Work Session

Sorry. Welcome everyone to the April 16th Cary Town Council work session. And at this time, I'll turn it over to our interim manager, Russ Overton. Thank you, Mayor. Let me run through the agenda real quick for the work session tonight. We'll I got to first review the upcoming meeting schedule, and then we're going to toss it over to Shelley and Jimmy to hopefully make some decisions on the Citizen Convenience Center tonight. Then I'm going to lead a discussion about delegation of authority, which has been a great interest to you all. Probably a few updates if time allows after that, and I don't believe there's a closed session. Okay, so this is um your upcoming work sessions and regular meetings. Start with tonight, then the 28th and the 30th will round out April. Um followed by the 14th being the quarterly meeting. And then last time we talked about the quarterly meetings, and so I've looked at calendars and come up with some options. Um so May, we were not able to adjust that one, but Thursday, August the 13th, we're looking at Thursday, August the 6th.

[snorts]

And then in November, Friday, November the 13th. So these changes would be on a council agenda for a vote, or can we can do that here? No, um well, I would take a vote here um just to make sure I'm moving forward with everybody um in unison. And then I would bring the whole schedule forward. So it would happen at the consent as well. Any thoughts or comments on the adjustments to the schedule? I know I'm not available August 6th. Okay, so we'll go Sorry. That's okay. If you could just give me a second. Sorry, I'm a little slow. So don't look at August cuz we'll come back with more options. There's time, which is why we just wanted to bring them forward, but we can go ahead and look at November if everybody's good with November. November is fine.

[clears throat]

May is fine, right? Or no? Yes, May we're not we don't have there's

no avail- avail- availability to change.

Yeah, mhm. I think these dates are fine with me. So you're good with Okay. Somebody want to make a motion for November change. I'll make a motion to change the quarterly meeting date from November 5th to November 13th. Perfect. And is there a second? Second. Discussion. Who's the one that couldn't make that one? Somebody couldn't make Oh, everybody can make that one. The um for November, Lori couldn't make the 5th.

Lori couldn't make that one. I'm not sure I can make the 13th. Oh, no. Okay. We'll go back to the drawing table.

[laughter]

And I don't know that I'll be able to tell you on the fly because I have to take the day off of work. Okay. I didn't realize we were moving the quarterly's around. So we have two council members that can't be there, right? You can't be there, and you can't be there or may not be there. I don't know.

Okay. November 13th. I just don't know. So I guess if it's five with a possibility of six, we can go ahead and vote and then change it again. We can come back with a different date. We don't know if we have time. Yes, you do. We have time, so we'll just take the We have a motion, so you want to withdraw your motion, whoever I could just vote no afterwards.

[laughter]

Just withdraw it. So everybody okay with drawing motion? I can't even remember who did The three of them, Michelle. Okay, you're okay. Awesome. All right, and I'll come back with others, or we'll hear more

So can we give feedback? You don't have enough information right now.

I just need to check, that's all. And then everybody okay with August? Somebody said no. That was me. I don't recall who had the initial conflict. Michelle and Harold.

It's Yes, we're going to be in So we are out of the country uh with these bottom um So would later or earlier Uh

I would not be available the 6th or the 7th if those were uh the 7th were an alternative. I wouldn't be available either of those dates, but otherwise flexible. So we always have quarterly's on the Thursday. Would it help to do it on another day in this case? Is that a hardship on staff to do that? Not if it's during the week. What are we thinking? Everybody looking at calendars or

Mine is just whether or not it conflicts with anything.

Yeah, and we don't have to solve this right now. We can look at options and then come back cuz I know you've got some other stuff on your agenda. We'll just take this as a first pass, and we'll come back with a second one. Sounds good. Would it be possible that as you're coming up with other options, you kind of float them before the meeting so that we could all kind of look up so that we're not looking up right here at the meeting. Yes, we can do that. That would be fantastic. Mhm. We can we can talk about that via email, right? That's I think if everybody provides information and doesn't say, "Well, if you do [clears throat] this Yeah, as long as more than four of us don't respond, right? We would just say that you're If you could reply back to me, because even if one person wouldn't make it, that would change it. So if you if I do share these dates earlier, if you just reply directly back to me, then I can know if we go ahead, but we would want the final action and the final approval to come here and also talk about it here. Okay. If we reply to you, then you can reply to the council after you hear say, "I've got four for this date, two for this date, and one person hasn't responded." Then then we'd know. Okay, got it.

[snorts]

All right, let's turn it over to Shelley and Jimmy to talk about the convenience center. All right, good evening, Mayor and Council. Jimmy and I are here tonight to talk to you about the convenience center. We're going to give you some cost estimates, and then we're going to ask for your direction on which option you would like us to proceed with. So just to recap, the convenience center

opened in the 1950s in downtown Cary. We accept solid waste, recycling, food, and yard waste at this location. I actually like this slide better. The dark orange on here is where the majority of the of the public portion of the convenience center is located and that is within the North Carolina Railroad right-of-way. We've talked about that before, but they have a federal Chrisy grant that they're going to move forward with doing some improvements here and they need us to get out of their right-of-way. So, we have to move all of our services that we provide in that area out of the right-of-way. So, that's why we're talking to you about moving the convenience center or doing something different. They came to us in September just to kind of recap for you. We talked about it in the fall. Then we got a firm to help us, Garrett and Moore to help us with some options and looking into evaluating what we could possibly do. And then we came to you with some options and now we have cost estimates and would like your guidance. The cost to remove everything, so we have to restore the right-of-way to what it was previous to us being in it. So, from 1949. So, the cost estimate for that is $175,000. So, no matter what option you choose, we have to do that and we have said that we will be closing it to the public on December 30th of 2026 and then we will start and then Jimmy and his team will start the removal process of the things that we have to take out of the right-of-way. So, the options that we that our consultant has come up with and we have worked with our basically that you can stop the services as of December 30th and not do anything else at this location. They have determined and our team agrees that we could leave keep move actually yard waste and food waste into our portion of the right-of-way there and that would work. We actually collect all of our yard waste for the town at this location in the portion that we currently operate for the town's purposes. Or you can leave yard waste there and

then open a new site with the recycling and other things at another location. So, those are the three options that we had brought to you before. So, we have now evaluated those options and I just went backwards. To go forward. So, the first option with the $175,000, it would be $175,000 because we would remove everything from the right-of-way and we would not continue to operate there. The estimate for option two, which would be having yard waste and food waste and we would set up new kind of areas to be able to have the yard waste and food waste

[clears throat]

would be $525,000 and that includes the 175. That is for design and construction. And the third option would be for design and construction 4 to 5 million dollars and that would be to move the yard waste on the current site and then open a brand new location somewhere. So, some of the questions that we have gotten and Jimmy's going to address a lot more of them, but just kind of two of the big ones that have come up are why can't it only have yard and food waste at this location or why why does that make sense? So, our consultant had looked at that and um it's only feasible here because of certain land constraints basically. So, Duke Energy has electrical transmission lines there. They're pre it's a pre-regulatory landfill area and we have buffers and so there's just not enough land to be able to move the operations that we have in the right-of-way onto the property that we own there. Um we are able to park our vehicles there because we're allowed to park vehicles. We cannot put structures under the Duke lines. So, um there's just a lot of challenges with the property that we own that's outside of the right-of-way. The other question we had had is would Wake County be interested in operating a opening another convenience center? So, we talked to Wake County about it and they are actually supersizing a center in Morrisville that they think would actually provide all of the service that Cary needs. And so, they um felt like that would be good for us. And with that, I'm going to let Jimmy explain to

you what they're going to do at the service center and go through some of our other operations things. All right, thank you, Shelly. Uh-huh. All right, good evening, Mayor and Council. How are y'all doing this evening? Um the supercenter was a great topic of conversation that we got to have with Wake County. Myself, Jesse Troublefield, couple other team members of ours were talking about what's it going to be, where's it going to go. And so, I want to give a little flavor of that because um Laura, I believe you asked a question before of what is it going to do and how does it help us. So, hopefully this answers that and shares with those at home. Um construction and demolition waste, which is currently not at their Morrisville site. Uh mattress disposal will be there as well. Along with household hazardous waste or HHw, which we do not currently collect at our site. Uh current as we sit today. Um and then multi-material facility. So, it's going to be a much larger uh site. Here's a site plan um from Wake County.

what those terms are? Household hazardous waste, is that paint? Paints, cooking oils, greases, things of that nature that are the heavier waste that we just have not accepted. Okay, thank you. So, their current site, as you'll see on the uh slide to the left, is a very small portion and for those who have used the center there, it's really small, tight, compact and it was shoehorned in for for lack of better terms. The new site is on a much larger parcel and you can see a large road coming in. Um provides a much easier access for residents that are using that site. And it uh it has better storm water control and Morrisville is also using part of that site for their public works. So, it's a dual uh Morrisville Wake County uh project right now. The construction estimate uh of completion is July of 2028 is what Wake County gave us. So, not too far into the into the future. It is a funded project and they are moving forward with it. It is in design currently as you can see

from this, it's moved along pretty well. One of the other questions that was asked is where are all of their sites in Wake County. Uh you can see on this there are 11 sites in Wake County which are distributed pretty evenly across the county as you can see by the map. The red star is our Cary convenience center and where it's located, which is roughly 5 miles away from the site in Morrisville that they are supersizing. This is a great slide that Wake County provided us. We did a little adjustment to it. We added our convenience center and it's the red star, but this shows all of the drive times to Wake County sites. And so, as you can see the orange is 25 minutes. The uh more pinkish than the orange is 20 minutes. 15 minutes, 10 minutes and 5 minutes for the full county. We pulled Cary out. We added in Chatham County residents, which we do want to make sure that we recognize those as well. That's the blue star is the Chatham County site. Um off of White Chapel Road or White School Road, I believe out there. And then uh you can see how the 5-mile gap is from the Morrisville site to our site.

[clears throat]

So, sorry. Did Sure. go back and What about the Chatham like they're removing Chatham, too? So, they're not doing anything for Chatham. The Wake County is not. Chatham County has a convenience center site right near and that's the blue star that you see on the far left map right near the residents of Chatham County in that area. So, the drive times to that area or to them having access to a convenience center in their county is pretty pretty close. Okay. Yard waste collection sites and this is one of the reasons that we believe yard waste is important to talk about. All of the sites that you see here are for pay. You can go drop them off and pay. Our site currently, our residents can drop them off and we will service the residents and take that away for them. Um that is a really important piece to know that on this map there are sites, but

they are for pay per drop-off. Some are by truckload, some are by tonnage, it just depends on which site. The food waste collection sites you can see as well located on the map. Our two sites at Dixon currently, which is the convenience center, and Mills Park are shown as well. So, bringing back all the way back around to the options. Option number one, no public service. We would still utilize the site in public works and solid waste as our transfer site uh for yard waste because that's where we house everything and then we work with our contractors to turn it into compost. Um that removal is $175,000 to remove structures, asphalt, concrete, anything in the North Carolina Railroad right-of-way has to come out, which we would handle that after the closure on December the 30th of this year. Um option two is yard and food waste on the current site. Um it hasn't been completely mapped exactly how it's going to be, but it will be in that cul-de-sac there along with the area on our land that we own. Uh removal once again 175, design and construction 350,000. Our construction window on this one is about 120 to 150 days and that's why we're asking for action tonight. Option number three, yard waste on the current site and then move additional services to a different site. 175 again still stays. Design and construction 4 to 5 million dollars for that new site as well as the yard waste moving on the Dixon site and total funding needed there about 4 to 5 million dollars. With that, our staff recommendation is approval of option two, yard and food waste on the current site and an appropriation of $525,000 from the general fund balance to a new capital project for this work. And once that happens, then we will begin to put the pieces in place to make this happen. To Mr. Mayor's point, uh is there a lapse in service? If we go now, we can pick option two and not have

a lapse in those two services. Ready for questions? I think we might have discussed this during the last work work session, but I can't find it in my notes. What is the operations cost associated um with option B in particular I'm interested in uh yard waste and compost remaining Uh that's what we mean by food waste, right? We're talking compost.

That's correct. The drop-off compost. What's the operations cost to for that to remain on site? We're still working through all of the minutia of what that's going to be. Once we know the exact details of what the selection is, we can get you firmer cost. And we do have a full-time employee on site there now that operates the convenience center for us. We believe that if we take option two, a lot of the things that people bring to us now, we will be going to pick up because we do offer curbside options for almost every one of those items that we pick up. So, we believe that's going to shift from people bringing it to us to us going to get it. So, that person's going to be integrated back into the operations, so the savings is not going to be the full savings by any means. Um and we will still have to service the yard waste and the and the organic site. And so, I'll have to get back to an exact number for you, but there will be some potential savings there, but it's not going to be as great as you one would think. And further to that point, I'm curious those other sites that are on on that map, are they at a fee to the dropper offer or are those at no cost? On the organics portion, I believe it's split. There is some pay to play, but there's more free. Um definitely on our two, we provide that to our residents as a service. Um I can get the exact on that for you as well. The yard waste is all pay to play except for for our residents. That's uh what I thought, and I'm wondering if that's something we want to reconsider. You mean us charging away? Us charging

for people to to drop off? For yard waste?

For yard waste and food waste or just yard waste? Just yard waste I believe. I think the I feel as though now is a good time to reconsider some of those um no additional cost services like this um to try to offset the cost of running the convenience center. And if I can interject for a second, that is part of our solid waste fee currently. Okay, it is. So, that So, people are

They are paying. That's correct. Okay, so that funding for the operations costs aren't coming out of That's coming out of our utility fund?

That is coming out of our solid waste fee and the revenue recovered from that. So, can we [clears throat] use the on the cost or the general general Yeah, just a Do you have a proprietary fund dedicated to this stuff or just part of the general fund? It's within the public works budget within the general fund for operations.

Okay. Not not its own fund. Not its own. Okay. And and it's not our current fee is not usage base. It's just a flat billed amount

That is correct. monthly unlike Raleigh that does you have to put it in bags and there's only so many bags you get, etc. But they also pay for it curbside and then they have an additional drop-off cost as well. So, it would it still is possible to do what you're suggesting. I'm just saying just because they pay for it that's the convenience of having it picked up at your curb. But if you have a lot, you have a truckload, I often see a lot of people who do a lot of yard work and they'll put it in the back of their pickup truck, Yeah. drive it to the convenience center. You lived in Raleigh, even though you're paying for it, you would still have to pay at a drop-off location in Raleigh. And that might be a revenue opportunity

or cost recovery, whatever

Cost recovery is is really all I was was driving at.

And if maybe one of your points is we're not recovering the cost of the capital cost to do this investment. And we haven't had that discussion. So, So, I That's where I was going. Thank you, Russ. Well said. So, Russ, I have a question about this um cost. So, what we are doing is we are right now taking the money from gen If you go back one slide.

[clears throat]

The slide with the cost um where we were This one? No, after this. Yep, this one. Okay. We're taking money from general fund fund balance. We're taking 525. And we decided we're not going to do it.

This is This would be a mid-year appropriation.

I was going to say it's for fiscal year 26.

Correct. But then does that impact our fund balance in any way?

Yes. So, like is this going to be below the threshold? Uh we we don't believe so. We don't believe that. We're currently working through that information as we're developing the next budget and you'll learn more about that at the quarterly. Yeah, and that that's probably That's a great question um on including why we don't believe so because in effect we're in the budget process where you're looking at all that because you're looking at how much general fund fund balance you have uh for capital projects for next fiscal years yet as well. Russ, is it fair to say that um if we found out that this would take us below the policy, we would have a different recommendation moving forward? Yes, or we'd stop doing something else and bring that to you. So, getting back to the cost, being someone that works in the yard a lot and has a lot of yard waste, if you have a truck, it's easier to throw it all back in there and take it to the convenience center. If not, you cut it in 4-ft lengths and tie it up. and it stays in the street sometimes if you have a lot for weeks. My neighbor and I did this.

And we filled all our bins. We did as much as we could. Neither of us had a truck. And you're going to see more of that rather than people wanting to pay to go there. So, that's you're deterring the convenience. Yeah. And uh I don't know if that's a good idea uh because now you have more debris in the street that stays there longer, probably goes down the storm drain. I'm very careful, but I don't know if others are, especially during leaf season. Holy moly, you know, there's always stuff in the storm drain. So, And Shelly, did you say and either of you could probably answer this question that that is where we funnel all of our yard waste anyway? So, even if we said we're not that's no longer going to be a resident drop-off location, yard waste is still going to that site that's collected. That is correct. Yard waste is. So, it seems like it would be you know, in a hypothetical where we said let's keep food waste and not yard waste, yard waste is there anyway. So, it seems like the marginal savings there couldn't be significant. And part of the reason with the yard waste like we think it can fit. And that's part of the reason the recommendation is to keep the yard waste there. There was some comment in when this was originally proposed about the possibility of having a rail truck. We are talking to

Right, the spur. There's a fee but we've connected with Norfolk Southern and said they would be the ones that would actually put a rail spur in. We would have to pay them for it. So, we don't have an estimate yet. They want to know how much we're going to be transporting. And so, really we need to figure out which option we're doing first before we figure out exactly how much.

It's still on the table. But that is definitely in conversation and it's more than just us in the conversation. Got you. Well, I'm very excited that you were you all were able to find a way to uh make the yard waste and food waste

stay on this on this particular site because that's what we heard the most feedback from from residents on that they you know, they especially the food waste folks who fought so long and hard to get something like that as well as all the people who used the yard waste opportunity to do it. I I think you know, the fact that it's that you found a way to do it is really commendable. And as a bonus for the food waste, we're actually going to use the existing structure and move it. So, we're going to reuse it on the site. Excellent. And I I completely agree, but I will also admit a little sticker shock at 350,000 to move these two services. So, maybe you could tell us a little bit about the work that that requires cuz I think when you say move two existing services, it just kind of sounds like well, you push something over into the the corner, but clearly it's more significant work than that. Absolutely. We have design. We have some permitting things we have to work through. Then we have to have drawings done and once that's done and it's permitted, then we've we've got some work to do on the asphalt and all of that. And we have to go up. We can't go down based on what Shelly said earlier. Everything is where it is. We have to come up. So, that's one of the key components of what we're working through with that. Um Meaning like grading? Correct.

Okay. Oh, I know that's I did that on about 10 by 12 ft of my yard and boy oh boy, that was something. Yeah, and this is a it's an estimate. We feel like it's a really good estimate. Our consultants worked with us and Jimmy is a master at estimating for some reason cuz they were right aligned. But we don't think it would exceed that. But we would have to build like a structure to keep the yard waste in and stuff. And would you bid this work, Jimmy? Uh yes, we would have to bid this work, absolutely. The other of that is we would be doing this while concurrently operating the facility as it is to make sure that we don't lose those services. So, continuity of service was in our forethought there. So, there's some some

cost to that from site safety. Mhm. And the 175 is about going back to that original picture. It's Do you have to actually remove the concrete? You have to put it back to the kind of the way it was in 1970 or something like that?

1949.

The other The other piece of that is we're actually going to take that up and reuse it on the site as well. So, we're not disposing of it in the landfill. We're actually keeping it there and using that material on site. Okay, phenomenal. That's even better. Grinding up pavement and

And Jimmy, you said it's uh how long does it take the project? We're projecting 120 to 150 60 days depending on weather. Um if we have weather as it's been with no rain, then it'll be a lot faster. If If we get that wintertime weather, it could get a little bit extended. I know Sorry. You go ahead. Yeah, so during the construction, is that uh community center still open or just shut down?

It will stay open. Okay. Yes. As you see it today, it will operate the same way. I know we said this at a previous work session when we were talking about this that we were the only municipality in Wake County. I can't remember if we said it today, but I just wanted it to be restated if it hadn't been today. And I think it would be safe to say that if we were able to keep the site as is, things have been working fine and we would continue. But given that you said sticker shock with that option two, the big sticker shock goes option three and with that I'm sorry, but That's a fair point.

to need to drive 10 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] I completely agree, Council Member Craig, that I I know that this is a beloved service and there will be people who will be very disappointed [clears throat] to lose some of the materials that they can currently dispose of there. I just don't think with all of our competing funding priorities, we can justify that expense. And so, we might be trending this way already there to uh make a decision here, but option two seems like the logical compromise that

we keep the needed services and and our apologies to the residents that will be sad to lose the other materials that they dispose of there, but I I think that this is the fiscally responsible choice while retaining the the the most desired resident services. And the way I see it as a homeowner is I just have to go somewhere different. Yeah. And I have. I've gone to the Holly Springs dump, which by the way, it's very nice.

Yes. And very easy to use. And they take everything.

They do. I I will say as a District A resident, we go up to the Morrisville one. So, that's a good point. These services still still exist for us Wake County residents. We might just have to drive a little bit further. My apologies downtown folks who've had it so very convenient for them. I am happy to hear that you looked at the Chatham County options as well. Yeah, that's very comforting. But um I'm just [clears throat] going to probably be the person with like a little bit different opinion. I mean, I'm fine with um the option two. I'm just worried that, you know, we're just maybe over-committing and we might have to be a little bit more careful about the fund balance and how do we put that stipulation in that, you know, we need those numbers and the understanding of how this impacts the funding and can we even do this? I mean, it it on the face of it, it looks good. I mean, it's something we we should aspire to have, but then do we have the resources to make this happen? So So, before you answer I don't want I don't want tax increase for this.

Oh, no, no. I've been doing this for 20-something years [clears throat] and I don't ever remember a time at the end of the fiscal year where we were under. Cuz we have to have a balanced budget. Um We do have to have a balanced budget.

Yeah. So, usually we have extra and that goes in the fund balance reserves. So,

this would eat to me, this eats into that because we will probably have an extra because we have to have a

Well, what will get compromised? That's a good question.

I think that's what I need to know because am I ready to compromise on a very important and critical project in Cary versus you know, I would love to have this, but then financial obligation is a very important commitment right now. So, the reserves, I would love to have that discussion. We're going to have that after this fiscal year because there's a whole big discussion about that. We're very high on our percentage rate and we need to discuss that. And that may get to a lot of where you're going with this. Right, but so that's what I'm saying. Like, you know, I like the concept. I like the idea. I like, you know, the services. I think it's something we should do, but uh not at the like I want to understand the financial aspect of this also. And how do we do that? Like, you know, because I know you need a decision today. Yeah, if if we want to have um services continued without disruption, if you choose option two, we have the opportunity right now if we make that decision to go ahead and move forward and try to keep it operating the whole way as they're building the new location. Um if you were going to choose option three, um it there it's going to shut down and it's going to take I mean, it could take a couple years to get a new one set up and operating.

asking you to fund 4 to 5 million tonight. We would not be asking that.

That's correct. If you decided, okay, we're going to just shut it down,

[clears throat]

um like we don't technically need the 175,000 until we're removing everything from the right-of-way. But we we have to have a decision today if we're going to continue on a path where we can keep it all open. And that's basically

is unavoidable, correct?

That's unavoidable.

So, what we're really talking about now is the 350,000, not not the total

amount. Um that's the way I saw it. I just wanted to make sure. And we're not we're not going to be spending it right away, but we need to know that we have that available in order to do the project because what we don't want to do is start doing design for a project, spending money on that, and then not doing it because that's a waste of resources, too. Can we make a motion the slide is moved, but can we make a motion to go with option two and appropriate this amount? And if staff finds that it's going to take us below the fund balance, we pause. This won't

or am I being too technical? Are we in danger of that?

I'm just Not with 525,000.

I just thought if we added a few more words, it would help so we could feel better.

Last time I think we had the meeting, we have about 2 million like 2 million We've been Well, we've been talking about the budget, you're looking at projections for next year and your comment regarding to the mayor said it well, you're always building fund balance throughout the year. Um and then we use fund balance to potentially fund capital projects in the next year. Problem with fund balance as we've kind of been having a conversation and we did give um uh uh Kim Kimberly Branch gave an update at last quarterly on

Which is I think what Bella was trying to get And that might be the number. I don't I'm Denisha is here and she may or may not have it. And we can get that last number to you. What you may recall is it's difficult to tell you what fund balance is at any point during the year because you you haven't received all your revenues and you may have spent more money at any given given time, which why it's always been a very important number at the beginning of fiscal year or at the end of a fiscal year, however which one you want to think about it. So, so is there There's been a lot of discussion in the press, etc. about um property taxes. The significant number of appeals happening with property taxes. There was an article about Morrisville, right, being worried and not and having 1.5 billion dollars in appeals and that's going to impact their bottom line. All of that talks to our revenue.

Correct.

Is are we worried about that where an extra 320 250 350,000 dollars going to impact us? At where are we with that? Um we have a slide on that that gets into that as part of um updates later on uh sales tax and property tax if we're able to get to it or we can share it later. Um it continues the trends of folks watching the revenue and pressures um on revenue, I'd say, that you know, trends maybe in the wrong way. Um and and we'll continue to learn more from the county, but I I I don't wish you to get caught up in this decision doesn't break your fund uh general fund fund balance that you currently have. And if anything you think about, you probably if it were even close, it might would mean you just wouldn't do a 500 thousand dollar project in next year's budget. Which we're not bringing you swapping out options. We talked about as staff as could we wait and have it as part of a budget discussion. That gets into the point you can. You just get into a window that the facility be closed. Um we talked about that the four of us a lot this afternoon because if you wish to have a more holistic conversation about fund balance and what you may or may not transfer um as part of the capital budget process, you'd want to wait. Um but if this is important enough to you and that's kind of the values decision or trade-off um to be able to go ahead and that you don't have a disruption in service, you we'd want a recommendation now. I think, Russ, it's important for people to hear what you just said so that they understand that we're thinking about this also while we we projects. It's so important, especially because of the financial pressures that other municipalities are feeling, not just Cary. So, you know, be mindful of that and we don't want to make the same mistake, even if it's like we're touching the fund balance, right? Are we thinking of It's a very small amount. I know this is not going to impact.

It's not.

But, you know, having that mindset, now thinking again and again, I think that would help all of us be a little bit more responsible. Yes.

It's reasonable in my view. I have some questions, sorry, about the project itself, cuz the convenience center has been serving for the Cary residents for how long? And if we choose to option two, cuz we're keeping feeding this yard yard waste and food waste can I forever like feeling or for 100 years? I don't I don't know how do you run this convenience center. You take the waste out to somewhere? That that's correct.

or just a feeling feeling and to deeper or you need to build it our facility? This Our site is a transfer site. Oh, so So, we bring materials here, we compile them together, and then we transfer them out to another location. Oh, that's good.

So, it doesn't We're not building for capacity. Um we can maintain the service in this space because you own the land. We can maintain the service in perpetuity as long as you wish to fund the service. Okay, so

has a right of way option on the land that we're talking about. [laughter] That's correct. So, they're not going to come back and say, "Oh, somebody else is wholly owned in fee simple by the town of Cary. So,

[laughter]

So, as long as you all wish to That's correct. It is yours. That's right.

you're not going to go mad at us and say, "I need one more

No. Okay. So, it'll be safe to invest whatever our town land, right?

Yes, because you are the ones that would decide to stop doing it. No one else can tell us to stop.

Okay. So, we'll be confident to tell them it's our own Yeah. facility, so we can use it to serve our Cary's residents forever. Yes. Further to her point, though, where are you taking it? It goes to many different places. We We take electronics, which we would still go get it at the curb, so we would store that there. We take those to electronics recycling. We take McGill gets quite a bit of it for composting. We take leaves to a different Multiple different places

get

Yard waste Yard waste in particular.

That one Majority goes to McGill, but we also use Brooks Contracting as well for composting. That we have a contract.

Correct. We do have contracts with both of those. Where are those? Uh one is in New Hill. And I'm not 100% certain on the

distance, so this truly is a convenience. That is correct. Thank you. Well, and then I believe that the rail was talking about going to Pennsylvania.

That's correct.

And taking the yard waste to Pennsylvania on a rail.

land in Pennsylvania?

[laughter]

We still have a contract with someone that would take it 100%.

would be very convenient for the

people in Cary. We ready to have a motion. I'll make a motion to approve option two, yard and food waste on the current site and appropriate 525,000 from the general fund uh balance to a new capital project. Second it. Motion is second. Discussion. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Unanimous. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you both. All right, let's move our attention to delegation of authority. And I'm going to lead this presentation with Lisa hopefully keeping me on the straight and narrow here, because basically this is a conversation about a res resolution that, you know, kind of sets your policy and delegating authority to negotiate awards, approvals, execute contracts, and other instruments. There's an associated standard procedure, which is signed by the manager and kind of the how you would effectuate that. So, this gets into going through kind of the council initiated item tracker. At least four of you, I guess technically, and then all of you voted on this back in December to bring this forward, and I just kind of counted these two. It was spending authority as well as the reduced the manager's discretionary authority. Um and then and then town council approval of real property acquisitions. So, kind of bringing this forward based on those,

and at the same time I'll just um want to say that we all obviously have ongoing and active investigations, so you may think of this as a little bit of an interim solution, because if any of those investigations make recommendations to something else, we could always bring this back to you, can make other changes. Let me just hit all of this on one screen. The delegation of authority is really set from powers of the General Assembly for how you do purchasing and contracting. There's several listed here, and as you've seen 11 of these changes over the last 10 years, and I'll walk through each one. The document you see with your staff report that comes to council, it looks it is literally that page on the right of the screen. And Lisa, I don't know if you have anything to add about statutes. I brought my copy. Yes. Um and it is the statutes that require this to be a resolution. I think we've had a discussion about could this be a council policy statement, but the statutes require delegating authority like this to be made either by ordinance or by resolution, so that's why this has a title of resolution. What's the difference between or ordinance and a resolution? An ordinance we put in our ordinance book. A resolution just lives kind of like this. So, we usually reserve ordinances for things like the noise ordinance or the land development ordinance. Things that Typically things that apply to citizens that citizens need to be able to look up our ordinances and see what the rules are. This is more an internal thing that really just applies to us, and so I think resolution I think that's why 15 or more years ago we chose to go the resolution route when we did this. Does it live anywhere online where people can see it still? It would be in the minute.

And the It is in the minute.

And on the agenda, because it resolutions are opposed to your agenda when you adopt them. Yeah. Internally we keep it places where we can all find it. Which is maybe different than your point of policies and procedures are

more easily referenced in different locations on the website.

They are. Yep. More anything else? Can you talk a little bit about the cuz I think it's valuable for a lot of residents listening about your long research and looking up our delegation of authority. I'm going to get through it. Several slides. Let's keep going. Keep asking questions. Uh this just kind of gets We really answered this. It's kind of what a resolution is and then what a standard procedure is. I kind of think of a little bit as the obviously the policy on left side kind of the what and then how we do it and enact it and enact the resolution is in a standard procedure. So, thinking of it just the standards to how we do this. Um so, this is the changes that have occurred looking back really primarily. There probably were more before this, but this is kind of um went back to the point in 2015 when the when there was a resolution that changed it to a $500,000 spinning spending minimum. They're still unlimited. There's no ceiling on any of these. Um I think we believe at that time in 2015 this was changes changed because was the first time that there was or around the first time that there was a deputy um manager. Before that time there had been assistant town managers, and so it kind of gave some authority if you see there for assistant town managers to be able to have some signing authority. So, it was sometime after the point of uh you know, creation. The first time we had both deputy and assistant managers when there just used to be Bill and Ben. Yep. Ben and Mike. But then we started adding managers and we had deputies and assistants. So, So, this is for assistant town manager, but what was the limit for town manager? There's never So, the original I think if you go back, the original resolution was actually 2011, and there was no

ceiling on the manager or the deputy manager in 2011. Or today? Or today. That hasn't changed. And and or through the times, and I walked through each of these different times where something may have come to council or not in in various resolutions.

And just to reiterate, we said this last time we talked about it. There's no ceiling, but they can only spend money that has been appropriated in the budget, and the money they spend has to be for that budgeted purpose. So, it's not an unlimited the manager has a bag of money. It's the manager can sign contracts for things that are in but that have budget appropriated funds for them in the budget. So, there is a limit on what the manager can do. They can't just spend money on something that hasn't been part of the budget. It's got to be part of the budget and appropriated funds. But I guess that happened here. So, a lot of people are questioning that, right?

So, when you say they can't, you mean it it breaks policy. It it would break the resolution. Yes. Also, contracts have to be pre-audited by the finance department, so the finance department is signing and saying, "Yes, there is money in a bank account to cover this purchase." There's a lot of eyes on it.

of two checks and balances on any contract that somebody would sign. And this is why it was problematic that land was purchased with funds that weren't dedicated to purchasing land. I was told water

Well, we can get to that maybe on both sides of it. If you wish to may may hold that thought if it's possible when we get into possible solutions for real estate transactions. Um and and I'd let me just walk through a couple of these cuz um if I go in order, but the second one in October 22nd, you'll see the assistant town managers were given um uh the ability to sign certain settlement agreements. You see more with the deputy town manager to exchange or dispose of various easements. We at one point in 16 there on the bottom authorized the police chief to transfer ownership of service animals, which I

think had to go to the town council prior to that possibly.

there was some legislation that allowed the police department to do that.

it's up to 3 years. Something like that. Um different So, design-build contracts came into I guess existence. Is that or or we were able to do them? So, we had to make another change. Um there's some HUD and NEPA compliance, which is uh permitting related. Uh then we got into we could the police chief as someone who could declare a trespass on town property in addition to the town manager, the deputy town manager, or the assistant town manager. And then an interesting one in 2019 increased the director contract limit from 90,000 to 300,000, and we underlined the word removed the quarterly requirement for the town manager to report to council the number of contracts signed by the town manager over $90,000. Um was a change then. In 2020 um uh did some authorization to settle workers' comp claims, authorized the assistant town manager to enter into leases, um and authorized the Now, we get the town attorney in this mix to retain outside counsel to represent the town. Later that uh in 2022 authorized town manager and deputy town manager to remove approve recombinations of town properties, and authorized the fire chief to enter into fire-related mutual aid agreements. And you get the tenor of these types of changes either laws or um little things that could occur that, you know, probably allow you to do business more efficiently throughout the time. The last one in in this page 2023 authorized the debt and investment manager to establish bank accounts, authorized donation of surplus property value under 30,000 um to other governments or nonprofits. I don't know if that was a law change or just something done for efficiency's sake. Uh So, that was the uh I think how many did I say? There's

three three and four, so 10 changes over the last 11 years specifically. So, this is the current state. Um if you kind of go through folks that have the bulk of it from the resolution is that town council only effectively only sees construction bids over $500,000. This is by state law. Anything under that can be bid informally. Um so, you you see contracts or bids or something, and I've got some numbers and some stats here in a bit. Town manager, deputy town manager can sign anything above 500,000. The And maybe I'll go two from uh the assistants can So, you can sign anything, right? The assistants can sign anything up to uh 500, directors up to 300, the deputy uh finance officers tier two approvals are up to uh $30,000, and we have several mini staff that have these can sign tier two approvals. Uh this is gets into real estate a little bit. So, the town council currently has

a quick question about contracts? So, it's good at least now we know who can approve what. Um 6 months ago we didn't. But then how do we What is there a process to verify what was approved, and how does this get checked? Like what contracts are we approving, and what exactly are we services are being rendered? Like is there a checkpoint somewhere? Uh if just the checkpoint is the signing of a contract, um there's the process internally.

sign a contract today um for ABC LLC, Mhm. it and I'm it's it's a shell company. Is is there a checkpoint like somebody else can go and verify that this contract was signed, and if this company is a real company, and they're doing real business with us? We do part of that is uh contract execution. That's what staff does, the finance department, and they contact legal if there's any questions on that.

We're typically negotiating the contracts as a as a process, not just a

here's a contract, sign it. Months and months, it may have been something that was budget specifically budgeted, um and I'll get to the number and And let me give you some stats again in a couple slides. They're going to give you the number of contracts so that you can think of how many of these um to go through. Real estate by itself is just to show you what um delegation of authority is is that council is not included in it, and you just get to see here. It's kind of of a similar nature, but anything above $500,000 um the manager, deputy manager can sign. Assistant manager can only go up to 500. Um and again, I should say the manager's anything It It means what it says. Anything above 500,000, there is no ceiling limit to that. Um that may answer the question with regards to, you know, property purchases in specifically. This might be a weird question, but if it were 490,000, the town town manager or deputy town manager could still sign that.

Yes, correct.

Okay.

It all over $500,000.

to make sure it wasn't exclusive. Yes, you can sign anything of any authority below you. So, I want to I want to clarify here. So, you know, if a current or former council member told the media that there was a million-dollar limit, which I believe that was just a simple mistake that we we there was for some reason folks believed that. That's never been a part of this contract. So, what I I what I want to make sure I'm not getting wrong. It was never in there and taken out.

not. Um we've been myth-busting that a little bit, so to speak, since

back to 2011 when it was first adopted, and there's no So, it was just a simple mistake. Okay. Well, also I think it was referred to discretionary spending. It's really back to delegation of authority. Mhm. Mhm. And the million dollars I think sometimes gets confused for the mid-year appropriation fund that's in the budget. That is $1 million, but that is action that you all take to appropriate those funds throughout the year. And that is discretionary spending. No, you all have

to authorize it.

Yes.

So, I'm curious what I'm trying to figure out what the There is no discretion. There is no term No, there is not. Those terms don't exist in town government. You will not find them in the budget. Okay. You will not. All right, here is what uh some comparisons that we've done with uh alphabetical order, um seeing that all of these cities, Apex, Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, and have some sort of limit um whereby the town council steps in. Um Asheville being the smallest of who we looked at was 100,000 and above. So, then you get everything else is kind of tiered down from that. The manager then would have a ceiling in all of these um locations. Is there any documentation required for reporting of all of these spending authorities? Right? Is there a requirement to report it on a quarterly basis?

Right. Cuz the town So, it would It would be up to the council. Um I'm not aware We're not aware of any law requirements or certainly not with us ordinance. And you saw we had it for certain It said the number of contracts, not the nature of or the total sales. I think that, you know, from the public feedback, I'd be curious what what you think about this, Mr. Mayor. I think they would like us to be be apprised. I think and I too I would like it the quarterly to be handed a packet of here's the contracts that were just a summary, not the contracts necessarily. We don't have endless amounts of free time, but I'd like to look at a list and just understand maybe uh you know, the type of contract it is, the amount, um and just a short explanation of the why we're spending that money. Then we do, because we do have the ultimate fiduciary responsibility here, we do have we direct you to do a lot, and it would help us to see in real numbers what has been executed. Does

that make sense? I think that's wonderful idea. I love this, and especially like I want to say this in front of everyone, like how Russ you have been extremely responsible with your own P-card spending. You did share that report with us, and everybody needs to hear this. You did share this with our smaller group meetings, um what your P-card expense has been, and how you've been like kind of you've been extra diligent about things, and I appreciate it.

Sure. So, I think but this conversation is needed because people need to hear that, you know, there are extra steps that are being taken, but I think what um Carissa said is exactly where my mind was going to. And the reason I brought that up just a about quarterly reporting is um in doing some research, Charlotte actually had an audit recommendation where they limited the authority to 500,000 with the requirement that every quarter um those larger purchases and larger contracts were um required to be spent. So, I thought that was a great audit recommendation in another municipality that we can take advantage of learning from someone else. So, is it fair to say, Russ, from this review and of this comparison, that we are a bit of an outlier to have a without a ceiling.

Without a ceiling, cuz everyone else in the manager category is an up to. Yes. And you may or may not get some other feedback from those investigations, I would I would imagine. Um, and good points about the reporting. I've got some recommendations and then want to hear obviously hear your thoughts if you want something different. Okay. And and just to follow your point, the feedback I get is we get we hear you you didn't know, but you are accountable. You should know. Yes. And so that's where Bud's coming from. Yeah. And they have a valid point. Yeah, I saw you nodding, so I wanted to hear your words.

[laughter]

People may miss the nodding on the on the you know, the minutes in the video and and we I think we've talked about this a little bit before. Um, let me know. And before you get to the next slide, just wanted to jump in and say it is 5:56. All right. I'm going to um, what's our cut-off time? Um, I would say 6:10. So, we have 14 minutes, yes. We'll get as far as we get.

[snorts]

Uh, so this just gives you some this is the executed contracts and kind of giving you the dollar value. There are certain ones at the top that have no financial impact. They're sometimes amendments, they're uh, no cost agreements that we have. You you could kind of take those out if you wish. Dollar to 299 are the bulk of contracts. Um, so you start seeing what's, you know, three to five and over five specifically.

Mhm. Mhm. All right, we had four construction bid awards that have gone to you this fiscal year. Um, that's probably down from a more normal stance, but that's just back to you already see anything that's construction over $500,000. All right, so get into options. Uh, and I'm going to leave everything in orange is kind of the way it is now and then everything in green is something to think about moving forward with. Option one is really just keep everything the same and Crissa, this was to your point is um, uh, send anything Well, let me say it's it could we could report to you um, anything you wish, but we would also then start doing and I'm going to be specific about this, non-capital real estate uh, projects or transactions would go to the town of Cary. I mean, to town council. That would be something brand new. It said said as non-capital project, um, because if it's a capital project, you've approved it in the budget. Uh, Shelly and team are getting easements, sometimes buying full properties. Um, so we kind of feel that's under the course of doing business. Um, so if you wish

that to be reported to you, you could talk about that. But this really gets to kind of one-off property purchases as I'd kind of described them and that the recommendation on any of these options is to send all of those to you. And I'll summarize reporting, I guess, um, in three more slides. So, just bear with me, there's only three options. Option two would be really to take the manager and deputy manager's authority, squish it into the assistant manager's authority and just make that up to 500,000 on anything. Sometimes you think of that as the window to three to five if you see that and give uh, council everything above five and that then would match the construction bids as well and you'd see everything above five. And again, all these options, real estate transactions still go to you. Option three, um, well, so I want to let me say something about option two lastly. Uh, this just again, when it move it would move the town manager's deputy town manager authority down. Mhm. Um, option three, we just create a ceiling to the existing Okay. uh, and and take everything above uh, just give the ceiling to the manager and deputy manager up to 750 and anything above 750 goes to you. That was a bit of an easy interim button, if you will, is just create a new threshold that is a ceiling and not have to get into other things because I'm going to I'll I'll say this now, everything we do is going to um, have to be touched in our um, Oracle system management with regards to how we um, route the contract around for signature. So, that's got some little back-end work to do. It's it's not a problem, it just means it's just more work the more you do in the interim and any of these are fine. Uh, so let me kind of do a summary of those options because this kind of gets to where you can see them all. You know, again, option one was to to do um, to keep it the same and this is where I add reporting. Uh, so we would report anything any contracts to you above 500,000. Um, in option two, again, it squishes the

manager deputy manager down to assistants and it would add a reporting requirement for anything over 300,000 and then option three adds a new ceiling of 750 and you see anything above that and adds a reporting requirement of anything above 500. So, let me just say what that reporting requirement, why there's a little bit different value. That that was to be consistent that anything that comes to the manager would come to you to be reported to you. Um, you can take make it a lower threshold, um, anything you want. It just felt like something we were hearing from you was important that your um, uh, position that reports to you, appointed position that you know anything that the manager is therefore signing. There's nothing wrong with going lower than that and you all can decide anything you wish wish to see otherwise. I just keyed in on these kind of interim solutions that you'd see anything that the manager did specifically. Which would you choose? And yeah, non-capital is in Um, is in all three. Yeah. It two or three are fine. Three makes it a little bit easier for us in the interim because you don't have to monkey with it as many um, process and procedures in Oracle currently, but Say that again. So, so Oracle Right. You chose which one? Uh, three. Three. I was saying that three is the easiest to enact most quickly. Um, but I don't really have a preference between two or three. Uh, and if you want to change anything with regards to port reporting and if you just wanted to see reporting and the easiest easy button, you know, is is one, but it seems like compared to all the other municipalities, uh, two is probably the most um, consistent with other municipalities and I I don't I don't know that I have a preference, Crissa, between two and three. It it's all what you you all want to cut.

And you had the reporting in there already. I wasted time. Well, we already discussed it at least.

Yes. Um, but happy to take reporting down. It just gets into uh, and and changes and something to think about, I guess, was back to the summary here. I

think I can say these words. Um, cuz you kind of saw it on the If you go to option two, you're going to see uh, between 30 uh, in 2026, there are 30 contracts that would come to you and um, in 2025, there are 46. We're not through cuz the current fiscal year, so it could still go up. So, if you think of, you know, 30 or 40 30 to 50 uh, was option two specifically. Uh, and I guess I was going to say that, so if you think of that of what you're going to see, there's staff report review time. I mean, there are the the the price to pay in any of that just means things will contracts will be signed a little bit more slowly. Yeah, so I think for each of those, there would be a staff report, which means staff [clears throat] preparing a report, bringing it to you, getting it on the agenda and uh, so the the there's time, staff time and then also delay time in moving forward with whatever that contract is that would be added for any additional contracts that come to council. So, there's how many new contracts do we sign? Like generally, I would say these some of these would be recurring. Uh, that's that's possible. Some are multi-year. Um, it's just it's just a slide. But we would not know how many are new. Right. Well, that's how many newer per year. Those are new per each year. Seven 700. So, you're probably going to hit

you're talking about based on option two or two would be year-to-date would have been 30 additional staff reports

Right. Yes.

council agendas for approval.

Yes. All right, here's where it gets a little interesting. Most of the contracts above 500,000 are above 750. Um, and there's really only four contracts. I can let me say this both ways.

500 to 750.

Yes. And or three. It depends on each year, three or four contracts in that range.

number's the same. So, the number's about the same and you really get into those big contracts and I'm not saying that's why we chose 750, but that just

tells you that we sign a lot of large contracts. And if the intent is for council to see the larger contracts, right now that appears to be 750 and above more than it is in the 500 You're you're only going to catch three or four more per year. And while I'm good with option two or three as as well, I think there's a lot of unknowns here, so I would definitely like this to be part of next year's budget cycle. So, we can go through this again. I know it's painful, but at that point, you could say, "Okay, this cost us X amount of time and turn."

yes. And then council could say, "I got a lot of feedback. We still need to see more." or "Hey, everything's fine." Yeah. Uh, you know, I would love to do that.

assess the change.

Yeah. You're saying make a decision now and then reassess.

Yeah. Okay. Russ, I'm sorry. If you already explained this and and I didn't understand it, why is the reporting requirement at 300 in option two and 500 in option three? Great question. Um, because that's what the manager's authority would be. So, we just left the reporting requirement at the manager's level. And I'll go back to

Okay. So, in option two, the manager and the deputy could be signing anything between 300 and 500. So, that he would be the reporting would be those contracts between 3 and 500.

Which get above

Anything above director is what you're saying.

Yes. Which is where which is

three Yes.

So And this is anything above um 500 is the managers. So, I'm trying to show you the reporting it's it's arbitrary. Okay. It's really just I was saying anything the manager signs you would get a report of. Okay. Then think of it that way. Whatever limits you set on the manager you'd get a report about it. Just just to validate when you say reporting it's just a one liner like what we're not requiring staff to do an entire staff report on It could be quarterly. It would be up to you. Quarterly spreadsheet It would be up to

in the delegation of They're just asking for the list. Okay. And the list and the amount. That would give us a little bit more insight into what's going on like what mayor said. People came to us and said well, this happened especially to the mayor. How did you not know? Yeah. So, at least having some checkpoints that would like review the report financial report. Agree. Uh better than the just the number. Probably want to know the obviously the number but the purpose who it was to what the amount was maybe the duration. All public record anyway having it in a nice format that every quarter would make it a lot easier to share especially if we could align it with pillars or any of our Imagine Cary initiatives then we people can have an idea of where that money's [clears throat] going. So, right. So, for tonight it's really just to get your lean of sorts I was going to say we would all bring let's not rush into a decision with three minutes left.

I'm leaning to three but lowering the reporting requirement to contracts over 300,000. Um simply because I'd like to know what the assistant town managers are doing as well. It's not so much a check on on the the town manager to me the reporting requirement it's uh it's just information that we should have. Yeah. I I agree and I'd love to see it um consolidated quarterly rather than in just you know I agree. weekly updates or something like that having it consolidated. Since we do a quarterly report that'd be a good place to put it. We'll find another place to put it for open data or otherwise. Um that's really all we were getting through is kind of get this lean because we have to bring this back to you for a staff report.

I agree with Carissa's um kind of you summarized it well like keeping it 750 reporting to 300 and we can reassess this the next few months to see if we need to change something adjust go back give more you know things like that. How about the quieter council members?

Yes. Anyone else? Anyone disagree with that? I don't disagree.

[laughter]

I love the double negative. I went I went huh?

Is there any unintended consequence besides the staff report that we haven't asked about? Probably finance team time. I think the timing Mhm. things can't move quickly if if necessary they can't move quickly. And probably what we would suggest is actually a carve out for emergencies. There's already an emergency carve out for bidding purposes if we have a water line break and something expensive. So, um we would we can add in a carve out for emergency purchases. I think that'll make Jamie feel better back there. All right. Good point. Yes. Um as we wouldn't want that to have to wait on a council meeting. Yes. No. I think that's all we're going to be able to get to Stacy tonight.

Stacy's queued up and ready to go. So, which I I told Lori to stay tuned so we can find out how to get get those questions answered either offline and obviously bring this back to the next work session. I think we should talk about having some additional work sessions That'd be great. near term. You have plenty of items to discuss for sure. So, that's all we have tonight mayor. Okay. Any other questions before we go? All right. Thanks everyone. Do we need to put a motion for this? No, we're going to do it later, right?

That's right. We'll bring We have to bring a staff report.

report.