rightway for the sidewalk.

And the purpose of the of the temp construction easement so we could trespass on your property when we build the sidewalk. If the sidewalk easement ends,

right?

You can't end the sidewalk there. We got to go on the other side and put stuff in it. So, it's acknowledged that we trample whatever,

but you don't necessarily need that. You're just guessing. Is that correct?

Uh,

so like you could build the sidewalk as is now, but you might need another 10 ft for grading. Is that how I kind of understood it earlier?

That's possible. And but we're not asking for a grading or a drain easement, which is something else.

Um, I was advised that the property is pretty flat. Probably won't need any major grading.

Yeah. temporary construction would allow for grading. Um so and that's that's correct. There's a ditch there. So we would have to change the grade in order to add curb um and install the sidewalk. So we think that 10 ft uh beyond the 30 foot line beyond the rightway would be enough to construct the sidewalk.

It shouldn't impact the setback. The setback is much larger than 10 feet and

setback's 25 ft from the property line.

We won't go with no easement just as is. kind of confused by what you're saying.

We we just won't we won't agree to the fee. We'll just keep it as is where you guys have your right away to do it how you want to.

I think the motion. Okay. So, there's no condition right there.

Okay. Okay.

All right. So, we do have a motion and a second. We're still in discussion. Uh if there's no further discussion, we can take a vote. Any discussion?

All right, we have a motion to second. All in favor say I.

I. Okay.

All right. And what happens if this is

denied? May I ask staff what can the applicant do?

Just start over.

And what does that look like?

Coming back. start the process all over again.

Correct. It would be a whole new resoning if he wanted to do that.

So, a 10 foot would satisfy one more vote. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yes,

I think it would make a difference.

Okay.

Do I do it right now?

Withdraw your motion.

We can. So, I'll have to withdraw my motion and then I'll have to amend it to include the condition.

Can we can we withdraw a motion when there's already did a vote on it?

Can we just postpone?

There were two eyes. Sorry.

Postpone the vote until after the next um the next reasoning so we can get that language straight.

Okay.

With the applicant.

Okay. So, so I guess technically we're just postponing until

after,

right?

Right. After the next reasoning.

I think we've got a a motion and a second and a vote on the table. So, the question is what what are y'all doing? I mean, are y'all taking another motion to delay? Well, I

you did a motion and a second and then you called for a vote,

right?

So,

amend the motion.

You table it, but

typically when you table something, you're not in the middle of a vote like it's before you start voting,

but you can motion a table still.

You've got a [clears throat] vote and a motion. You could continue on the motion and at the same meeting you could reconsider your vote.

So, right now,

okay. So, so we'll complete the votes. complete the vote and then reconsider when he offers a condition.

Right.

You could.

Okay.

Yeah. Because it's it feels like we've called for something.

Oh, we can.

So, we got a motion and a second

and you were calling for the vote.

I heard two eyes.

Right.

We haven't called for the naysay yet.

And then later,

so we need to call for the nays and then we'll reconsider it

and we'll be a motion for reconsideration. Okay.

Call for

Are you calling for the nays?

Call for the nays.

Call for the nays. And then we'll do a motion for reconsideration.

All right.

Any oppose? No.

No. No.

So that's two, three.

And now make a motion for reconsideration.

We should probably wait

after. Well, I mean, yeah, after. I'm not doing it now.

You can't do it because you voted,

right? Yeah. Yeah. One of the Yeah, one of the three has to do it. Okay.

Okay. Sorry. I just want to make sure procedurally we were

Yeah.

Are we going to the next?

Yep.

All right.

All right. We're going to public hearing four. Reson case 26 CZ03 SD.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Town Council. Bruce Fen, Planer 3 with the town of Apex. Today before you, we have a amendment to the Vidia SD conditional zoning plan in order to bring in the Wake Tech campus. We'll go over this project here. As you're familiar, uh, Vidia campus VIDA is located near 55 Old US1 and 540 in the southern southwestern area, southeastern area. This is the parcel in question that's seeking the resoning right now. This is the future site for the Wake Tech campus. Should this be approved? It's about 34 acres of real property located here along Highway 55 and Technology Drive uh adjacent to the Dell Technologies building. The current zoning, this is currently

zoned under the SD conditional zoning district. Uh the applicant is seeking to exemptions and some amendments to the SD plan to allow them to build the campus style uh aspect of element that is custom with college campuses. When the original SD plan was approved in 2011, uh the idea was that this area would be developed in a grid style pattern which is non-conducive to a campus style development proposed. It would still be the uh sustainable development conditional zoning as shown here. The land future land use map. This is consistent. Uh this area still calls for the regional mixed use or the medium density residential, high density residential, office employment, commercial services and industrial employment. the summary of the proposed amendments that are included in your packet today. So number one, uh the thorough affairs and sidewalks. It would allow private thorough affairs sidewalks to serve the Wake Tech campus while maintaining public access easements along private sidewalks and adjacent to public streets. Again, the B development brigade requirements. It exempts the campus from those requirements to accommodate future redevelopment into the A grid urban style pattern, allowing it to have more flexibility as they build out the campus. Number three, the community design standards. It exempts the campus from block perimeter limitations and certain public street frontage requirements. Applicable lot frontage standards will default to the UDO. Number four, the building standards. It exempts or will modify standards related to the lot dimensions, building disposition, setbacks, frontage buildout, and multiple principal buildings and principal interest orientation. Number five, the building configuration and frontage standards. It exempts requirements for private frontage types, corner lots, stepbacks, express lines, and parking layer placement that would be appropriate in the former uh grid style pattern. Number six, for the glazing requirements and maintains glazing requirements on public facing facades while allowing glazing on non-visible facades interior to the site to be averaged but still meet the overall uh percentage requirements. Number seven, street screens. It removes the requirement for street screens where no building fronts the street. Number eight, parking and driveway access allows driveway widths to comply with

town standards or TRC approval. Number nine, there are tables in the SD plan. This exempts the campus from several tables related to again the design standards and it modifies table 14 to provide flexibility for the block layout setbacks and building disposition that would be more conducive to the campus style setup. And number 10, it will add vocational school as a permitted use for the campus. As of right now, this this use is not a permitted use. So they would need to dis part of the resoning in order to build the campus there. And number 11, general campus standard requires that all lots within the campus to front on a public street. So this they'll have private streets internally, but they'll have public streets. They'll be fronting on the main drive there. So again, this is the area. They did hold their two neighborhood meetings this year, one in February, one in June. It went before your uh planning board on July 13th where they voted unanimous unanimously to recommend the approval of the resoning as proposed. uh planning staff is in favor of this recommendation as well. Um the statement reasonist for this is the 2045 land use map subjects property as the regional mixeduse as we stated before and that the proposed amendments to sustainable development conditional zoning are consistent with that land use classification. The proposed resoning is reasonable in the public interest because it recognizes the changes needed due to the constructions and the conditions that have changed since 2011 and will provide the flexibility in design standards needed to construct the proposed Western Wake campus for the technical community college. Uh the applicant has a presentation for you as well. Staff is available to answer any questions you may have.

Any questions for you? Mr. Carpenter, how are you?

Thanks, Bruce.

Good evening, mayor, members of council. Matthew Carpenter with Parker Poe, 301 Fateville Street in Raleigh here this evening on behalf of Wake Tech. Got several folks with me this evening. Um, Scott Baltimore with HKS, our architect. We've got Kathy Matro with Wake Tech,

Matt Smith with Wake Tech. Um, James Een with McAdams, our civil engineer, Bronwin Reus with McAdams, Sarah Vanvery with McAdams, and Jordan Balderson with McAdams. So, we've got a big group of people here um to answer any technical questions you have about the amendments, and we're excited to present the amendments to you, which will allow a permanent Wake Tech campus to be located in Apex um in Veridia. and it it really capitalizes on the momentum that that you've already seen in Veridia with the announcement of the children's hospital. Um, and so I think as you'll see, it comes at a perfect time to to try to continue that momentum in town. Um, and I do want to thank the professional staff with the town. Um, as you can see in your packet, I think there's 300 pages of Veridia documents in there. This zoning district is unlike any other in Apex. Um, and it's really taken a ton of time and investment from the town working with our planning team at McAdams to go through these documents and understand what works with with this campus type environment and what doesn't. Um, and I think they are a big reason why, you know, you're seeing some of these big projects come to Apex. Um, because they add predictability and and a willingness to to help get things done. So, we appreciate their efforts. Um, and at this point, I'd like to hand it off to Kathy to to speak a little bit about um the vision for the campus and and and why Wake Tech chose Apex.

Good evening, Mayor Gilbert and town council members. Thank you for taking the time to consider this zoning request. I'm Kathy Monttero, director of facilities design and construction at Wake Tech. Last September, President Walls and Vice President Scott had the pleasure of sharing with you the master plan to build the weight tech new Conland Western Way campus right here in Apex in the Vidia development. We've been very active over the past year engaging internal and external

stakeholders to convert our mission and vision into programs and plans. We're wrapping up the design development phase of the project with our HKS architect team and Scansa who's also here tonight. We're on track to begin the construction next summer of 2027 with an anticipated opening in spring of 2030. This project is fully funded by Wake County and fully approved by the board of trustees. Our first building will be a four-story 125,000q foot classroom and laboratory facility called Fuji Film Hall. It will feature 20 classrooms and labs for university transfer associate degree programs, a full complement of student resources, conference and meeting spaces, an entrepreneurship of small business center and 12 biotech industry simulation labs. It's going to be an amazing facility. Amazing. We're very excited to bring this new campus to Apex with numerous biotech companies already operating in Southern Western Wake and more on the horizon along with the new North Carolina Children's Hospital. Wake Tech's position here in Apex has become even more strategic, not only for the town and the county, but also for the whole region. A lot of eyes are on this important project. Wayk's new western way campus will bring educational and economic opportunity to the citizens of Wake County, our apex, and provide much needed workforce training to the companies who have chosen Wake County as their home. This zoning amendment is a critical next step for our property development. This will pave the way for Wake Tech to bring this beautiful, thriving, and innovative college campus to Apex, North Carolina. I want to thank

you, mayor, and the town council members, and also to your fantastic town staff for welcoming Wake Tech to Apex. We appreciate your leadership, partnership, and shared vision with Wake Tech. I'll now turn it over to Matthew so he can share the details of the zoning request. Thank you again.

Thank you. Um, as Bruce mentioned, really the the purpose behind uh or the the reason we need the amendments is because the original Vidia zoning was set up um to mandate a more urban downtown street grid type development. Um, and there are other sections of Veridia that are are developing with that typology. Um but and and so in that way these amendments are very similar to what you approved for the children's hospital last December. There are there is one important difference. Um those amendments if you remember included a group of amendments that applied only to the children's hospital property and then also a group that applied to the entire Vidia SD plan. Um these amendments that we're we're talking about tonight will only apply to the Wake Tech campus. So, so we're not opening up the entire Vidia zoning. Um, we're tailoring some of these standards to to allow a more campus style environment. And as Bruce mentioned, um, we're also making as a permitted use vocational school, which was not part of the original uh, permitted use table in in the Vidia SD plan. And then on on the right of your screen here, you can see the the master plan, the sort of aerial 2D master plan that we've been working on with staff. And I believe this was presented to you previously by Wake Tech. Um, and so it gives you an idea of of why we need these amendments. It's a campus style environment um with large buildings to facilitate uh lab space, learning um you know, community gathering spaces for for students. And so it's much different than than what you saw was envisioned in

some of the very early Vidia documents in 2011. Um and so some of the changes that that we're requesting, I won't go through all of them. They're all as I mentioned in your agenda. We're allowing for private roads and sidewalks. Um an exemption from the urban street grid requirement, block perimeter requirement, which is another mechanism to require grided streets. um and also an exemption from the urban building frontage requirements. Um and so just to continue some some of those amendments, we've included a rendering on the right side of your screen to give you an idea of what it might look like. Um we're also asking to to limit the glazing requirement to facades that are visible from the public right away. So, um, the glazing requirement, you typically see those applied to like downtown storefronts where you want, you know, a high level of transparency at the street to be able to see in. Um, that doesn't work the same way when it's applied to these much larger buildings. And so, we we still want there to be um a level of transparency in the design. Not every side of the building um is practically needs to to meet that requirement. And so, we've asked for relief there. Um, there are also a host of tables that that require urban g grid, street grid and building placement standards uh that sort of reiterate the the written standards and we're asking for an exemption from those. Um, but I do want to be clear that that you know these changes do not mean uh that the campus won't include highquality design. So um this is a view from the main road that comes into Veridia off Highway 55. Uh, and so you can see the the building design that HKS has been working on um for several months, if not longer. From from this view, you can see the the storm water pond that that's trying to be used as an amenity there um to to create sort of a more natural view as you drive down the main street. Um, and then I've got a couple of other views, too. This is a view from Technology

Drive. So, it's on the other side. Um, if you see can see on the left side of your screen, that's the pond I just showed in the other view. Um, so you can see here, you know, it gives you an idea of how students might gather on campus, um, and why the the layout of the buildings, sidewalks, and and gathering spaces is so important. And then I wanted to include this rendering just to show um, you know, everything that's taking place in Vidia. I I think you know what you can see here is you know even though the original vision of Vidia has changed some um I think what the town is going to get you know 5 10 years from now [clears throat] um is is a large regional mixeduse development uh that that meets a lot of the economic development goals of the town. Um you'll have you know some of these industrial life science and uh campus users. you'll have the children's hospital and then you'll have a community college here to train employees to work um in those facilities and stay in Apex. Uh and so we with that um the planning board unanimously recommended approval, staff recommends approval, and we respectfully request your approval. Thank you.

All right. Thank you,

Mr. Carpenter. Before you sit down, um, can you talk to me a little bit more about the, uh, the glazing relief that you're looking for because I'm got a kind of a hard time reconciling that with the renderings that you're showing which like seemingly easily met some meet some of these conditions. Sure. I'd like asking for relief there,

Scott or Bronnin to to speak on that.

Um, I believe and and they can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the glazing requirements as written would apply to all sides of the building. And so it's an issue for you know them applying on every side not just the front facade.

Hey Bronin Reus. Um so the way the standard has been modified those glazing requirements apply to every public right ofway facing facade and then every other

facade. The same requirement applies but it's applied as an average. And so that just gives a little more flexibility to give and take on different facades that aren't facing the public right ofway. Does that make sense? I still have a hard time kind of reconciling that with the buildings as as rendered here, right? Because there seem to be glass all around. So I'm just wondering where, you know, where this condition helps you.

Yes. So, the specific facade, and Scott maybe knows, but um there's one [clears throat] specific facade that has um loading. So, it's like a serviceoriented facade that's going to require the loading of large vehicles. And so, that's limiting the um ability for that transparency on that specific facade. I don't remember exactly which one it is.

Hello, Scott Baltimore. Nice to meet you all. Um the facade is kind of the left side of that building that you're seeing in the foreground. And so in order for the building to function properly, there will be be loading and servicing happening on the lowest level. And so there is some grade change there and screening that will be provided. So that that's not visible. But as loading and service areas go, there's not the same level of transparency that you would have in other office spaces or classroom spaces. So that's the only uh caveat just to the layout of the building as it is currently.

Okay. Thank you.

Mhm. Any [clears throat] other questions? All right, hearing none, we'll open up a public hearing for comment. Um, the first speaker, always speaker, Elizabeth St. Elizabeth Raet, 3113 Friendship Road, Mayor and Town Council. Good evening. Tonight, I ask you to carefully look at what Wake Tech is actually requesting, not simply who the applicant is or

whether we support having Wake Tech in Apex. Wake Tech selected the 34 acres within Vidia sustainable development plan which came with ex with an existing zoning framework and development standards. Wake Tech had the opportunity and the responsibility to perform its due diligence and determine whether its proposed campus could reasonably comply with those requirements. But what in what is in front of you tonight is very different. The resoning document says the property will retain the existing conditions of Vidia resoning except for a lengthy list of modifications. Wake Tech is requesting exemptions from governing block design and future conversion of Bgrid areas to A grid development. It seeks exemptions from building disposition, lot dimensions, building frontage, principal entrance, private frontages, building confir configuration, parking related standards, and other requirements. The requests continue. The campus will be completely exempt from table 1, 7, 8, 9, and 13 with additional modifications from other tables. Most significantly, the request says that this property will be exempt from form-based code standards for the village center in table 15D. The question should not be how do we change the zoning to fit weight tan wake tech plan. The question should be before approving these changes, what did the original zoning objectives intend to protect with these requirements? With so many requests, at what point do you have development that can no longer meet even the spirit of the original sustainable development district? By approving these requests, are you setting a precedent, triggering a domino effect for every other parcel in the district? At what point do you no longer have what

the development was intended to be? I'm cutting my comment slightly short to bring up one other thing. Here we have an applicant who is exempt, but yet you're asking for him to give a 10-foot extra right away. Here's an applicant who is not exempt and asking for a long list of exemptions. We do not have equity in our approval process. We do not have equity at all. And that's the reason why I'm standing here. I know you're going to approve it. I saw the other approvals done. You got the big money, the shiny toy, but where is there equity? That is a question of your ethics and how you uphold how you do your duties. I would like for you to reflect on that. Thank you.

Thank you for speaking. All right. Public hearing for comment is closed.

Motion to approve.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Yeah, I will I'll [clears throat] note that I think when we saw this original proposal and I think the reason why the Vidia the entire Vidia component has a has a specialized zoning um district is because we recognize that as we're putting a number of the things within this each one of them each one of them is going to have a separate kind of need a separate sort of response. Um when Wake Tech initially came into this entire project, I think all of us kind of envisioned that this was going to look like a campus. We and this is one of those things where we kind of understood from the beginning that as Vidia's planning and as the other planning t takes place, there were going to be adjustments along the way. I don't see this as being an inconsistency with what the original planning and the original goal and the original vision was because when we looked at the original vi vision, what we looked at was a campus. We didn't necessarily look

at it as fitting into the town/ urban grid plan that the rest of Veridia was going to align to. So, this is one of those anticipated sort of adjustments along the way um that we knew was going to be taking place. I don't have a big concern about we're looking at a slippery slope with regard to adjustments every single time for every single applicant because I think what we're looking at here is we had an understanding and the whole reason why this district was created is we understood that as various components started to come in there were going to necessarily need to be adjustments along the way. These adjustments are built towards making this campus look like a campus which is something that we ultimately I think from the very beginning understood this was was the intent. So I see what we're seeing now is much more aligned with our overall intent of what we were looking for. you know, we're, you know, regardless of whether you're Wake Tech or you are, you know, UNCC, when we start thinking about a campus, there's a certain view that we need. Um, and that's to cater to the students, that's to cater to the missions, and this this letter, this this, you know, application seems to be consistent with that. So, I I I'm more than happy to support this.

All right. Any other discussion? Yeah, I just want to note that um it seems to me as I've followed this process over several years that this this layer is essentially a finer grit of sandpaper as you're refining and and closing in on a project. And when we talk about precedent setting, I am entirely comfortable setting precedent for community college campuses and other college campuses to come to Apex. and that is a precedent um I'm comfortable with. So I just wanted to speak in support of the project and uh the campus and I appreciate all of the folks especially staff working so hard on it.

Other discussion

hearing none. All in favor say I.

I motion carries unanimously.

All right. Move now to R1 budget a minute number two. Thank you.

You want to go back to the

Yes. item. Okay.

All right. That's right.

Okay. Um we have the the new condition that we're um proposing. Developer shall dedicate public rideway along the Evans Road property frontage 30 feet from rideway center line and dedicate a 10- foot um temporary construction easement for future construction of curb and gutter and 5-ft sidewalk based on the minor collector street typical section.

All right. And this is good to let us construct you believe high probability we construct any additional easement someday.

All right. Great. I'll uh I'll move then to reconsider our earlier vote on annexation 8 to8 and reszoning case 26 CZ 04 um I was on the winning side of that f um asking for reconsideration

point of order do I doesn't the losing side have to make the motion [laughter]

winning the winning side okay

all right so motion second all right any discussion on All in favor say I.

I.

Oppos.

All right. Motion carries.

I make a motion to approve the resoning.

There's a number uh number 26 CZ 04 annexation and reszoning of 2913 Evans Road with the added condition.

We have a motion.

Second.

Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Oppos. Motion carries.

All right. All right.

I think Jessica's on vacation, so I will be taking this one. [laughter] You have before you budget amendment uh that we spoke about earlier. Uh Joanna in her presentation alluded to I think actually our chief alluded to it as well. Uh we had a a bid process uh selected from the vendors and now this is the the budget request. The contract is still in the works. Legal is working with the vendor on that. This is the budget amendment for $170,000 for the downtown site redevelopment market analysis and feasibility study. If you have any questions, I would ask uh Joanna to maybe come up and help us with those, but we may not have any yet.

I have one just for clarification for the record. I just want to um and thank you Miss Helms um for your hard work on this project and and I was just going to ask can you talk for a moment about um first off really just a quick recap on what we expect to [clears throat] um be delivered to us and then also um is this within uh the general um reasonable estimate for rates um from architeists in 2026? six. It's It's my understanding. I mean, we had a very different rate when we hired Stantech in 2017, 2018, 19. Um, so I just want to get clarity on that. Thank you.

Right. So, [clears throat] I'll answer your first question first. Um and so the the entire scope of the project I thought was really well defined in that opening statement which I know you have a copy of but um it will just be a process whereby um there'll be a a very robust public engagement process with lots of variety of types of engagement times dates etc. Um and a lot of very unique things that the consultant is proposing to get folks engaged. Um so that'll be one part of the process. The

other part of the process will be actually the market analysis to study the market to see what kinds of um functions in a site at at that location at this date and time would be successful. So that would be a part of it and then the feasibility of how that would come about. Um another component of the study would be to look at a public private partnership. So, this would be something that, you know, we hope that somebody from the public uh or from the private sector could partner with the town and really make this a very unique and and um prosperous um venture for for all. Um so, that's the the kind of the totality of the the study. Again, a 9 to 10 month process whereby there'll be um touch points along the way where the public can continue to stay involved, including all the way up to the very end with the final um recommendations and presentation. Um so that's that. Um the study that was done and approved previously um in the 27th through 2019 time frame and this one are completely two opposite things. So that there could be two more different animals if you will. Um that was a whole process to look at the whole downtown master plan, parking study, etc. and and had multiple phases and we're in phase two now as you know with the streetscape. Um this is a very dedicated study simply for that specific site on the again the market analysis and the feasibility of um so so couldn't be more different. Um we have not done the study before. Um and the the cost of price point is in range with what um we would expect it to be. Um the bids came in very very close. All all nine of them came in very very close.

I had one followup and I'm done and thank you for that. Um I was going to ask during the um downtown master plan and parking study process there were focus groups. Will do you anticipate there would be focus groups?

I I I think that was one of the terms I saw in the in the scope. Um they they did mention things like um interactive events where people can you know

hands-on get in you know I'm not sure exactly what that means but but interactive events um opportunities to have like workshops um other sessions. So I would imagine a focus group um could very well be a possibility.

Thank you for that.

Yeah, just curious. Okay. Um this visibility study um you know including we do uh evaluation about the building, the condition of the building, right?

I do not believe so. I believe that's already been done once.

Correct. But that's already been done. We already have that on record. So it's not you know um included

not in any depth. Okay. It's or that's already been done by a firm another a different study that looked architecturally and engineerally at the building. That's not even a word engineerally but I said it

it works for me

architecturally engineerally. Um but that's that's already been done. This will look at that in in the broader scope but not as a you know the soundness if you will of the building and those type of things.

Okay. Thank you. Other questions for Miss Helms?

Okay, thank you.

All right, here we are. I just want to say thank you to everyone involved in this. Chief Herman, thank you so much for um the great presentation and Miss Helms as well. And I also want to thank Mr. more uh for his engagement with this and I definitely can relate to the history of course. Um this is my hometown. Uh I I do remember some of the great experiences at that building, did training in there as police. I'm I'm so glad that we're spending the time to really explore what's best for all of Apex. So thank you all for your collaboration on this and I know we got to move forward at the same time. So

here here we are. So is there a motion?

Motion to approve.

All right. Second.

Second.

Any further discussion?

Yeah, I do want to mention that and and I think it's um important to recognize that this is just another step in a longer pathway. We've still got a 9month plus runway on this um before we get to the point where we're doing the decision- making. um you know to speak to a a matter that was brought up by Karen. I know when I first saw this amount of money I was like woo it's a lot of money for uh for an additional study and I you know I asked the question in house can we do this in house um got got the answer that it's not going to be best to do this in house I started asking questions about scope what is going to be used because I mean this is a significant amount of money um but uh and as many of us have had we've had meetings with you know several several several meetings about this entire our issue and the things that always came up in the course of those meetings is you know I remember two themes that popped out. theme one was that when the if at the time of the merger they had known that there was going to be no operational fire station, they wouldn't have agreed to the merger. The second thing that I hear is that there was a great deal of pain that was felt when the word volunteer was removed from fire station one. Both of those things speak as to the emotional impact that this decision is having. This is as many things we have to deal with are dealing with things that involve what's the best operational what's the best uh way of making sure that we're effectively running this entire town. But there's a real emotional component when it comes to this sort of thing. And it's that level of emotional component which really drives I know me and all my

colleagues that we've talked about drives us to the idea of whatever we're going to do we got to get it right. There's going to be a presence. We've got to figure out how that presence is going to be felt. We want to make sure that we're doing it right. And the best way of making sure that we're doing it right is making sure that we have as much public input, as much information as we can and looking at all the steps that we've got to get through. That's what is behind this dollar figure. That's the amendment. This is not simply a, hey, we're going to spend a lot of money for a study that could have been done cheaper or by something else. This is a study to get it done right. And I want to say thank you to the staff, to my colleagues, to those who are in the fire protection business because this is your attempt to make sure you get it done right. Thank you, Chief Herman, for recognizing and quite frankly confronting a lot of the pain that was created when the merger occurred. And those wounds continue to last. But I appreciate and applaud you for being there to make sure that we can at least address it. Not all pain gets healed. Not all pain gets forgotten, but we can at least make sure the pain doesn't become an infection. So, I think what you're seeing with this amount of money is a recognition that this is not going to be an easy process. Certainly ain't going to be cheap. Um, but we want to make sure we're doing it and we're going to get it done right. And as one of my old bosses used to say, you can do it cheap or you can get it done right. And uh this shows that we're going to get it done right. So appreciate all the work Joanna that you did on making sure we're going to get this done right.

Thanks, Councilman. All right, we have a motion to second. All in favor say I.

Oppos? Motion carries unanimously. All right, thank you everyone.

All right, we're back to public forum. All right, trying to keep up here. All right, I'm gonna call names here. Joshua Bryant, you still here? Joshua Bryant, Michelle Steinback,

Mason Logan.

All right.

And uh I don't know if the form went through because it was acting a little funny, but I am here with a group. Did it not?

Um no.

Okay.

We can.

Okay. One just had to step out for a second. She was right next to me. I have the

Okay, you're good.

Just want to make sure.

Ready when you are.

I'm ready. Uh, my name is Mason Logan. Uh, I've lived in this area my entire life. I grew up in Fugquway. I've lived in Holly Springs, Apex, pretty much all the way up Highway 55. Um, I've lived here all my life and it's pretty nice. I might die here. So, like a lot of people who've lived here for a very long time, I also remember what these communities were like just after 2008. I remember community centers that were just about closed, parks falling apart, programs being cut left and right. I remember a time when these cities barely had money to keep things running. And now I'm watching a lot of these cities invest in these ALPR cameras and the companies associated with them. These companies build themselves as public safety investments. But that is not what they are. They are not selling safety. They are not selling security. They are selling you the new tech model. And for those unfamiliar, the new tech model is one of infinite rent seeking. is one that seeks for you to pay for something indefinitely and they will raise the price whenever they see fit. When I see these cameras get put into cities, I don't see anything about

public safety. I see an indefinite financial drain because they will raise the price over and over again. The last 10 years have been marked by significant recoveries since the 2008 crisis wiped out most public services for the towns where we live. I think most of the people on this board probably remember that time. These companies will integrate themselves into your workflows with your police departments. They will weasle themselves into every corner of every operation that they take part in. They will make themselves feel invaluable and indispensable despite the fact that there is no solid evidence that these salesmen have not written themselves to demonstrate that there is any benefit to public pol to public safety. They will make themselves as central as possible or at least feel as central as possible so that when the time comes that they feel their income basis has not been met that their markers for success and their infinite desire for more money is not being fulfilled. They will raise prices and this is not a theoretical. This is what they're already doing to other towns. It's what they'll do here. We've spent years building these community services back up, bringing up parks that went into disrepair so badly that some of them just had to have parts knocked down because the maintenance didn't get done for so long. We finally got that stuff back. They're going to come in here and they're going to hold you at threat of telling your constituents that you don't care about public safety if you want to take the cameras down because now they want to charge you three times what originally you were willing to pay. They're going to hold you at that threat. They do. That's what they're doing to other communities. There is no

tangible, no solid evidence to show that these are benefiting our communities. But they will come in. They will ingratiate themselves into police departments and make themselves make everyone who uses them feel as if they're helpful when they're not. And then when the time comes, they will charge you hand over foot anything they want at threat that they will replace you with someone willing to rubber stamp anything they ask for. And that's not conspiracy talk. They're already doing it. These are not security companies. These are not people interested in our well-being. They are parasites. And if we do not get rid of them while we still can, while we still have a government interested in its own citizens, they will install people whose only interest is to help them make more money. And I'm sure you all seem very trustworthy. There are some people who will feel that these companies will benefit them, that they'll do their bidding, and they'll they'll get by, they'll get their cut. But that's not how they work either. So, if there's anyone who thinks that maybe they can benefit, you won't. They'll come to you with all sorts of offers and back rooms and tell you anything you want to hear to keep it going, but as soon as they feel like someone is more of a liability, they'll replace them with a hand selected candidate. They are not just a threat to privacy, and they are. They're not just a threat to civil liberties, and they definitely are. They're a threat to the integrity of this government itself. They're a threat to our ability to fund our parks. They'll keep raising their prices until they get every scent they feel they can. And they will push anyone they view as a threat out of the way. And this isn't unique to Flock. It's every company that makes these. Every single one of these companies will latch

onto our community and they will pull and they will pull and they will pull and they will remove anyone who tries to stop them. and then there will be nothing left. If you remember what things were like after the 2008 crisis when our cities had to practically rebuild because the tax base fell so low we couldn't afford maintenance on basic things. That's where we'll end up again. And they'll start slow. They'll start easy. They'll make you so many promises. They'll give you free AOPR readers. They'll offer you discounts on your subscriptions, but they'll disappear and the prices will go up. And when they're finished, when they decide there's nothing of value left to extract from our community, they'll leave. They'll leave their equipment. They'll leave a broken council and a bankrupt government because that's what they're doing. We can't just remove flock and say the problem's solved because they every other company that competes with them operates on the same business model of rent seeking and extraction. Fundamentally, we can't trust them. We can't trust their technologies. They're already hurting people. And I frequently hear this refrain that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Except for the several hundred people this year who have been charged from outofstate municipalities because the license plate readers read their plates wrong. People have been arrested because the license plate reader said their vehicle was stolen when it doesn't even match the make and the model. Those lawsuits are expensive. Like they're really expensive. They're going to start charging you more money. They're going to put you at legal liability for people who have been charged for things they did not do. They are going to take everything they

possibly can. And if we do not remove them while we still have the opportunity to do so, we may never get the chance until there's nothing left for them to take. I yield the rest of my time.

Thanks for speaking. [applause] Lorraine Mihan. Lorraine Mihan. Andrew Gluck. Heather Garrett.

Hi. Uh my name is Heather Garrett. Uh I'm a student of social work. Um I'm also here to talk about ALPRs, but I'm going to be approaching it from a slightly different perspective. uh uh we live in the age of surveillance capitalism uh driven by the profit-making incentive. Companies like Meta, Google, uh OpenAI, Anthropic are capturing as much data on people's behavioral patterns as possible and feeding it into the extremely complex mathematical algorithms AI. Um these AI extract, amplify, and push forward the most frequently recorded patterns of our documented datified past. uh a cognitive scientist specializing in AI accountability, Dr. Abbea Bhane describes these AI powered predictive tools as being built to conserve the patterns of the past and extend them into our futures. Available policing data like those accumulated in part by ALPRs are used to train AI powered predictive policing tools which then creates a feedback loop further perpetuating our society's existing biases forward. For example, say due to systemic bias, a minority neighborhood was being overpoliced and thus over represented in crime statistics. [snorts] Predictive policing offered by Flock, Axon, Vigilant Solutions, etc., and powered in part by data from ALPRs will suggest to law enforcement to continue this overpolicing and thus over representing

this neighborhood and crime statistics. These data then train the next version of the predictive model in a vicious cycle. This pattern of AI amplifying bias persists regardless of domain and the problem is so endemic to machine learning that it has generated an entire sub field AI in machine learning fairness research and development. If you are using a machine learning model trained on data sets that classify or represent people or their lives in any way, you almost certainly have unfair bias in your model. Put another way, when the machine learning models do what they are intended to do and find patterns and regurgitate them back as new judgments and predictions, they cannot help but reflect and amplify our flaws like a mirror. We are at a pivotal point in history. At the very moment when accelerating climate change, biodiversity collapse, and global political instability are commanding us to invent newer and wiser ways of living together, AI powered by ALPRs hold us frozen in place with permutations of a reflected past that only the magic of a marketing team can disguise as the future. I yield my time. Thank you.

Thanks for speaking. [applause] have first name con last name initial K.

Yeah.

You provided your full name.

S K A Y.

Okay.

Um I live in Wake Forest. Thank you for having me. Um, well, we've heard a lot of people talk about um surveillance infrastructure that's being put in around North Carolina, and I wanted to give my judgment on why I think I and many other people are concerned about this. Uh, I think it kind kind of comes down to a saying that's said a lot by people, and I think one gentleman up

here just said it. Um, if you've got nothing to hide, then you've got nothing to fear. But I think if you think about that saying for a little bit, you realize that there's something a little wrong with it. Kind of a gut reaction you might have to it if you think about it. Something dangerously wrong. It's wrong in the same way that when you meet someone for the first time and you're talking to them, you're selective about the information that you are willing to tell them. you have a wall in front of you until you're able to determine if this person is trustworthy or not. And that's because we do that because we understand maybe not in words but instinctively that the information that we hold about our lives is incredibly powerful. And we understand that if that information were to fall into the wrong hands, malicious hands, someone who wanted to cause us harm or some maybe someone that wants something out of you, that that information could be used for destructive and maybe even deadly ends. It's that that phrase is wrong because the vast majority of the time when people conceal or hide information, they're doing it because they want to not because they want to achieve malice ends. It's because they want to protect themselves and the people that they love from malice and well malice and also the people that approach these sort of technologies like surveillance infrastructure and the vast cornucopia of information on people's personal lives that they consolidate into one big giant beacon of power. And I think I think those sort of dangerous people that you'd probably not

want to have access to that information are attracted to those sorts of institutions. Um and it's it's for that those reasons and others that um I feel that these technologies cannot be trusted in any human hands and computer whatever. Um thank you very much.

Thanks for speaking. Final speaker, Ben Cornweight.

Good evening, mayor and uh members of the council. Um getting back to the station one firehouse um situation. Just wanted to um vocalize my support for providing the Apex firefighters with safe and modern and operationally effective facilities. uh not asking the town to preserve an unsafe or inadequate building at any cost. Clearly, I'm asking that the council not make an irreversible decision before alternatives and public safety consequences have been transparently evaluated. Obviously, a vote has already occurred. So, this um is a little bit way laid at this point. But importantly, I think um as the agenda for tonight um address concerns and updated funding for the feasibility study, I do think that one thing that's shortsighted is that the town's request for qualification states the redeveloped property will not contain the active fire station uh and the existing building um intended to be demolished. um that appears to both pre-select two of the most important conclusions before the next round of feasibility uh occurs before station one is decommissioned. Please require an independent analysis of the 90 percentile response times, simultaneous incidents, downtown traffic and events, station 3 unit availability, future downtown growth, firefighter safety, public protection classification, and complete life cycle costs. I think

that's important. Finally, please commit that there will be no demolition or disposition of the existing property until the feasibility study and adequate stakeholder input has been fully completed. Uh this does not have to be a choice between firefighter safety and apex history. A rigorous and genuinely open analysis should determine how the town can protect both. Thank you very much.

Thanks for speaking. Right, Elizabeth Stit. All right, final speaker, right?

All right, cool.

Yeah, the computer wasn't very nice.

Okay, no problem.

I tried typing and I clicked wrong. Um, Elizabeth raised it. 3113 Friendship Road, Mary Town Council. Good evening. I'm happy to say I'm your last person and I will probably yield back a little bit of my time. Um, I wanted to add some additional comments that I couldn't add during the Vidia um, resoning. So, you know, Vidia was supposed to be more of a metropolitan urban type feel, you know, with sustainability. The notion that Wake Tech can't accommodate that doesn't jive. There are urban colleges all throughout the United States. And the benefit of an urban college, it allows those students to have all of these activities offampus by walking in very close distance. And as much as I've heard this council talk about, hey, you know, we need to look at more high density. We need more walkability. We need more multimodal activities. That was the perfect opportunity. Having Wake Tech go towards more of a grid offered that we gave up that you know we want students to be able to walk. Wake Tech, we're not going to have a lot of housing because it's a community college. Maybe they can get an apartment

somewhere else within the community, but it's a large enough community that they may not be able to just walk or ride their bike. They're going to get in a car and drive. And the whole purpose of Veridia was to do that modern urban feel. There are a ton of urban colleges. I know that because my kids were the age went to college. Maybe your kids aren't old enough. They haven't looked at colleges. There are some phenomenal urban colleges. And for those kids who want to have that urban feel, we could have offered that. We could have had something right here without them having to go maybe to Charlotte or New York City or Atlanta. We could have had that here. It's just a missed opportunity. Now we have a vast campus that you're going to just have more traffic, more cars, and you know, I think decisions are being made on the big shiny. Oh, they say they don't want it. you know, they need this and we want to help them facilitate that, but we need to stop and ask some legitimate questions. Could they really not do a design? They're smart. The designers are smart. There's really no reason they couldn't have designed it. Thank you and enjoy close session.

Thanks for speaking tonight.

All right. Um, we have looks like five close session items.

All right. Make a motion to go to close.

Motion Ziggman.

Second. Mappy. All in favor say I. I. Motion carries. Do we anticipate any more decisions coming out of [laughter] No.

Yes. All right. Is there a motion to

adjourn? Second [laughter]

we're [snorts]