August 2 2021 Commissioners Meeting

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content made for you by your local governments   alamance county is pleased to present the 
alamance county commissioners meeting [Music]   session of the alamance county 
board of commissioners into order   first item on the agenda is for commissioner 
thompson to provide the invocation and the pledge   okay um just like to say with a world that we live 
in so confusing so distracting it can just really   get you off your game and just really we're heavy 
down on any of us that are looking at the tv or   the internet or whatever every day i just 
encourage all to focus and focus on the right   things and so i'm just going to read the psalms 23 
which we had great message in church yesterday and   our pastor would suggest us to read this every day 
so i thought well i'm just go big or go home here   so um the lord is my shepherd i shall not want he 
maketh me to lie down in green pastures he leadeth   me beside the still waters he restoreth my soul he 
leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his   name's sake yea though i walk through the 
valley of the shadow of death i will feel   no evil for thou art with me thy rod in thy 
staff they comfort me thou preparest the table   before me in the presence of mine enemies thou 
anoint us my head with oil my cup runeth over   surely goodness and mercy shall follow me 
all the days of my life and i will dwell   in the house of the lord forever we're very 
blessed to live in this country this state   this this town we've got so much elements counting 
i just pray we really protect that and guard that   and always respect each other and listen to each 
other so let's stand for our amazing pleasure   of the united states of america and 
to the republic for which it stands   one nation under god indivisible 
with liberty and justice for all um okay next item of order is recognition   have a recognition central uh communication staff 
and award training certification i believe that   is mr haygood thank you mr vice 
chair uh good morning commissioners   we have several folks with us from 911 central 
communications and the sheriff's office that   we'd like to take a few moments this morning and 
recognize so i'm going to start off with the staff   from 9-1-1 central communications and i'd like to 
ask myra williams and taylor smith to please come   up and join me at the podium and i see stephen 
sigmund department head please come up too stephen folks come please stand right beside me i'll 
i'll read the recognition and information so miss myra williams was named the apco which is 
the association of public safety communications   officials 2021 support personnel of the year 
myra has excelled working as a telecommunicator   and training officer she is excelling in her 
current role as a quality assurance specialist   meyer was promoted out of a group of 15 other 
highly skilled applicants in the winter of 2020.   she is compassionate about the citizens first 
responders and her fellow team members even in her   new role as the qa specialist meyer still ensures 
the shifts are covered and volunteers to work when   knowing a shift is short due to a call out myra 
williams acts and is a positive shining light   working as a telecommunicator and qa specialist 
in the midst of serious and stressful calls she   ensures all her teammates including myself which 
is believe mr siegmund are okay if she notices   something could be wrong or if they seem stressed 
myra has been there for other staff members when   they have lost loved ones because that is a type 
of compass compassionate person she is she is a   role model for other telecommunicators and a role 
model for anyone in any profession i've never   met a more genuine and positive person than myer 
williams and with that said she is more deserved   more than deserving of this award the 2021 support 
personnel of the year award so congratulations and i'd also like to read a note of recognition 
for taylor smith taylor was named the nina which   is national emergency number association 2021 
communications center employee of the year this   is these are both national awards taylor can be 
counted on to pick up shifts independently and   at the request of supervisors whenever she 
is available she rotates shifts and often   makes extreme sacrifices in her schedule either 
to train new employees or to accommodate the   needs of others taylor is one who consistently 
looks for ways to improve as a telecommunicator   and always volunteers to be more active with 
outside agencies and engage in any available   learning activities taylor can also be commended 
for always being one of the first to complete her   monthly trainings with accuracy the hard work and 
determination that taylor exemplifies on a daily   basis does not go unnoticed many team members 
utilize her knowledge and strength when necessary   and she is dependent upon to help the days 
go by a little smoother taylor does all these   incredible tasks with with the most humbleness 
and we are grateful to have someone like her   on our team so congratulations taylor being named 
the 2021 communication center employee of the year and i'd like to recognize com also c-com's 
training program was recognized by apco   on a national level and their training program has 
been reviewed by apco and determined to be high   quality this is very important for all the members 
of our emergency service community they all depend   on these folks tremendously all of our 9-1-1 calls 
begin right here with these individuals with this   department emergencies in alamance county start 
here and they finish here too and we just are   very appreciative of stephen sigman and myra 
and taylor for the hard work that they do so   thank you thank you very much seven in the states 
we're the eighth that has the certification   that's fantastic i've really appreciated the 
work that com has done to bring themselves up to   national certification levels and to be recognized 
on a nationwide basis so congratulations to both   you congratulations stephen please sir and we do 
have uh two of the two of our highest awards from   the sheriff's office two life-saving awards and 
i'd like to ask that the sheriff if you'd like to   come up and i think come up to and then we have 
uh deputies henley and fry i believe are present come on up let me stand up here so commissioners the sheriff's office has 
requested that they've allowed to appear   this morning and recognize the hard work and the 
life-saving activities of these two deputies and   i'm going to read their citations at this time on 
june 4th 2021 deputies responded to pollard avenue   in reference to an overdose deputy henley 
was unable to find a pulse on the victim   and began to perform cpr he then administered 
narcan and continued to perform cpr until the   elon fire department personnel arrived 
at the scene the victim who was still   unconscious but at that point had a pulse was 
then transported to the hospital for further   treatment deputy henley's fast response 
and actions helped to save a life that day   and on june 8 2021 deputies responded to deep 
creek church road in reference to an overdose   deputy deputy frye arrived on the scene assessed 
the situation and administered a dosage of narcan   to mr daniel clark who was unconscious at the time 
moments later mr clark became responsive and began   to walk and talk on his own without deputy 
fry's quick presence and willingness to act   mr clark's fate may have changed commissioners i'm 
sure you'll join me in recognizing both of these   gentlemen these deputies quick thinking hard work 
and good training so sure i wanna present to you   friends uh life-saving awards and 
recognition reaction that resulting in   life saved on june 8th 2021 is your 
life-saving pendant will go in your [Applause] that results in life saved on june 4 2021.   thank you for your service and that goes 
on your uniforms and i will shake your hands and sheriff if you would still stand here 
let me explain something right behind you   uh chief buffalo from elizabeth city north 
carolina we sent several of our people to   elizabeth city where they were having major 
protests down there and the chief buffalo   with this city police department i guess was 
so impressed with our people i certainly was   because we were able to control the situation down 
there with other officers and he drove all the way   up here to present this award to the alamance 
county sheriff's office and i want to thank the   men and women that were sent down there because 
it was long hours uh sometimes you ate sometimes   you didn't and we have a group of great men and 
women with alamance county sheriff's department   and i'm not saying that just because i'm sure 
i'm glad to be in alameda's county sis thank you mr sheriff the high sheriff of alameda county 
we recognize you your entire department and   just want to say thanks thank you sir okay 
i understand we have one speaker is this uh   madame clark she's not here oh right here oh i 
can't see you i'm sorry oh is this the front end   or the end of the meeting i don't think they 
specified he's sitting on the back mr walker is this pertaining to a topic that's on our agenda 
what you have to say today is obtaining the trash   down to the plan okay we'll need to hold that to 
the end of the meeting then we have two different   segments uh the first set of speakers are things 
that are on our agenda and then the last set of   speakers are things that are not on our agenda 
so if you just hang on please sir we look forward   to hearing from you thank you landfill is on the 
agenda today manfield is on youtube okay i've been   reminded that part of the landfill information is 
on the agenda come on out we'll hear from you now i was up here probably about 
a year year and a half ago and i talked about the trash and we got 
y'all got the tarp put over the trash   people hauling it down there but over the big 
trucks well they're going down there now and   the pickups have trash pile way up over top of the 
pickups and one little strap around it and they're   falling bags and saw i counted five bags coming up 
here this morning on fish hole they're falling off   the trucks they need to put a tarp over the pickup 
trucks and uh tarp it down on all four corners in   the middle and the back and then bags won't fall 
off so what i would like for y'all to do is make a   ruling that you gotta do that now me and mr hill's 
been working together and if i go if i see him go   by there i got his phone i'll call it as soon as 
i see him tell him what kind of truck's coming   and what they got if i get the last number i'd 
call mr johnson but i couldn't get it because   i'm out in the yard working but anyway he's doing 
a good job too but and if his men would you know   sort of check around and see when they come by 
stop them and tell them either or y'all start   finding them down to the landfill double the price 
or whatever or something there to make them listen   so that's what i like to for y'all to do pass a 
law or something on that where everybody is other   than one or two bags sitting down in a truck you 
know you gotta use a little common sense but when   you come down the road and they piled up top of 
the cab they gonna fall off the truck they ain't   gonna get there with just one little strap hanging 
across there so make them put a tarp on it all appreciate it thank you all right thank you 
thank you oh mr albright or mr haygood is that   something that we can look into and um and mr 
walker yeah we'll have the county manager and   the county attorney look into this matter and see 
what if anything there are already uh state line   laws all kinds of laws yeah that that indicates 
that's not a legal activity well it took a long   time for y'all to i mean before that finally mr 
hill finally got the tarp signed up but that but i   think it needs to people it works down there needs 
to start telling them more i think that's a little   slack on that deal we appreciate your help thanks 
sir okay are there any commissioner responses   i know we had mentioned about getting 
some signs concerning littering because um   like anything we get out of the habit of doing it 
we don't get caught for it and have accountability   it can be real easy to start old bad habits was 
there anything that come out of that was that   something mr hill was going to look in because i 
mean i think we started picking on mr hill i think   he's amazing i think we had started a conversation 
with the county's maintenance department about   their ability they do road signs out in the county 
the street signs about their ability to possibly   create some limited number of no littering 
signs and post them particularly on roads   if we're getting reports of heavy trash on roads 
and we were going to team that with the sheriff's   inmate program so once the sheriff starts 
picking up we kind of know these are heavy   heavy traffic areas so i believe that i 
believe the county maintenance department   is capable of making those signs but i don't 
believe we've issued any at this time so   okay well if we don't have them we don't read them 
we don't disobey them so we just got to really   i mean that's just typical of everybody i 
live on a corner right behind gold's gym   in front of a school and everybody that 
drinks mickeled light likes to throw their   bottles and cans in my yard and uh and i'm 
out there picking them up and i'm thinking   that you just slack that's all it is so we just 
need to really take better care of our world   we'll get with the sheriff's office and maybe they 
can give us some insight into particular roads   out in rural county that they're either working 
or getting calls too um and we'll look at those   those would probably be the best places for the 
sciences thank you thank y'all and ms thompson you   need to call the burlington police department 
i need to people quit drinking nickelodeon i was not going there whatever do we have a 
motion to approve the agenda motion to approve   second motion second in a discussion all in favor 
signify by saying aye aye emotion carries okay mr albright representative oh i'm sorry we have a 
motion pertaining to the approval of the consent   agenda motion to approve second motion second any 
discussion all in favor signify by saying hi hi   now mr albright this must be my cue   all right i received a letter from ashley 
carter she's an attorney here in alamance   county has an account with the registered deeds 
office and she indicated that her account was   tapped twice for taxes on a closing 432 
dollars and so i have prepared a resolution   of authorized refund to miss carter's 
account which was paid an error paid it twice you have a question any questions does that 
happen often it's happened once or twice in   my tenure here it sometimes happens but this is 
a computerized system so i'm not sure exactly   how it happened but it did she 
checked her account and it was   she had to pay twice but we don't 
want her doing that absolutely mom   just appreciate her telling us that's nice 
i'll make a motion to approve the request any discussion all in favor signify 
by saying hi thank you thank you okay mr hill looks like you're the man of the hour good morning commissioners good morning so 
yeah there's issues with trash getting to the   landfill then there's issues once it gets there so 
appreciate mr walker he does call me regularly and   we've been able to uh take action from time to 
time um in tracking these people so um community   input is a is a big thing helps um today we have 
representation from municipal engineering who's   here to kind of give you a technical review of a 
couple issues that we have going on at the closed   landfill and the austin quarter landfill mr carter 
has been helping us and been with us for the last   couple years regarding the swept field issue we 
had a letter about three years ago in essence   duq letting us know that we need to take 
some action corrective action at swepsonville   which is a closed landfill from 1993 so we to 
date have done everything requested however   that doesn't eliminate all the problems so today 
mr j zimmerman from mesco will give you a review   talk about the past present but also a 
letter that is ready to go out to deu   proposing some corrective actions going forward 
in addition to mr zimmerman wayne sullivan is here   to talk about the new 30-acre landfill we are in 
the final stages of engineering we plan to go out   for bid most likely in the fall early winter 
and for construction to start sometime around   march and next year it is a huge project that 30 
acres will be 16 active acres with 14 in reserve   several years ago the county manager asked us to 
be aggressive to build as much as we could afford   cheaper now than later and also give us life uh 
the landfill which is important for the community   so we've taken that direct that direction and 
there's a map here that'll give you an estimate on   how many years we're talking about in addition 
to that back in february we had an issue with   a liner fail as we were progressing in 
the last stages of the existing sale   we found there was an issue we've 
spent the last six months along with   our friends at deq and mesco doing a lot 
of testing on soils and a lot of testing   on geosynthetics all of this was required to 
get the okay from duq to make the liner repair   um as of about a week and a half ago we did get a 
verbal from duq that everything looked ready to go   wayne is working diligently on getting everything 
prepared and as soon as we get the written okay   from duq we plan to go forward this fall in making 
that repair so a lot going on from here unless you   got questions for me i will defer to them to give 
you the reading just one question this liner have   you ever gotten any word of any other liners 
across the country that may work with this type   of landfill that they've had the same problems 
i know with the school system we had a roofing   situation that was across the state has this been 
like common with this kind of situation i think   mexico would tell us is somewhat unique uh there 
have been other issues um wayne anybody want to with the situation you had 
so it happened other places   it's just as unique to north carolina i'm pretty 
sure something's happened here before well okay   why is it north carolina or 
somewhere else it's dirt right   i'm just trying to understand geosynthetics that 
were put in were not there they they slipped down   the slope because they weren't the right type oh 
okay gotcha this was construction done in 2006   yeah 2006.

So we only uncovered it as we went 
into that area back uh early part of february   so they might would have really had a bad 
disaster if we hadn't been back in their uncovered   things for whatever it was part of the natural 
progression to how much space had to be utilized   before we got into the new cell construction but 
yes um it's good that we caught it when we did   we've got about two two and a half years left in 
that area before we go to the new sale and we have   to get that constructed so between engineering 
permitting and construction that's a year   plus activity and a lot of money so yes it's good 
we caught it when we did rodney and his group   have done an excellent job of working around 
a problem keeping mind that highly regulated   issue we're having to deal with so we're working 
trash around a suspect liner and having to make   sure that leachate and other situations don't 
influence groundwater and ronnie and his group   have done an outstanding job in making that happen 
wow it's not been easy you'll see some slides that   that wayne will talk about today that kind of 
give you a visual of what we were up against   that's a massive when i was out there with 
you that just blows my mind that whole place   it's a city it's its own city you're the mayor   it is it is is any other large liability issue 
is that a installation issue it was closed   uh i'm not going to speak for mexico but i 
think from our conversations it was a design   issue it was not the best of designs 
back then which was approved by deq   there was some construction issues we went back 
and looked at a lot of aerial photography from   the years whatever happened sub surface nobody 
could see it seems to have happened very early on   after construction you can see that from aerial 
photographies due to way the liner looks from   the air visually i went by it a thousand times 
myself and never saw anything that was suspect so to answer your question any guarantee of 
construction was well passed uh it was actually   designed to be an active landfill much quicker 
than it did probably one of the reasons for that   is writing his group do an excellent job with 
compaction by having higher compaction you put   off the need for landfill that's what we do every 
day we were probably a victim of our own success   mr hill are there other areas of the landfill 
that have this same geosynthetic that we're   concerned they might fail as well every landfill 
by definition has geosynthetics there are nothing   there's nothing else suspect at this point well 
are there other areas of the landfill that have   the same geosynthetic sure that failed here 
sure correct we're looking to see whether that's   whether there's an issue with other areas that 
are not yet filled one of the reasons it took   six months is that we did extensive testing of 
the active area and the surrounding area in fact   to verify that soils had not been compromised 
the geosynthetics met the qc parameters and to   look for anything that could have influenced 
groundwater or any other environmental issue   there's no evidence at all the deq has been very 
very dogmatic in making us check all those things will this same product be 
used for the new development   that is a design issue we will 
replace it with some improved   product we've already talked to a company 
called chesapeake who has this product available   um over the next couple weeks we'll be coming 
back to you for the approval to go forward with   that line of repair so what we're putting back 
is better than what was there and the new sale   will be again a step up all the products that we 
will use and the design of that would be better i think it had more to do with 
design than it had to do with   the actual product wayne would you agree with that other questions i still hope all five of us 
can all go together on a visit to the landfill   again wayne will have some some visuals 
that'll make this much easier to understand   than just a verbal any questions just thank 
you richard you're always on top of everything   sure okay uh with this i'll let 
mr jay zimmerman take over and   he'll be talking about swepts of 
bill great thank you thank you good morning good morning uh mr chairman and 
members of the commission my name is jay zimmerman   i have handouts if anybody would like to read anybody want one of those sure 
of the presentation please yes see if i can figure out how to work this i've got it right here thank 
you sir i do appreciate it there we go maybe you did it richard 
thanks okay well thank you my name is   jay zimmerman i'm with municipal engineering 
services and i'm going to provide a brief   background introduction about what's taking place 
at the swepsonville landfill and then the current   status of the assessment that our company is 
performing for alamance county as you can see from   the slide there and some of this might be a repeat 
this first slide i think there was a presentation   maybe a little over a year ago to you the 1971 
was the start of waste disposal activities   the alamance county health department began 
monitoring some nearby residential wells there are   about five wells that are close to that landfill 
along sweptinville saxophone hall road landfill   closed in 1993 prior to the implementation of 
rekra which is the resource conservation recovery   act that's the federal rule that governs landfill 
operations as well as hazardous waste operations   1993 routine semi-annual monitoring began as well 
as quarterly monitoring of landfill gas landfill   gas is just a byproduct of landfill operations 
you know you cover landfill you're going to trap   gas and so that has to be monitored and addressed   in 1998 a letter was received from deaner the 
department of environment natural resources   requesting that assessment 
activities begin at that landfill so we'll fast forward and in june of 2018 next 
slide thank you uh a letter was received from deq   and again that was to request the the 
assessment activities begin in earnest   the initial assessment activities took place 
november and december of 2018 and those   additional assessment activities included the 
monitor installation of additional monitor wells   there was an assessment of a concrete pipe that 
runs under the landfill i think that was brought   up last time and then an assessment of the stream 
and as well as biological activity in that strain   below the pipe discharge just to make sure that 
the biological activity hadn't been compromised   as a result of landfill activities april of 2021 
another request was received from deq requesting   two additional monitor wells to be installed 
on an adjacent residential property so that   initial assessment that was performed back in 2018 
suggested that maybe some of the contaminants from   the landfill may have crossed onto an addition 
an adjacent property that property is owned by   mr stephen wall so in april 2021 the eq request 
requested that some additional wells be installed and this is just a simple model to 
help unders understand what's happening   you can see on the left hand side of the screen 
is a potential pollution source those pollutants   migrate down through the subsurface through the 
soil the unsaturated zone into the underlying   groundwater and at times dependent upon the 
pollutants can migrate down into fractured   rock so if you would consider say a landfill as 
a pollution source that groundwater monitoring   well to the immediate left of the stream would 
represent the wells that were installed back   in 2018 and those had some pollutants in them 
and because of the proximity to the stream   the state had asked for additional assessment 
to be conducted and those assessment activities   included installation of well 
on the other side of the stream   represented by that well to the far right you 
can also see that in that in that simple diagram   pollutants typically migrate to surface water 
bodies that's the general trend of groundwater   flow but they can get down into fractured rock 
and if they follow those fractures think of a   fracture as like a pipe and that could allow under 
the influence of pumping wells and other other   factors pollutants to migrate via those fractures 
and actually go under the stream and beyond it so in may of 2021 we shared our results 
with deq and they requested yet additional   assessment activities and i'll be talking a 
little bit about that here in a few minutes   we also briefed the county manager's office   county staff including solid waste and health 
department concerning those additional activities   that were performed and the requests from deq for 
additional assessment activities a work plan has   been drafted proposing some additional wells to 
further delineate the extent of those impacts next slide please now this is hard to 
see you might be able to see it on your   on your handout um the the columns to the 
left are the wells that were installed   back in 2018 2019 time frame and 
sample and show that a number of   constituents of concern were detected some 
of those are metals some are chlorinated   solvents it's not uncommon to find chlorinated 
solvents associated with landfill activities and one for dioxane one for dioxane is a a new 
contaminant of concern it's on the epa's radar   it's on the state's radar it is one of those 
contaminants that they're asking a lot of   uh permittees to investigate determine 
whether or not it's present landfills   are an example of one of those entities but 
also wastewater treatment plants a lot of   wastewater treatment plants that treat waste 
and wastewater and discharging the service   waters are now being asked to monitor 
for the presence of one four dioxane to the right are the results from the service 
water samples that we collected as well as   mr wall as well we sampled mr wall's well 
the good news is nothing was detected in   his well that appears to be associated with the 
landfill activities we did detect a fairly high   concentration of nitrate nitrogen typically 
associated with fertilizers we don't know what   the source of that is but it wasn't in samples 
that we collected from the landfill so it appears   to be coming from a different source and and 
we've worked with mr wall he's been very very   good to work with very understanding 
of course he wants the issue addressed   by the right person and we're certainly sensitive 
to that but he's been very gracious at allowing us   access to his property to install wells sample the 
stream on his property the whole time navigating   the cattle and the donkeys that he 
has so they like a lot of attention so excuse me have we been able to determine the 
source of that uh the nitrates not yet that we   haven't been investigating that as a source since 
it doesn't appear to be coming from a landfill   potential sources could include you know him 
fertilizing his own lawn his own septic tank and   then across the street is the city of graham's 
or tanagram's land application site for their   biosolids they've been applying residuals there 
for quite a bit of time and so that's a potential   source as well okay and that's topographically 
and hydraulically upgrading from from his well next slide so since one for dioxane seems to 
be the the new constitution of concern that   everybody is interested in i thought i'd throw up 
a few facts about it it currently is classified as   an emerging contaminant by the epa it's a pretty 
common uh industrial chemical used to stabilize a   lot of things including chlorinated solvents paint 
strippers waxes it's even in cosmetics it's in   some of the things that we use every day at very 
low levels um unfortunately it can readily leach   into soil and groundwater it's a hundred percent 
missile it'll just dissolve in the groundwater   and surface waters pretty readily it's commonly 
found in groundwater in areas where chlorinated   solvents are present because it was used as a 
stabilizer so it wasn't a surprise that when we   started tornado solvents show up you know adjacent 
to the landfill that we would find one for dioxane   so it's not a con it's not a concern if it's 
used as a topical but you're not supposed to   ingest it is that what they're saying well i 
think it has to do with the dose certainly um   i guess every constituent that it's found 
in you know is regulated by somebody   probably i for one would think um but when you 
the landfill as you all know is sort of receives   waste from all different sources it's sort of 
the end point for wastes that humans generate   and so it acts as a an area that can i think can 
focus those pollutants and and concentrate them   which is why now we have blind landfills 
and you know really robust regulations   and monitoring online landfills you know people 
did things differently back before we knew better   and and that's just what you all have to deal 
with and everybody else is having to grapple with   so there's no liner concerning the swept's 
and blm field correct what's an example of a   chlorinated solvent um perchlor ethylene's 
used it was you was used to to dry clean   uh clean your your suits and you would use 
technical or ethylene so all the dry cleaners   would use a saw when it's highly uh volatile it 
would remove grease and then they would you know   evacuate it from the clothing it didn't leave 
any residue on your on your uh suits and shirts   and dry cleaners had to deal with that and as a 
matter of fact a lot of dry cleaners throughout   the state had leaks of tetrachloroethylene and 
they're they're dealing with that as well and   the state has a dry cleaning program 
to help them mitigate those impacts uh in north carolina there's a 
groundwater quality standard of   three micrograms per liter that's parts 
per billion that's that's pretty low benzene which is a constituent in gasoline is 
a known human carcinogen has a standard of one   part rebellion so it's slightly lower in 
north carolina there has been established   a in-stream threshold value and has .35 micrograms 
per liter and that is the standard that applies to   any surface water body that is used as a drinking 
water supply so not all streams are used as a   source for drinking water but some are certainly 
any streams that discharge to the hall river that   maybe pittsboro or somebody downstream 
fayetteville would use as a water supply   then the streams up upstream from that point 
are typically classified as a water supply next slide so the the next step 
based on our discussions with deq   is to install some additional wells on on these 
adjacent properties so specifically they asked   about mr wall's property since it appeared that 
it crossed one string we had installed two monitor   wells we found it in the deeper of the two monitor 
wells the deep well that's in a fractured rock   so if you remember back that prior diagram it 
appears that some of the chlorinated solvents   which typically are heavier than water so they 
tend to sink in the water column have gotten   into the underlying fractures migrated under the 
stream and migrating towards his water supply well   the shallow well did not we did not find 
significant concentrations of chlorinated solvents   now the good news is mr wall's well is about 700 
feet away it's topographically and hydraulically   upgradient we hope that it's not at risk but it's 
certainly something that has to be considered   and the state has asked as a result of that 
for us to install some additional wells between   the the point that we had just installed wells and 
his water supply well to get a better handle on   the the limits of that potential pollutant 
movement what's the water supply drinking   supply for his animals just a basic stream 
that's great and he hadn't seen any kind of   anything showing up in them as far as sickness 
or anything like that not not that i'm aware of   and we did on his behalf with richard's blessing 
communicate with the nc state vet school and i   i communicated with a toxicologist who's 
well versed in animal toxicology and they   didn't believe that his animals were doing any 
appreciable risk or any harm they did recommend   that you know that they not consume water from the 
stream if they're going to be used for consumption   but it's just a a recommendation to lower that 
risk not that the animals would necessarily be at   harm but just out of a a desire to be as cautious 
as possible that's that was a recommendation i have one question what do the um what are 
the wells do for you you mentioned several   times you're going to drill how deep are these 
wells you said one was shallow and didn't have   any contaminants and one was deeper and dead yeah 
so typically you know in a groundwater situation   you have a shallow groundwater system that's 
what people refer to as the water table and and   groundwater that's typically fairly shallow it's 
the groundwater that is usually first impacted   by pollutants whether it be receptors from 
septic tank lawn fertilizer over application of   pesticides landfills underground storage tanks at 
gas stations and so that groundwater gets impacted   and it's going to migrate under the 
influence of topography typically   and over time it'll eventually 
discharge into surface water bodies the deeper groundwater flow system in this part 
of the state is in the crystalline bedrock so   that rock is laced with fractures some of 
those fractures are pretty extensive some   aren't um you all probably know somebody who has 
a well and they can't get much water it's a low   yielding well so that's a well that was probably 
installed in bedrock that's fairly resistant to   fracturing and jointing and that's those are the 
underground pipes that convey water to that well   other areas you know the the the bedrock 
is just ripe with fractures and they have a   well that produces a lot of water and more 
than what their family needs and and um   again that it's dependent on geology and some 
subsurface conditions the wells here that we're   talking about are monitor wells or test wells 
the shallow wells typically range between say   20 and 30 feet below land surface it's a two 
inch pvc pipe with a well screen at the bottom   the deeper wells typically are going to run 60 to 
80 feet might run a little bit deeper than that   the the idea behind those wells is to install 
them down into bedrock to intersect fractures   that we believe are likely transmitting those 
pollutants so we're trying to find the zones   within which those pollutants are moving 
so we can address them what does a dress   mean what do you do once you find that you say 
you're going to address it what does that mean   well it it depends on the pollutants of course it 
could involve installing recovery wells that are   used to pump the pollutants out of the fractures 
so in other words you would want to pump it back   away from wherever it's heading so in this 
case let's say it's heading towards the stream   or towards residential wells we would want 
to install some recovery wells back into the   pollutant contaminant plume to try and draw those 
pollutants back and away from whatever is at risk   there are certain types of chemicals that can be 
injected that have been approved by the state that   tend to break down pollutants more of a natural 
process using injection wells that's another   technology that's used the technology that's 
selected would really depend upon the risk   level associated with the pollutants the 
particular pollutants that we're talking about   and then the subsurface geology the the things 
that control pollutant movement and all of those   would have to be factored into what type of plan 
is the best plan that is most cost effective but   then also achieves the the goal of keeping those 
pollutants from either impacting the stream or   impacting the water supply well and as far 
as water supply wells you know if there's   alternate water nearby that's always an option to 
to consider some sort of treatment on the wells   or some sort of alternate water supply i saw 
the movie aaron brock which we're not talking   about that are we we're not talking about that 
i wouldn't certainly hope not okay um so we're   planning to uh install some additional monitor 
oils for proposed in some areas on mr wall's   property and then we are also directed because 
of some stream sampling on the adjacent property   owned by the thompson family they had some 
concentrations of the same pollutants not as high   but they appear to be originating from 
maybe that property and migrating down   the stream towards mr wall's property and 
i'll have a slide next that i'll show you   we're planning on conducting both surface water 
and groundwater monitoring and then preparing a   report on behalf of the county to submit to the 
state that report then will help us understand   whether or not we know the full extent of the 
impacts and then what the remedies would be   or if some additional assessment is needed 
at which point deq would be asking for that   the county will also continue sampling 
residential wells as they have been um and   certainly options to consider might be alternate 
water supply if those wells are at risk next slide   so here's a graphic the the yellow is the closed 
landfill the limits of that closed landfill   um the purple line is the property 
boundary around that landfill   i don't know if you can see 
it but the rectangular shape   property immediately to the right of the waste 
residual application field which is the pink   that property is mr wall's property and 
you can see at the bottom is the parcel id   right there yes thank you richard that's mr 
wahl's property the stream is represented   by the blue line that runs from the about the 
middle under s where the you'll see a label swa   that was the first service water sample the second 
was swb as you move up to the upper left corner   swc and swd were collected on thompson property 
that's the property immediately to the north of   mr wall the wells that showed the impact 
associated with the most recent assessment   that we completed a few months ago were found 
in the well identified by the symbol mw10   s and d standing for shallow and 
deep because of the presence of   the chlorinated solvents in that well and then one 
for dioxane in the surface water samples a and b   that is what led the state to direct us to 
install some additional wells and so we propose   an additional weld cluster labeled as mw11 snd 
it's immediately about dead center of mr wall's   property maybe just a little bit above that's the 
proposed well cluster his private water supply   well is to the far left next to or close to the 
waste residual application field and it's a little   blue circle with the sort of a crosshairs 
in the middle that's his potable well supply   the two areas above in the on the 
thompson property that have the blue ovals   are the areas we're proposing to put additional 
monitor wells that the state has directed us to   do to determine whether or not the pollutants are 
migrating from the the landfill to the north again   we propose on both sides of the stream because we 
already have samples from the stream showing that   there are unfortunately some pollutants have much 
lower concentrations but they're still present   in that stream there's a spring where swd is 
located that's where the stream apparently   originates we were able to pull a sample 
from there last month and that sample did   have low levels of chlorinated solvent system 
one for dioxane so based on what we know that   occurred on mr wall's property and and the need 
to install wells on the other side of the stream   we've decided rather than we didn't 
want to waste anybody's time so we just   are recommending that wells be 
installed on both sides of the stream   the state's likely going to ask for that anyways 
they've already told us they want us to determine   the full extent of the impacts associated with the 
contaminants associated with this landfill and so   that's the current plan and the proposal that's 
in a letter that's been drafted and shared with   richard and the county manager here to recommend 
three additional locations one on mr walsh   property and two on the thompson property how deep 
is that landfill like if you could take a giant   yardstick and go all the way through it about how 
deep is it that's a good question i don't know   i don't need the land for that 
not unless we're working here but   what do you think we're down 15 20 at 
least i don't say it could have been   because there's no regulating they can just 
build all the way to and into groundwater so it's not as deep as the one we got in 
austin quarters it's nothing like that   no i would suggest it's deeper yeah probably the 
old landfill without regulations is weighing the   same was probably dug deeper for the new 
construction in austin corner we look at   the water levels underneath the ground and we 
have to be several feet above that so we'll be   much more shallow on the new construction and the 
existing landfill at austin quarter than the old landfill so unfortunately the bad news back in the 70s 
people did things dramatically different than   we do now we learn from our mistakes and current 
regulations as richard had mentioned don't allow   you to construct landfills into the water table 
they have to be lined they have to be monitored   so things have are done much differently 
now fortunately unfortunately you know we   still have to deal with legacy issues and so 
we're hoping that this assessment would give   us the information we need to inform the county of 
what's going on in that part of the landfill we do   conduct regular monitoring around the rest of the 
landfill twice a year that's routine monitoring   i'm not aware of any other issues like this that 
are in need of additional assessment periodically   that can crop up because these landfills are 
are dynamic they don't they change over time   pollutants migrate you could have a really rainy 
period during the year that might mobilize some   pollutants that otherwise typically wouldn't get 
mobilized so that's why that's why the monitoring   is required by the state i was out that way the 
other day and there were somebody been bailing hay   because there was all kind of big donut looking 
things out there who eats that hay does any animal   eat that hay that's growing on the landfill 
that we're talking about oh on the landfill   we're not we're not harvesting anything 
off of the landfill i think what you may   be talking about is the property across the 
street yeah which is what jay talked about yeah that's um residual waste i used 
to work for division of water resources   um and we permitted land application 
of wastewater and residuals   those fields typically have to be crop the 
hay has to be cropped to remove the nitrogen   but that nitrogen is it's a it's a natural 
fertilizer that's a byproduct of the waste   treatment process a lot of facilities use it as a 
cheap fertilizer a lot of the the towns and cities   that generate it then use it on fields that they 
then use to help feed animals and and they'll crop   that hay that's highly regulated by divisional 
water resources and the epa but it is it is   a source of nitrogen that's that's what we're 
really trying to get rid of is nitrogen and   use it to fertilize hay and sometimes 
it can get into the ground water too   and like when you have those days during the year 
they say okay everybody bring their old paint   what happens to that paint that's more of a solid 
waste question hazardous waste days you're talking   twice a year hazards household waste you know 
we collect those and uh have the extent to a   company that takes care of all the recycling the 
meaning and all products that come to it but what   you're dealing with now is not anything okay okay 
because i'll there's only person here that's ever   heard your first slide is mr carter we're all 
new so you're teaching the freshman class here   glad to do so other questions for me mr 
zimmerman i'm trying to understand the   magnitude of the problem um you mentioned that the 
north carolina standards for groundwater is three   microliters per uh i'm sorry three micrograms 
per liter yes sir and 0.35 in in surface water   are there different thresholds above that which 
signify greater levels of risk i mean is is that   graduated like at a certain level it's whatever 
risk at a certain level above that it's high risk   or there are graduations so the the speaking 
about the the groundwater standard that is a   standard that's been established by 
the environmental management commission   they have authority to establish statewide 
standards it is a standard that applies to   groundwater that is intended to protect people 
um at a one in a million lifetime cancer risk   that's the threshold one in the billions 
a pretty high bar all of the groundwater   standards are designed to meet that threshold 
the presumption is that if it is safe enough   if you can treat it down to that level or anything 
below that level should be safe enough to drink   typically the groundwater standards are lower than 
the federal drinking water standards which apply   to the faucets in this building i don't know 
what if there is a federal mcl-4114 dioxane   typically the epa is a lot farther behind 
most states when it comes to establishing   drinking water standards and they right now you 
probably read the news just like i do they're   getting a lot of flack because of pfos and pfoa 
the perfluorinated compounds that are commuters   made famous that's an erin brockovich 
movie right there just waiting to have the standard for surface waters typically has to 
do with protection of a source that uses drinking   water supply or it might have something 
to do with protection of the biological   integrity of that strain so some 
pollutants are more harmful to the the the   life forms that live in a stream than they would 
be say to a human that might drink that water   and keep in mind that any water that's used from 
a stream as a drinking water supply is treated   it's highly treated before it ever gets to the tap 
unfortunately some compounds go right through the   treatment process and and one for dioxane is one 
of those chemicals that's suspected of bypassing   the more conventional treatment technologies 
which is why they typically have a very low   standard associated with it that's the 0.35 
okay so the the levels that the state puts out   tries to get to one in a million risk of cancer 
over a lifetime do we know what it looks like the   highest levels of dioxin on mr wall's property 
10.2 micrograms per liter groundwater and 11.7   for surface water do we know what the approximate 
level of risk is at those levels um i i do not i'm   not a toxicologist what we would recommend is that 
we use the the endpoints of three for groundwater   and 0.35 in surface waters as the point that 
that's the regulatory point that that division   of waste management will be driving the county 
towards uh to try and address that now certainly   we we would do everything that we can to keep any 
dioxane from getting into somebody's water supply   drinking water another way of mitigating that 
risk is you provide alternate water sources so   that the well isn't used as a source of drinking 
water that's that's another option certainly   point of entry treatment systems on wells is a 
short-term fix that typically the state can be   requesting and i think a lot of this is going 
to be driven by the division of waste management   based upon the findings of this this next phase 
of our investigation i'm trying to understand   not only where where it is where it's going and 
how fast are some of the things that we would   typically be looking for to help inform richard 
and the county manager's office as well as deq   and then that would then uh result in a some 
sort of a corrective action plan and that plan   could be something as simple as monitoring okay 
it's yes it's there it's not moving anywhere   it's fairly static it is impacting a stream 
we might have to do something for the stream   but if it's not putting mr walls well at risk 
or anybody else well at risk the state may be   satisfied with just close monitoring if it looks 
like it's something that may over time impact   somebody maybe that time might be five years down 
the road um the state would want some sort of a   plan to address that risk prior to it getting to 
somebody's will well i know we had an e-coli scare   here a couple weeks ago and um lord have mercy 
it just really shows us all how fragile anything   can be any day of the week and when you're talking 
about the state um the thompson here is all about   preventive ways of thinking instead of when you 
got chaos then you want to fix it because uh   everybody just it's just a nightmare for everybody 
because um we're awfully blessed to live here and   have all these luxuries which i think turning 
your speaking on your water come out is a big   deal compared to some countries and we just have 
to always be so smart with our thinking when it   comes to taking care of things and being smart 
with our trash because that's exactly what it is   and i just learned how to say landfill living in 
the city we should call it a dump because that's   exactly what it is everybody dumps their stuff 
there that they no longer want and um and i just   think of all the stuff that goes in that landfill 
that we've just now caught on about styrofoam you   know it'll outlive the rapture you can destroy the 
cockroach and styrofoam couple make it trust me   and um i just it's just very scary how close we 
can be sometimes to just it just has to cut off   we learned that volunteering with the ecola 
scale it was interesting to say the least any other questions for me and if 
not i'll turn it over to mr sullivan chairman commissioners thanks for having us 
i'm going to try to answer a few questions   go to the next slide is this thing a pointer uh to answer some questions on 
the materials the construction   that get started there just kind of a little 
history that i know that uh went on for landfill   the area that failed was constructed by 2005 
it's been constructed about that same time the county took over operational landfill 
from a private entity private entity was   operating a landfill up to maybe 2006.

So when 
this landfill was constructed they were going   to use that space up a lot quicker what you 
have with your county staff your county staff   got a whole lot better life out of that landfill 
than what was being done by the private entity   so the thought was that they would 
have covered the bottom of this   sale where it failed up the slope in a couple of 
years that was the thought you've been 16 years   before you got there so the thought was that once 
you start from the bottom of the way it's going up   the slope that you're buttressing this liner from 
sliding down the slope so to answer the questions   placed in landfill every other place has been 
buffered or buttressed by waste so no other place   that the slope can fail and the reason it failed 
is because the liner that was used was a smooth   slick liner that the best i can relate to or 
is a slip and slide i mean basically is if it   got wet and you stood on it you want you want to 
slide to the bottom of the slope so what you did   is you sandwich different materials together the 
slick liner with another slick material it got wet   it had soil on it that weighed it down it pulled 
it out and it tore the liner that's what happened   the best we can figure out by aerial photos 
that had happened probably somewhere in 2009   and the reason it couldn't be seen is because it 
was under a rain cover there's five acres of that   area that had a cover over it that this all slid 
underneath that cover so the only thing you can   see is kind of a hump there so when they remove 
the rain cover that oh we got this issue so that   happened this last winter so all that was covered 
with that cover as a matter of fact there's five   acres the slope was covered so what you're looking 
at here is where that failed the the area on the   upper part of the picture is what's exposed and it 
tore down the side the soil on the bottom is what   the weight the dead weight developed that 
pulled it out so what we had to do the state   was interested initially what you see on the upper 
part of that photograph is the soil that's exposed   they were concerned that mike got contaminated 
by leachate which is the water that gone through   garbage there's a water line you can't see it's 
on the bottom part of this water line it showed   that soil so we tested that first just make 
sure there was no volatile organics that kind   of stuff in it there wasn't they didn't 
that wasn't good enough for us we had to   go up and test the clay soil which is what you 
see exposed on the top part of that photograph   underneath for this chemicals to make sure that 
there's no chemicals or leachate that got into   that soil we felt pretty sure there wasn't 
we had to prove it to them and there wasn't   so the next phase was is to test the materials 
that were used for construction to make sure   that they were still conforming at least 
to what they're supposed to at the time   the state felt like that there was more exposure 
where there wasn't soil up that slope than just   this area so we had to test the materials 
outside of that area to make sure that the   exposure to the elements which would just have 
been heat at the time were not uh didn't affect   the materials of construction so we'll go to the 
next slide wood please actually next two slides uh   this one this is the other end of that area 
that failed this is on the far end of it   so we had to take a test of conformance out 
of that area to show these at least the clay   liner was still intact go to the next slide please 
and then this is the other area which you can see   where it failed and then the area coming down 
where the liner is still in place the black   area that's the the the materials of liner 
that are still in place so we tested two spots   underneath the tear and one spot on the end 
of the black area of the materials now some   of the materials we couldn't test totally because 
they were initially supposed to be tested before   they were put in the landfill so they were 
separated so we had to do the best we could   and all the materials conform to the initial 
requirement including which we were all concerned   about the clay liner underneath the clay soil 
because the heat of exposure may have drawn   the moisture out of it which then would the 
permeability requirements that clay wouldn't   be there there's no moisture in it now that did 
happen up on the top part where the liner fell   but everywhere else that was okay so that what 
that tells us that the materials that are there   are still okay just as long as they weren't up in 
the upper part so what we're proposing what we're   going to do is we're actually going to repair 
an area larger than the failed area which is the   area that you see dash around that's all what's 
material that's going to be taken out to the clay   and replaced with either new materials or the clay 
will be recompacted once you put in it recompacted   the material difference is is the line of the 
top about the slick liner will be replaced with a   liner that's got rough on both sides 
so there's there's no slickness to it   there's a lot of friction there basically 
so that it won't slide down the slope so   that's being put in there for the replacement of 
that material and then the new the new landfill   is going to be constructed that same material 
so that's our conformance test now what we're   waiting for the state is to go ahead and 
say yeah you're right go ahead and start   fixing this so that's where we are now we 
are waiting on them like richard said to uh   get our uh our approval from them to go ahead 
and fix this so hopefully we'll have that next   week or so and be able to move forward uh if 
you go to the next slide please the last slide take after time shows the uh the new area what 
we're talking richard kind of explained this   better than i probably could but anyway the uh 
what's showing on this as current msw1 phases   one through five is the existing landfill 
where we're at now including the damaged area   the next area which we're calling phase six is 
what we're fixing to send in for a permit to   construct the you can get a life of sight permit 
what this is so we're gonna permit 30 acres   of which you will build 16 
acres uh and then that 16 acres   according to if you kind of operate as good as 
you have been last in excess of 20 years and then   the next 14 acres will give you another 20 
years so you're looking somewhere around   40 between 40 and 50 years of life in that 
30 acres where we're about to get permitted   uh so that's everything i've got and i've 
rattled on here have you got any questions   on that little picture you got before 
of all that dirt and those black things   repair area was all that says repair area were 
they supposed to be strips or were they supposed   to be one solid piece and just the fact that they 
were slipping slides the pressure tore them apart   all right once you see the black area yeah that 
was the way at the top yeah at the top that was   the way it's supposed to be that's what it should 
have looked like around the corner on the top   what they what they permitted to have done was on 
the end which looked like they pushed the soil up   three quarters way up that slope for the buttons 
is what they call for digital buttress that's a   new word i like that word anyway to keep the 
stuff up there they uh they uh buttressed that   up and what it was supposed to have done was 
kept everything up now on the left-hand side   it did keep everything up on the right-hand 
side where that water line was that got wet   underneath the rain cover and so when that soil 
got wet it lost its buttressing effect and failed   so then that was dead weight on that liner and 
it pulled it out that like it looks on the black   pull that out so that it's down in the pile right 
there so your new will be solid the new will look   like no strips because it looks yeah the strips 
what you see on the top are strips of exposed   those are what's left over everything else is slid 
down the slope so the strips you see on top are   what's called the gcl geosynthetic clay liner and 
the clay soil that actually shrunk because of the   heat the strip part where you see the exposed soil 
that actually shrunk because the heat underneath   the rain cover that was there act like an oven 
so it drew all the moisture out of all that area   and the gcl shrunk and the clay losses moisture 
now are you going to is whoever they is are they   going to dig all this up yeah they're going 
to tear all that out including the black area   okay then including the soil where you see the 
strips you see the soil part that's clay liner   that's everywhere too that's all going to 
come out re re purpose so to speak and then   everything went back before we put the 
soil on it looks like the black side   is now and then we'll push soil up on every 
all of it and just one question when you dig   all that up you're going to have to take that to 
somebody's landfill aren't you yeah yours are are   you going to pay us to bring that in there are we 
going to charge y'all then we didn't charge y'all and you don't put a tarp over that truck 
so now that trash flies out on that road   keep in mind there's no trash here 
okay well i'm just taking care of   mr walker in the back cause you don't 
want this land on the side of the road   your tarp over your trash is right below 
that i'm glad we got some trash okay jeez the old liner will be pulled 
up all three alterations   geosynthetics and we will 
destroy them in the landfill   how do you get who's going to be on the piece of 
equipment on that incline digging that up i want   to know when that happens because i want to watch 
that all right well it's going to be a contractor   it doesn't i mean there's always one right yeah 
they go places i would never go oh i'd like to   watch that yeah they're going what they're going 
to do is they're going to dig up a foot of that   18 inches of clay put it to the side recompact the 
bottom six inches then bring that other back okay we thank you thank you thank you very much our health director is next that would be interesting good morning chair 
vice chair commissioners so i want to start out   of course um by thanking the staff at the health 
department our national guard our volunteers for   continuing a robust effort in vaccination and i 
especially want to thank our communicable disease   team as cases begin to ramp up they again are 
starting to work weekends and into the late night   to investigate and monitor these cases so super 
big shout out to those folks for putting in the   effort so this is our our current state of our 
current status of covet here in alamance county   as of yesterday we had 42 cases come in 19843 
cumulative cases 19 333 released from isolation   giving us 223 active cases currently seven folks 
in the hospital 287 deaths 168 close contacts   currently available per day but coming down we 
saw a nice little in june and july where we only   had two or three cases we even i think we had 
one or two days where no cases came in of covet at 287 deaths so we haven't had a death in how 
long so we for the month of june and july we've   had one death that was in early in june uh we 
had around eight or nine in may um and then we   had some deaths that were added that actually 
occurred back in january and february before he   wrapped up the effort so i think that speaks 
volumes especially with the deaths and as as   the increase and vaccinated occur i mean 
really one death in june and i don't know   if they were vaccinated or not but one death 
in june and nothing in july so can you go back   and can we just really look at the last number 
22 679 that that's a big that's a big number   we're always looking because one death is too many 
but we're always looking at all the negative and   there's plenty of it but that 22679 is a very 
big positive and i hope that um we can focus on   that yeah so those those were close contacts that 
were being monitored right and hopefully they're   they even though they've been exposed didn't 
actually turn into covid and i don't know what   the current percent of that is but back in the 
day when it's a little bit high it's about 20   cases we're converting so so our current seven 
day moving average um this comes from the cdc   we are currently in a substantial transmission 
so the orange um our neighbors to the west there   gilbert and forsyth are have moved to high our 
neighbors to the east orange county is in orange   as well as our neighbors to the south being in   high transmission our navals to the north being 
substantial as far as how we're concerned so our   seven day totals of um cases per 100 000 it was 
94.98 which put us in that orange transmission   typically what i've reported to you i've done 
that over a four day period so all you really   have to do is double it because i would say we 
want that below 100.

Since i just reported seven   days really we want to see that number below 50. 
um deaths i just talked about that there's been   less than 10 10 deaths over the last really 
two months and you kind of see that line is   nice and flat there with our death count and 
then our percent positivity rate is at 6.72   and you heard me say before we want that 
under 5 so that continues to increase as well so what's driving all this it is if you've seen in 
the news the delta variant is the main driver of   this the delta variant became the major variant 
here in north carolina on the 26th of june so   right about 50 if you notice the graph there um 
currently or as of july 11th it made up to 70 80   to 80 percent of the cases that were coming in 
and i suspect it's way past the 11th is probably   the vast majority if not ninety percent above is 
the delta variantly it's currently passing around   um now i think you told me though the other day 
that we don't have a way to test for the variants   so here here locally we do not um and then the 
state uses the cdc or laboratories contracted   by the cdd cdc to do that sequency so they'll 
send the test to the cdc or to the lab that's   contracted they'll do the sequence and be able to 
how long does it take us to determine that i do um out of the cases from may 6 to july 11th 94 
of the deaths of cases and deaths weren't people   that were not fully vaccinated 
it's a very significant amount   but breakthroughs also occur for for their 
vaccinated if you see if you have been   following the news and i think secretary 
cohen last week at the press conference   now announced that number is right around 92 
percent of cases are unvaccinated currently we're following any of the   new case counts for people who've already 
had the case once before had code once before   for reinfection sure so there's no numbers or 
i'm not aware of any i did do a little literature   search on that or look for it for that data i 
don't know what that is the secretary of the state   medical director was asked that question last week 
and really didn't have an answer for that as well   i did look at the research literature one study 
did suggest about 4.9 percent of folks that   had coveted before um out of 150 000 contracted 
covet again there are some limitations with that   study um because they couldn't conclusively prove 
that the individual actually cleared the virus so   that number may perhaps might even be lower 
and then there was a second study that really   wasn't done and really didn't give a percentage 
it basically just showed that you can catch covet   again what they did was sequence the um first 
the first uh the dna from the first material that   the person had in covet and then 
they when they got covered again   they resequenced it and noticed that there 
was two different variations so they could say   hey this likely you can be reinfected 
again from with covet if you had it before so um our total debt so this is really been 
relatively unchanged since the last time   i reported to you again only a few deaths 
have came in but currently total deaths um   and this is from january 1 2021 
to all the way up until yesterday   it was 87 total deaths out of 801 cases 
which puts us just under one percent   deaths of cases in our long-term care facilities 
uh 37 deaths out of 249 cases there looking at   our age breakdown we've had two deaths from the 
ages 20 to 39.

Three deaths from ages 40 to 54.   seven deaths from ages 55 to 64. 17 deaths from 
65 to 74 and 58 deaths 75 and older these are our   age breaks down to cases and two things i want 
to point out here pretty much from the 18 to   50 to 64 year range we see cases that they just 
fluctuated the amount of percent from january   on forward but two age groups i want to point out 
so our 65 and older population in january they   made up 18 of the cases in february 10 in march 
to april uh six percent in june we saw a little   bit of an increase to eleven percent in the month 
of july at six percent for the first most part   that had they went down a little bit of a blip up 
and continued to go back down the amount of cases   but for our 12 or zero to 17 year old population 
in january was at 12 percent in february 12   march to april 15 june 18 and the month of july 
19.7 percent so we've seen that age group zero   to 17 increase obviously those that are under 
12 are not eligible for the vaccine currently   before i see that changing and so what timeline 
for the 12 and under so yes i do do see that   changing right now the mat from my understanding 
the vaccine manufacturers have put their data   together of course it's got to go through the the 
process c2c in the fda process the scuttlebutt   around around the state is basically they're 
looking probably october november before we   start seeing kids under 12 to to to be vaccinated 
let's talk about the effectiveness of masking okay   i know that you wore a mask until you approach the 
podium oh i see a few others not many oh there are   all kinds of studies out of europe showing the 
mask are not only not effective but are harmful   most of the tests in the united states are being 
released are to the contrary who should we believe   so i i did i did do a little bit of the literature 
review before i showed up so hopefully i can i can   speak somewhat um more educated on it and yes 
there's there's contradicting studies out there   um on masking but you know for my initial 
reading of this i truly believe that masking   is an effective um and proactive public health 
measure that we can use yes you saw me wearing   a mask today and the reason i'm wearing a mask is 
strongly encourage masking in public places where   spread is at substantial or high levels so that's 
why i chose to wore the mass today but it strongly   encouraged for folks to do the same to ask your 
question directly mr chair so coming from jama   dr brooks and company found that community mask 
were substantially reduced transmission and severe   acute illness syndrome in two ways first mass 
prevent the infected person from exposing under   the others from sars covid cova 19 and and also 
protect the wearer from inhaling that they also   note in their study that the mask the person 
wearing the mask is more effective from passing   on to somebody than the versus the person who's 
wearing the mask and inhaling there's more of an   effectiveness to knock down those particles so 
the best way i look i like to keep things simple   in my head um you always want a goalie in the net 
so playing hockey you know as a kid having a going   in that to make sure that puck doesn't get by and 
it gives you a kind of insurance not that to go by   i won't do that i won't go down 
the whole rundown but there's about   there's about 10 11 other studies that i have um 
from the literature but i'll just go down a few   from hendrix at l this is over the past year out 
of 139 patrons in a saloon and they the salon   or the the beauty salon actually 
put put forth a masking policy no   covert infections among 67 patrons were available 
for follow-up so basically they founded that their   patrons were not um getting kovid's spread from 
coming into their business um payne at alia on   this location this was the uss theodore roosevelt 
of course i'm going to point out the navy study   this is at a 382 u.s navy servicemen they were 
self-reported mass squaring mass scoring reduced   the risk of infection by 70 um and those 
that that wore mass so pretty significant   um and then another one by van dyke at ellia came 
out of kansas this was state population mandatory   mask wearing a public spaces estimated case rate 
per 100 000 persons decreased by .08 in counties   with mass mandates but increased by 0.11 and those 
without so those are just a few studies i truly   believe that masks work when we wear them properly 
and it's a great public health practice that we   can we can put in play so if you're on a navy 
ship that's kind of a closed environment isn't it   yes sir i mean you're not going to have a lot of 
outside input unless you're going ashore correct   i would think that would naturally 
reduce enough to reduce the count yes but   define use properly and which mask are effective 
and which are not sure so use properly obviously   the silk keeping is simple truly covering your 
nose and your mouth and it's in a simple form   now the tighter the the fabric on the 
mouth the more more knit is in there   the better chance you're going to have from stuff 
coming getting through the mask the bigger the   the holes in the mask it's obviously gonna pass 
through that's just the simplest way of providing   it so that's why you see with the surgical mask 
offer a very decent amount of protection and we   talk about in 95 so actually form fitted to 
your face offer 99.9 plus percent protection   um from respiratory so what about the cotton mask 
that most people are wearing i'm sorry the cotton   mask that's wearing yeah so again it's just 
on the material the density of the material   um something is better nothing right so go back to 
the goalie analogy even if i've got a short goalie   in that in that net i still got to go into that 
protecting keeping the puck from coming through any other questions i just i got the vaccine 
and i'm not going to comment about what i   went through after i got both shots and it 
just really i rates me to think that i went   through what i went through is my choice and 
and they tell me i still need to wear a mask   because i know every day with something like 
this is constant unknown i can't imagine being   on that side of this trying to try to just get 
one foot ahead of this but i think that's the   frustration that everybody feels because it seems 
like every day back to the news we hear something   different and um that that uncertainty 
can really divide and cause stress and   people say things to each other they normally 
wouldn't and when we hear about children they   have no risk but if it's your child your child 
gets sick then that's all that matters so um i don't know but i think if if a retailer is 
selling masks with really pretty signs on it it   makes me wonder just how serious that mask is 
so it's a lot of elements looking at all this   from every different side i just want everybody 
to be safe and how do you know what safety is yeah we thank you god you want me to 
finish i got a few more slides [Laughter] i'll be real quick all right so current outbreaks and clusters there 
are no outbreaks in nursing homes residential   care facilities congregate living we do have 
one outbreak in our correctional facility and   no clustering or in child care or k-12 schools   all right so people vaccinated in alamance county 
49.4 percent of our population have received   at least one dose of the vaccine 43.3 
are fully vaccinated and that's total   population we look at 12 and older 57.6 of our 
population has received at least one dose 50.6   fully vaccinated and then we look at 18 and older 
uh 60 with at least one dose 53 fully vaccinated   and our greater than 65 years of age you know um 
at least one dosed 80.3 and fully vaccinated 78.7   do we have any numbers for what the 
daily vaccination rate i know we can get   you can get a shot now just about any any pharmacy 
or doctor's office you can go to so they fluctuate   so i i keep a spreadsheet and one day you 
might see 100 pop up and then 300 the next   day and there's no consistency i'm even 
even when i'm about to report at the uh   the health department we're 
seeing anywhere from 30 to 70.   we might have 30 walking on a monday and then 
tuesday boom 70s show up out of the blue so   you know sometimes it's hard to project for that 
you just do the best you can and move forward but   i haven't seen a consistent pattern quite a 
while have you seen increase since the big delta   thing has come on to the scene now is that 
instilling fear more fear yeah not not yet   i don't think we've like said we've been 
sitting right in that 30 30 or 70 window um   so i haven't seen a bump in that 
we didn't see a bump with the   the lottery um it's still pretty much consistent 
it's just so ironic whenever you had to call   to get an appointment and you had to wait in your 
car and i mean boy we got some really friendly   and i get it but i'm thinking you it was 
unbelievable because it was so fear driven and now   it's everywhere i mean it's everywhere and it's 
just slow pace i'll never understand human nature tony is there any data on vaccination rates 
in the county for school-aged children as far as 12 between 12 and 17 yeah um i could 
pull that i'd be interested to hear that yeah   the vaccines that all of our children got every 
so many months mmr you know that just killed   their little legs my pediatrician used to just 
make everybody's day horrible and um those those   vaccines weren't like an emergency style coming 
off a pandemic were they they were tested long and   and they were pretty much not going what a sure 
thing compared to what we're going through now   thank god for it but you know there's all kind of 
just so much there's just so much to think about   with all this and um and i understand both sides 
not wanting to get it i don't want to wear a mask   since i've got it i mean we we're just get real 
defiant sometimes and i'm just curious about this   this young child age because of um i mean i had 
some severe side effects with mine and i was just   one of those people and i'm sure so many other 
people did too and i just if i was a parent or my   kids are older i would i would be concerned about 
that because it's just not what we're used to it's   brand new and i don't know it's just very alarming 
to me because of side effects of some things   we've had people i mean it's just it's all just 
so much uncertainty well maybe debbie downer but   i'm just real concerned about very young people 
getting this this brand new vaccine that's just   come out and and here it is take it i mean i 
don't know if you back out those 12 and under   those that have already had coveted what's the 
percentage of those that are vaccinated you just   back out the 12 12 and under and those that have 
had coveted previously because we don't talk about   that part hardly ever because that's a big part 
too with antibodies we just kind of put them over   in the corner like they don't matter because 
i don't i wouldn't know the covet piece that   previously i don't not sure how i pull that data 
data set it's tough um would it be a pretty high   number it would be a higher number absolutely 
yeah absolutely well we know we've had 22 000   people that have had covet right that are still 
alive so we knew how many of those hadn't been   have been vaccinated then we know how many have 
the antibodies that have not been vaccinated so   yeah i don't know if we track 
that combination or not do we   don't yeah we don't the state where we put the 
vaccine information that's the state system are there more squads so two last two last two 
pieces um i already talked about the children   under 12 piece fda um moving forward moving 
towards full pray full approval with pfizer   i think i just saw in the news over the weekend 
that look they're looking to realign and basically   get their meetings get the band together so they 
can start discussing it looking at the data and   hopefully make a decision sooner or later and 
then the last piece i have as we continue to   hold appointments and walk-ins at the human 
service campuses i already talked about 37 today   30-70 today we continue with our mobile outreach 
june we're at june summit unt celebration sock   puppets game we've been in the homeless shelters 
particularly as well not only for cova 19 but   we're currently working a hepatitis a outbreak 
so we've made hepatitis a available um and the   reason for it is because it's most prevalent in 
the homeless population and the msm population   so we're in the homeless shelters we're asking 
if they'd like to get the hepatitis a vaccine to   prevent that as well we continue in high density 
neighborhoods so apartment complexes mobile homes   just going door-to-door and we ask questions if 
the folks want it um folks been very happy with   that we had one young lady was thankful she 
takes care of her father and just couldn't   couldn't leave him and i was glad we were able to 
go to the door and take care of that and then this   saturday we'll actually be at the dream center 
with a whole host of partners offering not only   a coveted vaccine with childhood vaccinations for 
for the kiddos to make sure they're ready to go   for for the school year and make sure they have 
their physicals as well so and that is all i have   thank you thank you thank you we've had a request 
for a 10-minute break so we'll take a 10-minute   break and hopefully come back at 10 minutes 
think about it we're back in session ms rollins [Music] good morning commissioners so we have a 
powerpoint for you today and we're giving you five   no okay this is a lot of information i am sure 
you have waited your entire career for this moment   right here oh please please so the powerpoint was 
a little bit long it was meant to be a reference   document i'm not going to cover every slide today 
if you do have questions there'll be time for that   i'd like to start though by talking about 
american rescue plan enacted in march   it's 1.9 trillion dollars and it's giving stimulus 
funding to individuals to businesses to education   transportation to nonprofits and state and local 
government so the u.s treasury is the agency that   is distributing the funding and they're setting 
the guidance and it's important you'll hear it a   couple of times today they haven't told us 
the final guidance they have given us some   interim things they've given us uh some fact 
sheets question and answers they've given us   a little bit of information but we're expecting 
the final guidance to be released in the next few   weeks hopefully next month but at that point we'll 
be able to answer more questions than we can now   so the main focus today is to just uh to talk 
about how alamance county can develop a plan   to spend our funding so i'd like to share a 
little bit of information at the beginning about   the federal law the state government and then um 
talk a little bit about the details and how that   applies to alamance county so what you'll see is 
that that 1.9 trillion dollars was separated into   seven different areas they're color-coded 
the green is us the green is what alamance   county received the state and our municipalities 
received funding through that particular source   the gray areas are going to other folks so direct 
financial assistance is things like the child   tax credits that the irs is handling there was 
education funding that went directly to schools   the department of health and human services is 
uh receiving funding directly eventually that may   flow through to our health department but there 
are the assistance to individuals and families   sir money to the health department is not like 
what our 32 million includes their funding   or doesn't include their funding is there a 
separate funding goal separate funding for health   programming that's at the federal level also at 
state level that will come to the county health   department it could it could okay eventually as as 
they determine what programming so all of this is   is flowing through federal government programming 
and some of those could impact our community   well to tag him there's a there's a slide that 
talks about some requests from certain agencies   within and there's like a special nurse 
or something with the health department   communicate communicable disease or something 
and um is that coming out of ours or one of those   gray squares so to speak because he just asked is 
that separate to the health department or are we   are are we doing the health department so we can 
do programs for the health department with our   32 million dollars that is allowable there will 
be funding uh in addition to our 32 million that   the health department may receive or may be able 
to apply for but that particular slide is talking   about our 32 million okay just checking so the 
important piece of this slide is the gray areas   are not funding that alamance county controls 
okay the green area there will be some funding   there 32 million that alamance county can control 
and the blue area was another area that i'd like   to mention if we could scott if you would help me 
advance so the blue area were federal grants and   that's another thing that alamance county could 
participate in these are not automatic but there   are categories of grant funding at the federal 
level that are available to us we could apply for   it our nonprofits could apply for it so if we see 
something in these categories that alamance county   has a need for we don't necessarily have to use 
the 32 million that was allocated to alamance   county we could consider applying for grant 
funding excuse me would our non-profits have   to apply through the county or will they have to 
apply directly to the feds so i believe that on   our website we're going to have links for each one 
of these areas they may be different but i don't   believe they have to apply through alamance county 
i think that anyone could apply individually   so right now we know that abs is going 
to receive about 77 million dollars   that would come in through the 
child to the education and child   portion from the federal it doesn't come 
through the county that's correct so then   there's going to be additional funding 
that might come to acta to link transit   that won't come through the county either that's 
correct do they have to apply for that too or is   that just liable to flow in it depends on which 
one of these funding sources and that's the main   point that i wanted to make here is that arp is a 
big funding source it's flowing through a lot of   different government levels and there's sub-levels 
so anytime we have a program or something that   needs to be funded we would want to go 
back to this thought process to determine   is there direct federal funding for it is there 
state funding for it is there going to be any kind   of flow through that comes to us and then would 
alamance county prefer to be the funding source   using our funds so right now we know there's 
about 32 million coming to the county another   32 million coming to municipalities and 
then 77 million coming to the schools   that's about 140 million but we still 
don't know that that's all of it   correct so if as we're looking at making 
decisions about where to spend this money   we've got to be careful not to make 
decisions to spend money on something   that something else might come in for 
through acta or link or health department   so that we're duplicating that effort and then 
what you're using money here that we might not   might be able to better use someplace else and 
additionally we don't have all the guidelines yet   right yeah so we can't appropriate it so at the 
federal level we'll be monitoring that we'll make   sure that there are links to get to information 
let me slow you down we keep talking about a   grant writer at least i do with you folks in in 
management where are we with a grant writer so   that will be one of the items we'll talk about 
when i present some options for the board to   consider uh for funding immediately that's that's 
one position that the board could consider and to   me these would be these would be potential funding 
sources that a grant writer would be looking at   not just for county government but for cities 
nonprofits or any of our other partners volunteer   fire departments groups like sheriff's department 
yes absolutely sheriff's department the goal would   be to learn as much as possible about these 
different plots and then have someone on board   specifically tasked with the application process 
but we'll talk about that when we get to the   funding piece sorry about that that was a loaded 
question and i knew that was already in the agenda   overall so if we can advance the green category 
is the state and local fiscal recovery funds   they're giving funding to directly to said north 
carolina you'll see and i'd like to mention   on this slide there's the caroma virus 
capital projects of 10 billion dollars   those are capital project funding available to 
states and the state of north carolina applied   for some of those funding and and was awarded 
some of those those funds uh the next category   was the state fiscal recovery fund and the state 
of north carolina got about 5.4 billion there   the next category is the local fiscal 
recovery fund and you'll see that almost   county received its funding through this 
funding source and our municipalities will   city of burlington was a direct allocation it's 
considered a metropolitan city all of our other   municipalities have a population less than 50 000 
people which means that they receive their funding   through the state u.s treasury gave the funds to 
the state the state will distribute them to the   municipalities as well as give them guidance 
through the nc pro division of the state um   el nance county and city of burlington 
will report directly to the u.s treasury   on how we spend our funds but if you see the local 
fiscal recovery fund the guidelines for how to   spend those funds will be the same for us whereas 
the state or any other funding source in the art   plan could have different rules for spending 
so when we talked today about how elements   county would be spending we would be looking at 
the specific rules under subtitle m of the law   so the grant writer that mr paisley just mentioned 
could be funded from our funds yes correct yes   but he could also he or she could also assist 
501 c 3s or other agencies of that whatever   in in writing grants as well yes sir i think one 
thing we would i don't want to get too far ahead   of andrew's info but i think one thing we we would 
want to know for a grant writer's purpose is uh   you know if the goal if the board has priorities 
specific priorities for our community that   you'd like to see that would probably be the 
direction we'd want to task a grant writer to go   so you know if there was something the 
board said this is really important to us   we want the grant writer if we do that to focus on 
finding those kind of opportunities that support   board initiatives but they could assist 
non-profits cities fire departments uh   acta any other entity in the county i have a 
question um directed at ms thompson [Laughter]   don't they have grant writers at the school 
um dr boss does a lot of the grant writing   for abs and she is unbelievable could she help 
us i i can't speak for her but i'm sitting here   thinking about her and she's going to kill me for 
mentioning her name but i mean i mean she is as   accurate as they get there's a lot of fantastic 
grant writers working for the non-profits in   in our county that know this game i mean because 
you got to have the font right the page right i   mean they're real nitpicky about stuff but i 
mean they are they there's some unbelievable   grant writers that you could maybe subcontract 
out i don't know instead of hiring a position   which i don't know that either but i'm telling you 
there's some really unbelievable great writers in   this county well mr haygood said that you know 
they could help with non-profits and others i   was thinking i know there's some folks over at 
abs who i did not say angela bost's name well thanks bill i'm so dead so for the category 
of funding that alamance county has control   and our local municipalities will have the same 
rules these are the five funding categories   that have been defined for the spending in in 
these funding and there are some areas that are   ineligible they were very specific to say that 
you can't make debt payments you can't fund your   pension plan and they don't want us using the 
funding for lawsuits or settlements out of arp   there's a couple more details in there but um 
those were the the items that were ineligible   and then they gave five categories for uh us 
as a framework for how we can spend our funding   so we'll go into the details of these with some 
more examples later in the presentation but i   wanted you to know that these are the things 
that the art legislation gave us as guidelines   the state of north carolina will add to that 
so i'd like to talk just a little bit about   the differences and if we can 
advance that site i'm having trouble   one more so i told you the state of 
north carolina received 5.4 billion   they can budget that into their own plan or they 
could sub-grant that to local governments that's   the state's choice they also have control of the 
funds that flow through to the municipalities   they've chosen to allocate those funds to 
municipalities through their pandemic response   group the nc pro group which could add additional 
requirements to the municipalities so i mentioned   that because even though we are not reporting 
back to nc pro our municipalities will be   we want to make sure that we understand what their 
what additional requirements they may be uh adding   for our local municipalities so that we're in 
alignment and that we understand what is the   thinking around using arp does burlington report 
back through them too or burlington goes back to   the feds they would go back to the feds so we'll 
be sending reports monthly quarterly excuse me   quarterly back to the u.s treasury starting fairly 
soon now as soon as they provide us the framework   so scott if you would advance to the next 
slide the it's important for us to remind   everyone that the local government the school of 
government folks everyone who is giving advice   and informational trainings about using arp has 
recommended that we all stay in sync they want   us to wait for the state they want us to wait for 
the guidance they want to make sure that we don't   finalize a plan that is not thoughtful so we can 
get started but they want us to make sure that we   are paying attention and working to uh to do the 
best to align these funds with with other plans   the state of north carolina did release their 
preliminary plan the governor proposed a plan   in may i have provided a link in this 
proposal it's i don't know about 100   pages long and um they have five areas i 
believe if we advance to the next slide   you may see no missed it that's for that's uh 
information is available at the uh as part of the   slide deck but there were five areas where the 
state of north carolina wants to spend funding   and that proposed plan um is under review it's i 
believe it's part of the the budget discussions   so we're expecting the state budget and the 
state art plan this fall and we've been told   september but we're not sure we have to uh to 
wait and see what their process is i want to   i think i heard excuse me i think i heard too 
that they things that i've saw in the plan is   we can't use money ourselves unless there's a 
state change in statutes for broadband expansion   but the state's looking at providing 
additional funding for broadband expansion   and i've seen that number run but between 400 and 
700 million dollars that sound right i think uh   was it 1.2 billion that the state was actually 
expanded to 1.2 billion it's gone up okay so at   this point the state's talking about in their 
five areas they're talking about assistance to   individuals they're talking about infrastructure 
and the biggest piece of their infrastructure is   the broadband initiative they're doing workforce 
the biggest piece of that is higher education   supporting technology scholarships grants they're 
talking about promoting business development   so that would affect the hospitality industry 
grants for economic development the arts   and they're also talking about spending money to 
position government to best serve north carolina   and that's where they're providing some funding 
for some of this information these trainings that   we're getting and they're upgrading hospitals and 
other public buildings and technology for telework and that's all because of covet it's all funded 
in their um their proposed art plan what was the   thing you said about helping government 
what was that the second to the last one   you read positioning government to best serve 
north carolina okay so we got to have coveted   money to pay our government how to best serve us 
just asking for a friend go ahead sorry adrian i   just find that really just ridiculous what 
do i know so in this slide alamance county   received 32.9 million dollars half of it was 
received in may that was the first tranche   the second tranche comes a year later and 
this is these are their their terminologies   the the spending guidelines once again 
they haven't told us the final guidance   but it's important to realize that um the 
spending authority related to counties   in north carolina will still need to be 
followed so even though i said the u.s   treasury guidance for municipalities and counties 
will be the same there are things that counties   can do that cities cannot and vice versa and we'll 
be aligning the federal fund the federal funding   ignored that their guidance will ignore that 
but we will have to make sure that we follow   the state law on that as well so we're going to be 
audited by the both the state and the feds on this   there will be federal guidance they'll give a 
compliance supplement that will be released to   our annual auditors so as part of our annual audit 
very likely because of the size of the funding   there will be a special compliance 
audit added to our normal audit process   yes in other words yes yes sir yes sir 
we'll be reviewed scott please advance so the guidance for us at the federal level is 
the u.s treasury the local government commission   is going to help us stay in compliance at the 
state level the school of government all the   associations are constantly providing information 
and as i mentioned uh ncpro for our municipalities   they're called non-entitlement units they're um 
the small municipalities will will be following   that guidance as well well andrew what does 
non-entitlement unit mean an entitlement unit   has something to do with how the federal 
government grants for the cdbg program   and so if a unit is has a population of 50 000 
or more they're considered entitlement unit   and those who are smaller or not okay next slide so this is one that we have borrowed from other 
presentations because instead of north carolina   they want to remind everyone that counties may 
not give grants to nonprofits we can contract   with a non-profit for them to perform a service 
that the county would normally be allowed to do   so it's a distinction that we follow in our budget 
so anytime that we have funded uh non-profits in   our budget we're following that distinction with 
them and they're reminding us that the art funding   works the same way there's also very specific 
state parameters about employee compensation for   uh counties that would come into play if premium 
pay were considered by this board as a good use   of our art funding also it's important to know 
that although the federal government allows us   to distribute premium pay outside of our employees 
there is no state authority for premium pay to be   distributed to private businesses so arp saying 
one thing state north carolina rules will tell   us something a little different same thing with 
broadband there was funding in this in this act   for counties to participate in broadband 
infrastructure but there is no authority   in north carolina at this time for us to do 
anything past what is needed for county operations   so fine except it's needed for county operations 
and that's a wide open statement so it just means   their intent has been to um i'm not even i'm not 
even willing to say that but there's legislation   in place at the state level addressing 
this issue because they are interested in   making it possible to use some level of art 
funding for local broadband initiatives that's   what miss galey is now working on is it not 
that's my understanding yeah so that's that's   also to enable us to do what they legit what 
what that statute that's being proposed is like   allow us to find out actually know where 
this stuff is needed ourselves right so i do   have a couple of slides about local broadband 
initiatives that we'll get to very shortly um   the only other thing on this slide is 
that local government partnerships is   a way to accomplish goals if for example 
a municipality has the legal authority in   north carolina to do something that the county 
wants to see achieved we can partner with them   so the funding can be used 
in that way next slide please so here's something that we've been seeing in 
trainings at the conferences where other counties   are trying to define for their community some 
guiding principles and they made sense i wanted   to share them as examples with the commissioners 
because from our staff level we found them useful   but clearly we want to spend art funding on 
things that are eligible under arp as well as   state statute it makes sense to focus on one-time 
investments we don't want to spend funds and put   ourselves into a situation where we wouldn't 
be able to afford it when the art funds ran out   um focusing on projects where the county can 
leverage other federal and state funds these   are all very typical of the initiatives 
and then wake county added that they were   have giving consideration to projects located in 
low to moderate income areas of their community   and that's specifically referencing 
some statutory language about a qct   and i've got a slide to show you how 
that might affect alamance county consider funding projects that are 
inclusive and to the benefit of all   i am clearly focusing on projects that address 
board goals so this kind of guiding principles   would be helpful our our staff would 
find it useful in bringing information   to the board and to if you are interested in a 
committee to review projects for the art plan   this may be something that you want to consider 
i've had some conversations too with um burlington   and they're very interested in partnering with 
the county on some of these issues and i think   the other municipalities would be the same way 
i mean if they they're bringing in 32 million   dollars and we're getting 32 million dollars we 
can figure out how to best utilize all those funds so when we first found out that there was 
funding available there was a presentation   in april basically just sharing that we 
needed to get started so we came up with   strategic actions we wrote it down we've been 
working this plan in the background we have a team   leader mimi clemons here is our team leader for 
planning for art it's so nice to see you in person   thank you for imaginary this entire presentation 
is due to her hard work so from all the various   sources we gathered information to prepare 
a guidance document it's available on our   website we've shared with the commissioners it 
has to be updated weekly bi-weekly because of new   information we've got brian haygood has 
the team meeting weekly we're preparing   reports to keep track and to keep us moving 
forward and there have been phone calls the the   public has called in we've had uh media requests 
and uh community stakeholders have contacted us   and we've tried to re we have responded to 
everyone who has contacted us with questions but   sometimes the response is we don't know the answer 
yet we will be sharing information in future so part of what the team has been doing 
is to opening lines of communication   with our municipalities we've had 
stakeholder discussions internally so   we've talked to all of the departments 
mimi has talked to all of our departments   and any non-profit agency that is funded with uh 
within our budget to make sure that we had some   information from them if they have initiatives 
or things that have not been funded that would be   very helpful we wanted to get that into a master 
list in order to share that information with the commissioners um we also have agencies 
that are would like to be stakeholders   that would like to help be helpful 
so we have a list of those as well as   we continue to maintain contact with those 
whose programs maybe are eligible so for example   there is the alamance recovery loan program 
mimi's uh and i think uh commissioner carter   participate with that that group and there's a 
new group called the digital inclusion alliance   that has started meeting to determine what 
are the broadband needs for our community   and as i mentioned our finance department received 
funding made sure that it's budgeted and invested   appropriately and now let's talk about what 
fits what we have heard the kinds of things   that we can fund using art funding so the first 
category is to support public health initiatives we can buy equipment we can hire 
personnel there are data systems   that we might need that would be allowable capital 
investments in public buildings to the extent   that is allowed by the law which typically talks 
about safe distancing efforts ventilation efforts   hvac is a huge need in a lot of our public 
buildings the court systems might have needs   that would fit into this category and 
then covering payroll for public health   health care human services and public safety staff 
is allowable and we're allowed to be to apply that   since march 3rd of 21.

So those are things that 
were mentioned in there as well as supporting   mental health initiatives so treatment programs 
behavioral and mental health services crisis   intervention services or outreach programming 
all of that fits into that first category from a investment in public facilities 
with the the expense for the new chiller it's possible because of uh most of 
what we've seen is hvac work right   and as andrew mentioned any kind of social 
distancing work or improvements you're doing to   buildings to keep people safer inside the building 
or planning for those type of improvements to be   done but hvac work's been one of the bigger 
topics that we've seen as a possibility so the second category of spending is 
addressing the negative economic impact   of the pandemic and they've given a lot of 
information here i've picked examples of things   that they mentioned delivering assistance 
to workers and families job training food   and security issues small business loan programs 
recovery of our tourism and hospitality sectors   and then they also have an allowable area 
for rebuilding the public sector capacity and they mentioned serving the hardest hit 
communities sir i'm sorry one another question   uh we've had a an item that we've been discussing 
for a number of years a diversion center   under mental health is that something we 
could look at for some of this funding   i believe so yes indeed could be could 
be some portion of capital uh if it were   something that was going to be renovated or 
uh or constructed if it fits within the hard   guidelines from the capitol piece but also on the 
programmatic end understanding that uh you know as   the gentleman from via talked about there's a 
desire to make sure that's sustainable going   forward so it may be these funds could 
help for a couple of years but you know   the hope will be via can work with us to help 
us find a way to keep that going in the future so the qualified census track is something 
that is in the legislation that i wanted to   bring to your attention um we would get into 
the details of it if it if it came up as a   part of your decision making i wanted to mention 
that this is something that at the federal level   they make it easier for us to spend 
funding if we're spending within a qct   a qualified census track is something defined 
by the federal government housing and urban   development the hud has set these tracks they're 
defined and um we have a map for the how the qt   ct that is in alameda county but what they have 
determined is that anyone living in that area or   whose business is in that area is considered a low 
to moderate income area automatically so we don't   have to do anything extra or special to in our 
process to to prove to them that we're spending   in a low to moderate income area so that was a low 
to moderate income area prior to covet it was okay   so here is a map of the one qct that is in 
alamance county the line across the bottom   the yellow line across the bottom is i-85 i-40 
and you'll see that the purple area defines the   region that hud determined was rqct and i think 
most people who look at it would believe that   we would uh any programming that was 
offered for low to moderate income people   would probably exceed this area we wouldn't be 
defining it specifically to this area so there   very likely will be additional work that we'll 
want to do to make sure that we are substantiating   to the government that to the federal government 
that our programming is reaching the right people the third category of spending was revenue 
replacement and that was very exciting until   we realized that bryant county did 
not qualify for revenue replacement   the federal government defined 
the terms of how you compute it   and they they included quite a bit of revenues and 
overall alamance county was very fortunate coming   through pandemic without a significant loss of 
revenue however that would have been a way for our   agency to spend money fairly freely on anything 
that we normally would do so it's important   to know that because other agencies who did 
experience revenue losses are going to have find   it easier to spend are on some really creative 
things that may not be available to our group   we can re recalculate the revenue 
replacement calculations once a year   and we'll see what the future holds but at this 
point revenue replacement is not an option for us   the fourth category listed in the legislation 
is all about premium pay there's been a lot   of discussions about this across the state 
premium pay can be retroactive it goes back to   january of 2020.

It could be prospective so if 
premium pay is something that this board would   like to consider as an option for art funding 
you'll need to know a little bit more about the   the rules on that there are limits so if there is 
a prospective pay increase planned uh 13 an hour   or a individual limit of 25 000 per eligible 
worker people who worked during the pandemic   who were face to face are typically um 
that's the category the way they categorize   eligibility so those who teleworked would not be 
eligible typically under the of the art funding   so that include teachers dss so the federal 
government said health department there were   a lot of categories that were farm workers those 
who worked in warehouses grocery store workers   you talk about private industry the federal 
government included all of those as options for   premium pay however state of north carolina 
does not allow us the county to distribute   funding to those folks what we can to excuse 
me we're not allowed to the private businesses   distribute funding to private businesses we can to 
employees county employees to county employees and   certain other um and there's there's specific 
rules on this so if that's something that this   board would like to consider we'll pull out the 
let each one of these is a separate discussion   you can talk for about an hour about all the rules 
related to premium pay but that's also not to say   that they may not change the rules before we 
get to the end of this process and we may be   able to do something like that so that's what's 
interesting the law won't change so the baseline   but how it's interpreted is what we're hoping 
to find out more so category 5 was investing in   broadband and water and sewer we talked before a 
little bit about broadband right now alex county   has no water and sewer projects on the horizon but 
abss schools the acc training center both of those   agencies may have projects there may be municipal 
projects that would benefit county-wide that you   want to consider and i mentioned that there 
is legislation so there's a state bill 689   and there's a house bill 947 that's the last 
time we checked they were under consideration   and um both of these bills were watching them to 
see what happens but as i mentioned early in the   presentation the federal government wants to spend 
money on broadband the state of north carolina has   built broadband into its arc plan so there is 
at those levels funding for broadband and these   two pieces of legislation appear to let counties 
to participate there may be some matching funds   there may be some level of participation that they 
want to allow us to participate in using art funds   so we'll be monitoring that and 
bringing updates as uh action is taken i mentioned that the alan's digital inclusion 
alliance has been created impact alamance and   the piedmont tribe regional council have gathered 
a group of folks together their plan is to promote   affordable high-speed home broadband 
digital literacy training technical support   and the first thing they have to do is to assess 
what's the the level of our problem uh what's the   digital divide specifically in alamance county to 
do that they do need information from the public   there is a survey that they hope to get wide 
participation from folks who may or may not have   adequate broadband the survey there's information 
about this on our website there's information we   have flyers this particular group is trying to 
reach out to people probably through the school   system i'm not sure um but they're trying to 
reach out to get folks to please report in   the more participants they get the more likely 
they are to be able to put together a plan   that alleviates the problem has this 
information been disseminated to the media   i don't know i believe so i think bruce and 
folks in i.t have been working to get this   word out locally to try to get as many people 
as possible in alamance county to take this   survey it's extremely important i know he's uh 
bruce in particular has worked very closely with   the school system too to try to get get that 
information out get it home with kids encourage   families to take this survey we only have about 
a six one i'm just really curious when you're   talking about broadband because i know before i 
got off the board we had a time when we had to go   remote and depending on where you lived you know 
some kids may be at starbucks but you couldn't   be there because of them it was just a nightmare 
with hot spots they were very very very expensive   when you're talking about broadband are 
you talking about laying the infrastructure   for the house at all the way down in 
sylvan elementary across from that school   being able to purchase internet or are you talking 
about broadband and everybody's internet is free   i think it's i i feel like this is two issues in 
the broadband problem one is the infrastructure   that gets it out particularly to the rural 
areas of the county where there may not be   a great market for the private providers you 
know they're weighing it out their cost per   foot and how much they might get back by how 
many people are out there then that's another   piece of it what you're talking about is people's 
inability to pay for it so you may have access to   broadband in a highly urban area but maybe those 
families are not able to pay for it so it's two   it's two issues i think what we have mostly spent 
our time talking about is the infrastructure   trying to trying to see can the 
county become eligible to either   uh contract with someone to put the infrastructure 
in uh that's been the primary focus but i believe   it's two it's two pieces it's it's the existing 
infrastructure and the availability of it then   some folks ability to pay i think if i recall 
correctly isn't there a maximum amount we can   contribute in a partnership with a with a provider 
such as a t or uh spectrum or somebody like that   there's a maximum partnership amount we can put 
into that like 35 percent i believe so i know   we had one project on the hook back uh in 2020 
that we were going to use some crf funding for   that was in rural south west alamance county 
it was a new subdivision going in and we were   working through piedmont triad regional council to 
they were they were using funding from the state   to try to encourage uh private developers to pick 
an area a new development and make that investment   the funding was going to come through the state 
the county was the applicant but it had to flow   through ptrc because we don't have that statutory 
authority we got right down to the point where   the company had it looked at it and agreed to do 
it and then the funding was reallocated i don't   know what it was reallocated for so the project 
didn't take off but the hope is either the state   takes us on as an initiative and really comes in 
and starts identifying these areas of counties   around the state that have troubles that's why 
this survey is so important or we're going to   have legislation passed it gives the accounting 
the ability to to not do it like richard hill   or excuse me buddy or joel's people were out 
digging but we're able to contract find somebody so i did mention that we are putting information 
out on the website we will share this uh this   document uh and any other reference materials and 
then as actions are taken we'll share that as well   we're starting to get more phone calls from 
the public wanting to know what's going on   with the arp plan so it's going to be under 
government county managers department you'll find   the american rescue plan there it's also available 
on the main page under the current topics   and the last slide please is next steps because 
all of this is to say we need to develop a plan   you saw how the state's plan had five overarching 
areas they had like 29 different initiatives   underneath all of the those five overarching 
areas but that's kind of the thing that would help   communicate and help us justify spending under 
the art plan to be able to communicate with the   us treasury that for example we think broadband 
is the biggest priority for our community and   then further define what that means and what the 
actions we took in order to to achieve something   for our community and then what we spent so that 
kind of thought process would go into an art plan   reviewing the community needs currently we have 
only reached out to our departments but reviewing   the water community getting stakeholder input 
matching those needs to whether it's could be   art funded is there another source any of those 
gray areas is there grant funding out there   available for something what's the best source 
of funding for what we want to try to achieve   and then being able to communicate not only out 
to the community but from uh to receive input   from stakeholders is important and then there are 
going to be all kinds of funding considerations   so having some way of funneling that or 
organizing that um would be useful and   that leads to i think brian haygood has 
some information to share any questions thank you just one thing and you go ahead you can 
answer it on your way when you're talking about   retroactive pay and all kind of stuff for county 
employees is that correct but not private sector   employees is the hospital where do they stay where 
do they live i think they're private sector but   i'm not 100 sure that i see some uh heads nodding 
so i think they would be private sector but again   the the federal level approval was uh you know 
the local governments could give those uh premium   pay to any of these folks state state restrictions 
prevent us from doing it uh for private businesses   or anybody that would qualify as private lab now 
is the is that going to be a is that a federal   thing that would help hospitals because you 
know i find it real ionic and i'm opening up   a can of worms here that the very people 
that wore their mask so tight that i saw   lines in their faces and they were in every 
emergency room and in every ward of hospital   walkover was a total 10 on the richter scale and 
now these very same people that we held as heroes   and some lost their life because of covet are 
being told that you're going to have to get   a vaccine everyone let you go i i think that is 
just absolutely the biggest slap in anybody's face   and i think what do you do if everybody says fine 
then we're gone who's who's is me and bill gonna   go over and run the emergency room god help all 
you people i'll give you a tylenol and that's   about it but i mean i i just find the hypocrisy of 
something and i know this isn't a county issue but   this needs to be stated that the hypocrisy of some 
of this we're talking about broadband and we're   looking at giving people all this free it's just 
free free free it is not free and it infuriates   me that we're just talking about all that once 
again flying over the sky on the broom it just   astounds me how we can have these conversations 
and there i keep looking at bill thinking   what are we doing you know because it just 
astounds me how this is becoming our normal   conversation and nothing about this is normal 
because i think a tasty bakery 69 years and   they've closed because of lack of help and other 
reasons in our town and i think what about them   but yet we can run infrastructure to do all this 
other stuff and they how many birthday cakes have   we bought from them and they were always there 
for us and i'm i don't know i just get really   frustrated i know y'all can't stand it when i 
get on a rant but it just astounds me at what   i'm hearing because andrea's saying we're gonna do 
this and in the next sentence but we can't do that   i'm going what the heck can we do because it seems 
so confusing to me and i i'm certainly not genius   smart whatever level compared to you guys but what 
i'm hearing is we don't know what we don't know   and how are we supposed to lead with that if we go 
to promising folks money that really serve people   hurting in this community and then the next week 
oh just pick and bring your money back that it's   just so uncertain i don't it's very confusing to 
me it is it's very concerning to me too because   i think what are we supposed to do with all 
this you're talking about one thing and the   state says yes feds say no i got my own 
opinion about the feds but um i mean this   is just this is what i call a hot mess to the 
second power because i just don't understand   how we're going to do this i i don't really 
understand how we're going to do this   i'm just glad we got a lot of time yes there's 
a lot of time involved here and i have a   feeling that when i was talking to southern 
commissioners uh about some things that we   anyone is in the construction business building 
schools all these projects we have there's going   to be a lot of time that we're gonna miss like 
we're not gonna be able to get the projects done   that we want to get done in the time that we 
need to get done because there's so many things   everyone's rushing toward the door everyone's 
trying to get through so you got to ask yourself   are you going to have this situation going on 
for the next six months absolutely next year   very good possibility two years yes you look 
at our time frame we got three and a half years   to get rid of this money i have a feel we'll 
get get it done don't get me wrong [Laughter]   but there's a lot of time so i just want just to 
say there's some time to get this done we don't   have to rush through the door right that's that's 
absolutely right in fact uh commissioner lashley's   hit a good point that the state and the local 
government commission the folks have encouraged   counties and local governments to to take their 
time make wise decisions watch what's going on   around them uh particularly observe what the 
state does where the state decides to spend   its money in its final application so and this is 
a precedent setting not something that you know   county government or is used to trying to 
figure out having a 32 million dollar allocation   come uh with these rather broad guidance you know 
and and categories where you can spend but having   to balance that with what does the state allow 
the county to do right the federal government uh   we don't interact with them too much on direct 
allocations to the county so we have to make sure   we stay in conjunction with the state but um i 
just want to say commissioners i want to uh thank   andrea and mimi and selena too i think celine is 
probably watching by zoom for they have attended   every neco association county commissioner 
school of government webinar that has been put on   and uh it has been a tremendous amount of 
information to try to take in and learn   and sort and i think we're in a good place right 
now with this information that you just received   some of the stuff you're going to hear now because 
of the work that they've done so i'm glad you   get to see mimi because if she's uh not uh he's 
sending you an email she's on a webinar conference   call somewhere and that has been extremely helpful 
because our goal is to stay compliant we want to   we want to help you think about how to spend this 
money in effective ways and also be compliant uh   so at the end we're able to say yes we we 
did this well and and we used the money the   way that it was intended to do so well i got a 
question from amy with all this is it rewiring   i said i had a question for mimi with all this is 
it rewired your brain because i mean [Laughter]   just trying to keep up it on our up with 
it on our end it's just bizarre but uh   i mean i agree with what pan's saying i mean 
you know sars is just a cold right i mean   a cold is sarge so we've been having those 
they've been going they're not gonna go away   and we've been dealing with the flu for how 
many generations now it's not gonna go away   i mean we're probably going to wind up with an 
annual coveted vaccine and an annual flu vaccine   and whatever else comes around israelis just 
gave a booster to their this weekend that's right first country to do that so so commissioners 
the info that you just received from andrea   uh very good overview of federal state uh and 
local applications of art and then there are   additional slides in that presentation that are 
further u.s treasury guidance and the idea was   this is a good distilled version of the state 
and federal law and guidance that we'll use   going forward to help us figure out how to spend 
these funds so what i wanted to bring before the   commissioners is some thoughts about scott you may 
have to advance me about funding considerations   in the very short term andrea is absolutely 
right we have not received the interim guidance   from the feds excuse me we are operating under the 
interim guidance we have not received the final   guidance but there are some considerations that i 
believe the commissioners could make even at this   early early point in our spending that you may 
want to you may want to do our staff have engaged   with all the county department leadership and some 
of our partner non-profits as andrea mentioned you   know we knew as soon as this money came down we 
know our departments have insight into community   needs too so we thought what better place to 
start we'll get input from the department heads   and we've reviewed all the information that 
mimi has met with every department head   their teams some of them several times many of 
the nonprofits that operate through our budget   and she has catego cataloged all of their 
responses and we've tried to go through them   and think some of these could be immediate that 
the commissioners may want to consider funding   immediately or ones that we want to consider 
future because they may need some additional   research they may need some additional cost data 
too so we've tried to base these immediate and   future funding potentials on their known costs 
do these things have costs that we know of   and do we feel that they're eligible from an 
arc and state uh perspective and we also in   this that i'll talk to you that i'm going to talk 
to you about included a reimbursement possibility   that's a little different than spending on 
some program or piece of equipment or on   or on personnel so for the the commissioners to 
consider in the very near future we feel like   there are a couple of items and potential uh 
personnel that you could consider spending   art funds on immediately they total a little 
over one million dollars and i'm just going to   go through them to make sure it's clear what we're 
talking about here you heard andrea mentioned   that art money can be used for mental health 
services and as commissioners know during the   budget process we had requests from agencies 
to increase their budgets particularly for   mental health type services we feel that family 
abuse services and crossroads sexual assault   are both providing mental health type services and 
what you see here is uh allocations that would go   over three years that the board could do even at 
this early point in uh in art guidance we feel   like these are going to be acceptable in the final 
guidance too we're looking at uh suggesting the   board consider a little over thirty five thousand 
dollars a year for three years for family abuse   and seventy five thousand dollars a year for 
crossroads those are uh allocations the board may   want to consider in the very short term we also 
had two needs for equipment that really stood out   as we talked with departments one the detention 
center as you know the detention center has been   battling coveted outbreaks off and on ever 
since last year and have done a fine job   they have been few and far between knock on wood i 
think that's a sign of the way uh sheriff's folks   and the health department's folks have worked 
together to streamline how people come in what   happens to them i think you've heard the sheriff 
mention fairly recently that there would be value   in having health software that would connect 
inmates medical records to our local hospital   or our statewide hospital systems we believe 
that would be a very reasonable use of art funds   it's estimated at almost fifty thousand dollars so 
the idea would be inmates in the detention center   as they receive medical treatment for covet or 
any other uh whatever they may have going on   electronically it would be able to be shared with 
other hospitals or if they leave us and go to the   care of a state prison system the information 
would go down there too so to the individual   that's kind of like my chart that's correct yes 
but to the isn't there a designation for that   at the like the hospital and doctor level 
there's a different term for it i believe the   health department uses right you all use it epic 
yes right so but that's fifty thousand dollars   for the software that is my understanding yes 
yes i think when the health department made the   transfer over to epic i don't remember that cost 
but it was significant again the value was any   health department clinic patient then that data 
can be electronically transmitted to if they have   other doctors elsewhere or if they go further 
beyond the health department's level of care   they're not carrying a hard copy with them 
somewhere it's it's in this epic system   uh we also heard the need for ultraviolet 
sanitizers in our ambulances you know ems   has been health department of ems but on the front 
lines of code there's no question about it so our   ambulances we believe would benefit from spending 
funding to install these ultraviolet sanitizers   that are uh between the air and equipment and the 
people while they're in the back uh from the cova   virus it's we would be two uh two expenditures 
of sixty five thousand dollars a piece that's   our estimates you put these things in they're good 
for i believe three to five years so we would plan   for another replacement in our ambulances at 
the end of a three year period total 130 000   and then the commissioners could consider in 
the immediate future uh funding for three new   physicians one a communicable disease nurse this 
was uh something that tony has indicated is was   important before covet but really came to the 
forefront there as covet has developed and as   they are continuing to deal with vaccinations 
and the um variants that we see believe that   the communicable disease nurse would be helpful 
213 thousand dollars is a three-year estimate of   salary and benefit costs for the disease nurse we 
also have included here taking the part-time after   hour social worker uh from part-time to full-time 
for three years uh the funding would be sixty four   thousand two hundred and six dollars that's the 
salary and benefits uh this person works with   um child protective service and other functions at 
dss that have been particularly hit that's another   group that you know social workers had to go into 
homes with covid it didn't matter if cove is in   the house or not if there's a child protective 
service call or an adult protective service call   they had to suit up and go into those homes and 
investigate those calls and it has been hard on   our social workers as you'll hear a little bit 
later but uh particularly on the on-call piece   it would be uh to everyone's benefit if that 
this position could be made full-time and the   final position the commissioners could consider 
we feel like these three are all uh eligible under   arp and state guidelines at this time would 
be a grand administrator i know chair paisley   has mentioned this several times well we've 
estimated 236 thousand dollars for three years   we tried to tie the three years of these costs 
to the three years of available art funding   it is true that with uh uh particularly the 
positions at the end of three years we have   to make some decisions do we want to continue to 
fund these if so it may be county dollars that   would kick in to fund these positions i will say 
with the grant administrator you saw the different   pools and pots of money if the commissioners 
are interested in county government pursuing   additional federal art funds or possibly other 
other type of funds too for initiatives that the   board's interested in or our community voice 
is important this would be helpful i think   some folks here can speak to the difficulty 
of federal grants they are tough to do it's   a whole process just to apply then if you are 
awarded it is a process of working those federal   grants and staying in contact with them i think 
susan has worked some of those before and just   having one grant with the federal government is 
a time-consuming task we feel like there will be   lots of opportunities i did have the opportunity 
i will tell the board to attend the fire chiefs   meeting several weeks ago and uh you probably 
saw one of those bullets that there are funding   specifically available for firefighter assistance 
and emergency management and we talked a little   bit with the chiefs and they were very excited 
about the possibility of being someone you know   most of our volunteer fire departments have 
maybe one or two paid staff not not really   uh suitable for applying for these grants i think 
there would be a lot of support from volunteer   fire probably municipal fire departments too 
in uh in us partnering if we do this position   mr county manager there just for the rest of this 
board this will give us three years with a grant   administrator um if she earns the dollars great 
makes the salary really easy if he or she does not   then we don't have to continue it so that 
would be a contract position then instead of uh   i think we should it could be sound rate or 
contract could be a county employee position   cherry if in if at the end of the term if the 
county or commissioners didn't feel like it was   a productive position you know uh then we would 
be able to let that person go and again that's   something to consider is particularly with the 
positions these are three years and we're talking   about art funding paying all of these costs 
but for the positions in particular at the end   of three years it would be an evaluation of is 
this something that you want to continue to do   and if so it would have to fall into the county's 
budget this would require a budget amendment right   yes i think spend actually spending any of 
these dollars would require we have all the   funds budgeted now in a special revenue fund all 
the the 16 million that we have received thus far   so if the commissioner said that you wanted 
to go ahead and do the uh health software for   the detention center for example we would do a 
budget amendment in that dollar amount to put the   funding from our special revenue fund our dollars 
into the detention style detentions budget so they   could purchase am i saying that right or maybe 
i met somebody's looking at me i'm not saying   that right so it would allow us to expend within 
the funds so you can track it all in one place   i apologize commissioners yes it would be much 
easier to be able to track all of these arp   expenditures in one place so we would spend it 
out of the special revenue fund so the enormous   strain on the top two agencies and dss that 
could go out like ass asp whatever it is well probably that too i'm talking like can this 
be like now or does this have to wait for months   i'm just curious because i know the top two dss 
all of these have took a tremendous like the grant   administrator is not even real yet but like all 
these people have took a tremendous hit because   of this virus i mean like none of us even have a 
clue because none of the stuff they deal with has   stopped and now we're seeing just how much we're 
going to see what it really happened whenever   you start collecting your stats and data like you 
know dss's reports tripled in april from last year   so i'm just curious how long does this have to 
wait what's the deal let me answer that question   i'm going to make a motion now before 
we go on with the second part of   mr hagood's presentation i'm making a motion 
that we go ahead and fund now the immediate   funding considerations to the tune of 1 million 
25 764 and i make that as a motion that we approve   that now and i'll second it thank you john that is 
appropriate the board wants to do that absolutely any other discussion yes sir um question 
mr chairman uh mr haygood and maybe   mr j the communicable disease nurse i understand 
that the health department does have its own   coveted funding could that cover the communicable 
disease nurse how is that funding that they're   receiving you know how does that fit in and 
does it need to go through the county yeah so   our funding for that agreement answer question 
directly you could do that but it's also used for   the communicable disease response so case in point 
for example testing went away so we currently   the state currently pays a private 
provider to do testing for us here   for the health department for us here in the 
county if all of a sudden that system went away   the health department went out on the majority of 
that testing and we would likely have to contract   with another private provider we could there 
would be no way we'd be able to take that off   and that has a pretty significant cost too 
and i can't remember the top of my head   but it's up there close to a million dollars 
give or take just do a testing for one year   for it to repair so yes we do have 1.8 million 
dollars that we were given through our contracts   from the state um but they're very specific and 
what we can use it for can these ever communicate   with communications position but also we 
want to have that money in case the future   something goes south and we 
have to redoubt their operations that would be better mr county manager would you recommend we're 
talking about uh in salary for that particular   position seventy thousand dollars uh per year for 
three years would you recommend we pull that or   leave it i would i would suggest you go ahead and 
pay for it from the county's art funds i think   we have some concerns about what the state and 
feds have been paying for with health they've   been they've been covering as tony said the cost 
of vaccines the vaccination effort the testing   we have heard through some webinars that mimi and 
andrea have attended that the federal government   may stop that they may reallocate those funds from 
what they're spending locally to do other things   with if they do that will fall to us to fund i 
think tony's funding that he has in contract and   his addendums would be more appropriate to use for 
vaccines and those testing costs it may not happen   and we hope it doesn't happen and if it 
doesn't happen it may be that we're able to use   some of his contract dollars to do some other 
things but this this communicable disease nurse   i think out of these three positions is probably 
the priority position here uh just because of what   they're they're still living the coded world right 
now and i think this would help them significantly   so we could do a memoir under of agreement to 
be reimbursed from health department funds if he   gets a significant chunk of health department 
funds back to the county for that position   right i believe so i think once we know if the 
feds are going to continue to commit to covering   the vaccination and testing costs we know that 
for sure it could be that we we make this switch   from uh do you have a comment on that andrea well 
i was just going to add too that what we found   in handling the cares act funding is that 
what we thought we needed to spend money on   often changed later we found two months down 
the road that there's another funding source   that would be a better option and we were able 
to manipulate within that six month time period   to make a lot of changes and there 
were quite a few changes that happened   over just that that short time period i think 
we'll probably experience that with our funding   so anything that the board approves at this 
point if you're budgeting our funding for it   if we find a better funding source for it we would 
bring that back and ask for an amendment to use   these funds differently in the future as we will 
do in your phase two coming up yes that's correct   so if we that's a great point if we find a better 
way to pay for the communicable disease nurse   we would tap that and then return these funds to 
our our art bucket a lot of pluses and honestly   any other comments on this particular 
notion that's on on the table this chair   my only other comment is that we talked 
earlier about about focusing arpa funds on on   things that will that are investments that 
have lasting impact rather than things that   have reoccurring costs which which these 
items well most of these items would   outside of three years if we chose to continue 
them so i i i just want to be i just want to be   cautious that you know this these are for three 
years these are out of arbor funds and i think   the board at the end of that period will have to 
reassess whether we want to keep these positions   and whether we fundraise out of county dollars 
or not so that's that's my only concern with it   but i understand these are these are needs and 
i don't i don't want to start allocating too   many of these arpa funds before we have a real 
sense of what county needs are but i recognize   that these are these are significant needs so 
with those reservations i'd support and i think   the mechanism of tracking these costs through 
the special revenue fund where they're all in   one place will ensure that we're able to come 
back to the commissioners in three years and say   we've been tracking the salary for the 
communicable disease nurse through the   special revenue fund for the past three years it's 
now time to make a decision do we want to continue   to have that position then it would be to tony to 
you know to tell us the benefits of having or not   having the positions and the board to agree i can 
assure you that family b services and crossroads   would not even be on this list if their grants 
hadn't been hacked and i mean chopped and uh but   i can also assure you that what they do has not 
stopped nor slow down if anything has increased   and they showed up every day when someone's 
child was harmed or someone's mom was harmed   so uh for us to be able to fill in for those 
because they serve the citizens of this county i   think we should step it up because they've always 
been there and hopefully their funding will be   increased and be back to what they're used to and 
i promise you they know this is a one-time deal   i think it is timely uh the conversations i've 
had with adrian have been that when the kids   come back the kids have been out of school for 
so long and i think groups like dss crossroads   perhaps even family abuse services receive so 
much input about needs from the schools that you   know those kids are about to come back and i think 
you're going to see a significant uptick in um and   reports to dss need for crossroads and also for 
family abuse services so to make these allocations   now is timely and uh we hope we'll be able to get 
these funds in place for them as soon as possible that's just more discussion i call the 
question on favor signify by saying hi uh   it's unanimous thank you mr haygood it is now 12 
31 approaching 12 32.

Uh i think we need to take a   lunch break and come back at 2 o'clock would that 
be your recommendation i'm at the pleasure of the   board so i i can continue or you're hungry i'm 
hungry but uh i'll do whatever the commissioners   would like of course of course any guests we have 
we really appreciate your patience absolutely   what time he has in this presentation uh 
there's i think maybe these two would take   how long do you think i think the next slide will 
probably be pretty quick because i i don't know   i can quickly explain it it's the key piece of 
this um if you'd like let's let's continue on   for this phase two and then get along so um 
i mentioned this reimbursement piece in that   uh the legislation allows us to go back to march 
of 21 this past march and reimburse ourselves for   costs that the county incurred in response to 
code between march and june 21.

We've looked at   one-time costs and also payroll that is eligible 
through art uh for that period uh these one-time   costs or the payroll was originally paid by 
general fund revenues as part of our budget or we   did use pandemic response and pandemic response 
funds are crf monies that came from the state   that we spent on eligible purposes but reallocated 
because nc pro basically became so restrictive   what they would allow the county to 
spend their final recommendation was   spend these moneys on eligible purposes and then 
bank your own dollars which is basically what i'm   about to explain to you uh that you could do if 
you wanted to so you could take uh i'm suggesting   to you you may want to consider uh using art 
funds as reimbursement and then you could take   these funds and designate them any or not but you 
could designate them for any use that you want so   from march to june of 21 we found 240 
thousand dollars worth of one-time cost   sanitizing ppe some call center staff payments 
that we made that are arp eligible we also looked   at payroll for the health department and ems 
because we know that health department at ems were   just all about some coded response and having to 
continue to respond to coveted related problems   that payroll is three million dollars so what 
the board could consider to do under the support   public health category of art is spend 3 million 
240 000 of art funding by covering those costs but   basically reimburse the county then you could if 
you wanted to take those through that 3.2 million   and designate it for our uses but without the arp 
restrictions it basically becomes county dollars   right you don't have to designate it you could put 
it in unassigned fund balance if you wanted to or   you can once you spend the art money and do this 
reimbursement you could spend the 3.2 on anything   or put it in the bank it's totally up to you again 
if you want to use it for arp related efforts   the good thing i would tell you would be it would 
be out from under arp legislation you could use   it on anything that the state would allow us to 
use it for so we come out from under the federal   the federal restrictions and it just falls to 
our normal state state restrictions how does   that affect our budget for 2122 so what we would 
have to it would affect 2021's budget uh and so   what we would need to do if the board wants to do 
this or is interested in doing this we would need   to contact our auditor right so we would want to 
talk to them and the lgc because we feel like our   preliminary discussions with the county's auditor 
have been they have received no guidance on how to   audit this we can do it it is eligible under art 
guidance it's okay with the state but the audits   auditors have not been provided with guidance 
on how to audit it it could make our audit late   with the lgc for last fiscal year that's not 
a tremendously big deal to our operations but   we want to stay in good standing with the lgc 
so if the commissioners are interested in this   at all i think we would want to uh hear that 
today and then reach out to the lgc and say   how are you going to feel if the commissioners 
want to do this and wind up reimbursing ourselves   designating the money are you going to be 
upset with us if our audit is late because   it probably will make our audit late if we 
do that does this include the expense for   eric lane no the expenses for airplane i think 
we booked a fema uh because it was vaccination   um clinic costs and actual vaccination costs 
so so we were reimbursed from that through fema   we have we're working on that so we have we've 
been running all costs to fema some i think we   may have gotten some reimbursements from fema but 
uh i'm seeing head shaking no but these funds are   ones that were spent on payroll for health and 
ems so the employees that work in health and the   employees that work at ems under our guidelines 
we can reimburse ourselves for their salaries   but they're just regular budgeted salaries 
because they were working on primarily covid   related issues was there any risk we won't 
get reimbursed on that from fema there is   for the uh for the help for eric lane i guess 
it's possible i think we feel like it's pretty   solid right we feel like it's pretty 
solid to receive that reimbursement   but anytime you question fema 
if something is allowable   your response is always pending final review 
yes yes so we will submit those costs and then   wait for their final review and receive 
reimbursements what was the final expense on that   do we know right off oh costs are still ongoing 
and i don't have that figure with me right now   so one this would be a if you wanted to do 
this if the commissioners wanted to do this   the benefit could be you could bank this money 
this 3.2 million out from under the ark pile of   16 million it would have to be uh separated from 
the heart funding you could use it for any purpose   it doesn't have to be for art purposes you could 
bank it for a time to see to make sure our fema   reimbursement costs are going to be honored yet i 
did i just wanted to mention that there's there's   uh a possible reward and there's 
possible risk involved in this   and part of this is related to the fact 
that we're operating under human guidance   so under interim guidance this appears to be an 
option to us but the local government commission   and the us treasury will be able to tell us better 
if this is something that is likely to be um fall under the final guidance so we may take 
action or think about taking action at this   point and may find out later that it has to be 
reversed i think the important thing i wanted to   communicate to the board today was you know we've 
talked about committee not a committee if if the   commissioners were going to go to a committee 
and start our committee thinking about how to   spend 32 million dollars if the commissioners are 
interested in doing this uh we need to check with   our auditors you don't have to vote to do it 
today we need to hear is this something you're   interested in us doing if so we will be calling 
our lgc and auditors to find out are they okay   if it makes our audit late the other piece to me 
would be if you're going to go committee or not   it may mean this 3.2 million is off the table from 
our spending purposes if a committee's trying to   figure out what to do with art money you might put 
it back on the table and say we're going to take   this money reimburse ourselves and put it right 
back in the mix but the commissioners also have   the ability if we do this to put it anywhere you 
want to it could go in you know our unassigned   fund balance if you chose to do that i want to be 
transparent with the commissioners that you don't   have to spend it on arp if you do it this way you 
will be spending it on arc you'll be spending it   in an eligible way to reimburse ourselves um 
but i think the main thing we need to know today   is not a vote to actually do this but if you're 
interested in this we need to call the auditors   and see well we could do it subject to those two 
items could we not be ordered in i do think there   is one other piece that it would need to be done 
at least at the august 16th meeting because it   has bearing on our last fiscal year budget so if 
you are not prepared to vote to do this today with   any any criteria about the item and you want us to 
call the lgc first and report back before the 16th   in order for this to be applied to next fiscal 
year my understanding is it would be best if   it was action was taken to make this happen 
uh either now or at the august 16th meeting   well i think it's a good idea for us to 
look at reimbursing ourselves we had a   lot of extraordinary expenses due to due to covet 
and to just let just just overlook getting money   back in our budget back into accounting for our 
citizens um but i just don't think that would be   the right thing i think we need to look at taking 
this money put it back in and then figure out   how we want to spend it i'll make a motion to 
reimburse a second uh considering that we uh   the audit process and the other other things 
that we have to make sure are okay i'm fine   make a motion i'll second it excellent any 
other discussion uh just a question is it   is the motion that we that we determine if it's 
auditable or that we do it now and then i'm just subject to the audit information i'm good with 
time what kind of time frame you talk about no no   i just want to make sure that it's correct well 
under the guidance right and then under the uh   under the audit principles that's so true so 
what we're hearing is uh the board would be   moving to reimburse ourselves with our funding 
subject to the guidance from our auditor um   but to to do that and then we would uh designate 
those funds at least because it's going to come   out of the special revenue fund we would designate 
them and then the board can determine the purpose   for those designated funds at any time whether 
it's arp use or anything else but we would   reimburse ourselves and then designate those funds 
or we could just hold them into a future use and   we just put them in unassigned funds whatever we 
do we would have to have a budget amendment in   our next meeting to approve this i presume right 
that's going in your checkbook let's go shopping   mr what is the final guidance expected i think 
we're looking at uh in the next possibly month   six to eight weeks i think you said like october 
late september october or something like that   earlier we hope for september we don't know for 
whatever reason guidance would discourage this   we would just reverse it that's correct as 
long as you're not spending it immediately   then if we were to find out that this was not in 
compliance we put it back into the uh we come back   to the board explain that ask you to vote to 
put it back into the special revenue fund yeah   the comments are in favor signify by saying aye 
aye it's unanimous thank you it is now lunchtime before we return it two 
o'clock we're back in session   well thank you commissioners i think we had uh 
maybe uh i only had two more slides i believe left   on this section and scott i think you're gonna 
have to you have to advance me right now okay   there we go uh so for premium pay that was one 
of the options you heard uh andrea mentioned also   uh while the state regulations don't allow us 
to expand that out to private businesses premium   pay for county employees or other groups that are 
kind of under county type umbrella i could foresee   maybe i think one of the commissioners 
had mentioned teachers had been   considered in one locale uh maybe some of our 
authority uh employees something along those lines   what we would suggest to the commissioners if 
we decide to look at a premium pay plan um you   want to make sure that folks were eligible 
for arf you heard that to use art funds to   for premium pay you can't tell the work 
and there's some other restrictions we would suggest that the commissioners might want 
to think uh retroactively and make that a bonus   as opposed to uh and you don't have 
to do this way this is just a thought   trying to avoid it becoming something that uh is 
funded beyond the terms of uh how long we have   the dollars yes sir quick question can we use the 
art funds for example we have frontline workers   law enforcement uh ems health department sorry 
um various frontline workers can we if they were   to come down with covid can we use frontline 
or that money to reimburse that the department   for their time out if they're out beyond their 
normal sick league or to repl reimburse them   for the sick leave so you could i think we were 
we had originally uh put an item on this agenda   or thought about an item for this agenda because 
of the uptick we're seeing in covet cases we're   also seeing covet in several county departments to 
reinstate the coven sick leave where the employee   is not charged for sick leave if they're tested 
right positive for covid or they're waiting uh   results of a test or they've been quarantined 
so uh we took that item off and delayed it till   next time because i think there needs to be some 
more discussion right county departments about it   but yes it's possible that uh art funds could be 
used for that or your pandemic response funding   i think that's what we were thinking we could use 
uh was the pandemic funds that we banked from crf as i put here too it's something 
for the board to consider uh   you know other non-county eligible agencies 
we believe could include our fire districts   or some of our authorities so the board wanted to 
do some kind of premium pay i would just suggest   to the commissioners you may want to think 
about if you do that a bonus as opposed to an   actual pay increase that you may be dealing 
with later on but right board can do either very well i think if there's not any questions 
i know we kind of hit that in two pieces around   lunch but if there's any other questions 
about the funding the immediate funding   concerns i think uh we'll be reaching out to 
our auditors and the lgc to get input about   the reimbursement model that that you've blessed 
here today and make sure that the lgc is not going   to have some issue with our audit being late but 
i think this probably will be a common problem   around the state because i wouldn't be surprised 
many other jurisdictions choose to do that too   now mr chairman i'm going to move right 
into the next item yes sir thank you so we   had the commissioners have talked some about the 
possibility of forming a committee to help think   about what to do with these art funds this is 
not a requirement the legislation doesn't require   that a committee either at the state or federal 
level but it's been discussed at commissioner   meetings about the possibility of forming an 
art committee um if the board wanted to do that   i'd suggest to the committee would be it'd be 
really important that they identify priorities   that the board agrees with also and part of their 
function would be to invite and take community   and stakeholder participation and input and if the 
board were to do a committee you could expect that   part of the committee's responsibilities would 
also be to communicate um the art plan that they   come up with the priorities uh and recommendations 
for spending to the commissioners and it's   something to think about just to try to uh keep 
a group on task right if you do a committee maybe   to think about a deadline to have some level of 
spending recommendations maybe by january of this   uh of 22 just to keep things moving uh and it also 
around that time would start dovetailing into our   normal budget process right so um if if uh if the 
commissioners were going to do a committee or not   if the commissioners do a committee or they 
do not i would i would suggest that these   priorities are good to consider these are examples 
uh this is a very board driven process and and   from staff's perspective so when we put some 
of these priorities to you we're taking things   we're seeing from state of north carolina or 
from other jurisdictions and saying here are   ones that seem to resonate with us as staff do 
they resonate with commissioners or not if you   had a committee i would suggest that some of these 
type of priorities for spending what will happen   at the end as we're being audited and having to 
justify the expenditures is we'll want to have   some overarching guide from the commissioners 
that says we would like to see art funds   spent to support workforce and small business so 
when we if we do that right you know one option   could be you may want to put some of these funds 
in the small business loan program right it's it's   been successful when we go to uh meet with our 
auditors and justify the expenditure of funds   we would point back to that core tenant and say 
the commissioners were interested in workforce   development and small business support with 
these funds thus this expenditure fit within   one of our own criteria these are not ones 
that you would have to do but just suggestions   some other things to think about if you um again 
committee or no committee but particularly if   there's a committee we're being urged by the 
lgc to take our time as we've talked about a   little bit earlier especially for larger projects 
this the transformative type work to see what the   state is going to do and also to get that final 
guidance from the federal government and as andrea   showed you we have created a website online for 
people to be able to go to and give feedback to   the county government or ask questions about our 
art plans there are also products out there as a   balancing act i believe is the software that 
some of uh some other i think some of the other   local governments around the state are using it's 
specific for public outreach if the commissioners   wanted to do that um i would suggest for if if 
a committee was going to be formed it would be   very helpful to that group to have county 
staff at least liaison to the committee   so um i would suggest andrea and mimi be 
involved in their discussions just to help keep   everybody on the same page from an eligibility 
standpoint i'd be happy to meet with them too   not to force an agenda but just to try to 
help answer questions and keep keep things   flowing if we go that route and the final 
consideration uh i believe for a committee is   you know if the committee or the commissioners 
too were to come back and say we do want to um   get into water sewer projects some of those very 
specialized type projects might take uh bringing   in outside help to come to contract with we 
don't generally do water and sewer for example so   we wouldn't have county staff to put on managing 
a water sewer project that would need to bring   bring in someone else and as you think about 
a committee if that's something that you are   interested in obviously you would want to have 
a presence of the commissioners anywhere from   one to five if you go with five then or three or 
more we'll notice it just like we do any other   uh meetings where there are three or more 
commissioners um and the commissioners could   uh appoint individuals to serve on the committee 
if you choose and we usually do that by uh either   you each appoint someone or you go through an 
application process like we do for planning   for where we actually put out an application 
and solicit and bring all that back to you i think that's the end of the committee 
discussion do understand that it's not required   and it isn't something that you necessarily have 
to do today but i know the board has mentioned it   and talked about it seemed to be an interest in 
it so i wanted to present you some info because   we're starting to move into uh spending these 
funds or at least planning to spend these months   well one of the uh one of the things 
i mentioned earlier too is we have   a number of local partners in the other 
communities that are going to receive funding   and if there's some way for us to work together 
i know you one of the projects we talked about   was water and sewer to the public safety training 
center that's going to be an issue water and sugar   to other entities we can't do according to arp 
we can't do water and sewer unless we're already   doing it from what i've read so if we can't do it 
unless we're already doing it then piggybacking   with hall river or whoever might provide water and 
sewer to that facility and helping them finance it   for them because it may be outside of the capacity 
that they have would be something we might want to   look at and then there are other other activities 
going on in the county where we can partner with   burlington or mebbing or graham or whatever on on 
other projects as well so i think it'd be a good   idea for us to include have some sort of partner 
meetings with you know either you and the other   uh town managers and whatnot as a group to bring 
us up to date and what's that or include the some   of the commissioners or something i i would say i 
agree mr carter if the board does a committee or   not it would be wise to on a regular basis reach 
out to some of our other partners particularly   municipalities and and at least have dialogue so 
people can if they do nothing other than report   what they've got going on what they're considering 
then obviously commissioners could be there city   council can take part in that too management right 
uh and as i say it may be valuable just to hear on   a regular basis what are you thinking you're going 
to do with your art funds does it cross because   we have we have more conversation with some of 
our municipalities burlington graham evan than   we might with alamance or ossipee or lindenhall 
river so it's it would be uh beneficial i think to   at the minimum have those type of meetings we all 
need another meeting in our schedule each month   mr turner you get ideas uh i do i i think 
i think forming a committee is a good idea   um we're set to receive about 33 million dollars 
in funding that i see as like a large grant   that the county hasn't had access to before and 
probably won't have access to in the near future   uh i think a committee makes sense for a couple 
reasons uh i think you can get citizens who are   interested in this process and are interested in 
in providing input to the county on how to spend   such a large amount of money in a way that 
benefits the entire county um i think a group   of citizens that represents a cross-section of 
alamance county could provide ideas that we as   commissioners couldn't come up with ourselves 
that staff couldn't come up with itself   and i think those ideas could be both 
large ideas that are transformational   like the division center like broadband and they 
could be also small small outlays of money that   could impact individual communities all over the 
county almost like a micro credit kind of idea um   i think you i think if you have a group 
of citizens involved you can get those   robust ideas that we might not otherwise have 
i also think that because it's sort of like a   grant process i think that the process that the 
united way has and how it how it gives out its   grant money might be instructive to us where 
folks who have ideas about projects folks who   are looking for funding for particular projects 
can come present those ideas it could be a music   municipality who says i've got this great idea 
for water sewer i need some help that's an example   uh and it could be like a one source of 
accumulating all the different ideas for the   county uh in one place so that we everybody knows 
what everybody else is doing so i i would see it   would be beneficial to have both both citizens and 
perhaps a group of of entities who have given out   or who distribute funding in the past based on 
projects that they've seen before i think some   kind of hybrid would work maybe commissioners i 
don't know that we have to have commissioners but   but you know maybe commissioners on that as well 
we got to be careful not to make it too big if   we do it um but i do think that that those 
are some considerations that i think would   a committee would benefit us and they could do 
a deep dive into these potential projects that   the commissioners just couldn't do unless 
we had another you know another series of   in-depth meetings for the commission ms thompson 
well i know whenever we had our budgetary   hearings your dad told you it'd be the worst two 
days of your life it was extremely overwhelming   but it was also extremely important to me to hear 
from everybody that was part of our budget i think   anybody that is going to be interested in these 
funds need our audience i think they need to speak   directly to us that's why we were elected and when 
it comes right down to it we make the decisions   i totally respect what mr turner's saying i 
don't like it when it gets complicated and so   many people get involved in this it can really be 
distracting and but it can also be very positive   i know how that works but i think anybody that's 
going to be applying for this in the grant fashion   so to speak as craig said i think we need to 
hear them they need we need to hear them directly   because nobody knows their agency or their 
business or anything like that better than they do   nobody can speak for them better than they can and 
i respect that because um i just i just don't like   the more you get sometimes the more 
opinions you're going to get and that's   good too we need to hear all the opinions 
but if somebody is applying for money to   save their save them or to get them back 
on track or to start them and launch them   and and we're going to be signing that i think we 
need to hear that because nobody speaks for them   better than they speak for themselves and i don't 
want to hear about their company through the eyes   and ears of somebody else i just don't and i mean 
that's just my opinion and i think all of these   opinions are going to be somewhere in the middle 
we'll find a healthy balance but if you're coming   to this commission board who we were elected to 
govern this county i really think we need to be   hands on with this that's what we signed up for 
and speak for myself nobody else but i want to   hear somebody tell me why this is important for 
them and how this can really make a difference in   what they do for a living and what they do for 
this county and i respect all these folks that   have been in some real dire straits so i want to 
advocate for them personally and um like i said   nobody speaks for you better than you speak 
for yourself mr nationally thank you chair um i'm gonna um i i i like what mr turner said 
i think the only thing that i would like   i think that would give me i like the idea 
of coming to the county having different   stakeholders coming to us i like the i like i 
like the ideas i just heard the only thing that   i think could be a hindrance to this committee 
is the size the size could make it overwhelmingly   difficult and i think that's if we just focus on 
getting the number just doable it's manageable   because we all know i mean look at our look 
at our legal system they have 12 our uh our um drawing a blank here hey that's supposed to be me i 
know i'm 20 years ahead of you   a jury system and everything else is is set 
up with a a manageable and that's that's my   only thing here i think that if we get that that 
size too big it could be a hendrix rather than   help but i like what i've heard today i like 
that a lot and that's part of a real tough   balancing act it sure is i mean if you make it 
too small if you come up with a committee and   you make it too small you can get criticized 
because you left somebody out you make it too   big it becomes unwieldy but you've got a 
lot more people involved in it so you're   that's a tough one yeah it's a really really 
really tough balancing act yeah we've got this   heart money we don't have all the guidelines yet 
we may not have until even october of this year   that's point one two the infrastructure bill 
that the united states congress is talking   about both on a house and senate basis we 
have no clue whether we're talking about a half a billion dollars or three and a half 
trillion or five or six trillion dollars i mean   that's it's just a shot in the dark at this point 
and we'll know more about that within the next few   weeks uh and i hope that that that's not done to 
our federal and state and each of us as taxpayers   um i really truly hope that but we don't know at 
this point um third type thing is we have time   we don't have to make a decision today and we've 
got time to think about it when we have a lot more   rules regulations guidance whatever the fourth 
is other funding from and as mr turner said   municipalities from other agencies we're talking 
we just hired a grant or getting ready to hire   a grant writer and so all that's unknown at 
this point but information that we truly need   and then the last thing is the size of the 
committee uh gentlemen you both mentioned the size of the committee uh i totally agree if 
that committee gets so large miss thompson you you   indicated they would be totally worthless at that 
point i would encourage us to table this matter   until our meeting with next meetings 19th is 
that correct and then that would give us as   county commissioners time to meet mr a good with 
you individually give you our ideas and so forth   and maybe put together a a better 
defined proposal for a committee   at that point ladies and gentlemen do you agree 
yes yes sir all right so we're going to table this   at this point and i really would 
encourage everyone to get with mr haygood   adrian all the players here and let's put 
something together more concrete for the 19th   16th 16th whatever date it is two weeks from today 
yes okay okay and i would just suggest mr trump if   we do that if we do go ahead with the committee 
in some form that those meetings could be public   and and broadcast just just like just like this 
meeting is so that there would be time for the   for the commissioners to see everything that 
happened even if the commissioners weren't there   indeed and uh any any recommendation from the 
committee for its final approval and for funding   to be spent is going to come back to this body so 
uh but yes we would make sure that those meetings   were advertised and people could tune in and watch 
them if we can figure out if we'll try to figure   out a way to do them live stream but at least they 
would know location and date indeed well thank   you now by getting with mr haygood and adrian 
and so forth was not trying to con just simply   give him our ideas oh no yeah right right no i 
didn't mean to suggest yeah okay uh madame clark   who is tori had an appointment but she gave me 
the uh information about the next item mr chairman   i'm sorry i shouldn't sat down soon so quickly i 
believe the up and down exercise for today yes uh   your next item is the consideration of an 
appointee to the meven planning board as the   etj member uh representing the county on the 
mebbins uh medan's planning board so uh the   city of meven solicited applications uh for 
this position and received applications for   mr larry tigg mr tigg is currently serving on the 
board of etj as the county's member also received   applications from mr roger james jonathan webster 
and virginia gail miller city council reviewed all   these applications also and they have recommended 
reappointing mr larry tigg so anytime we have   more than one applicant for a seat we always 
bring it to the commissioners for a vote so   and i might indicate that um in the etj we as the 
county nominate two uh people to their board and   so this is one of the two vacants the vacancy 
out of the two that we appoint yes sir i just   appreciate the other folks stepping up too that's 
awesome oh absolutely we typically defer to the   board itself when they look at an individual 
like this that they suggest unemployment we   often support that appointment so is that a 
motion that's my motion that we accept therapy   your motion is to uh for mr t is that correct 
that's correct all right do we have a second   i'll second any discussion on favor signify 
with saying aye aye anonymous thank you mr johnson let me explain one thing i keep 
referring to mr johnson as the high sheriff   and that's because we honor him he does 
such a good job and he is the ultimate law   enforcement in our county he kind of looks at 
me shakes his head as if i mean something else   terry thank you well thank you for your comments 
uh i'm gonna start off i have a young lady that's   that's been with us all day i'm gonna let 
her go first the steps set actually set   the stage of what i'm gonna be talking to you 
commissioners about is their drug problem and   especially one area and i it gives me great 
pleasure now to introduce miss penny fogerman   who will give you a story that will probably leave 
you in tears and it's only one of hundreds that we   hear every day and every week at that sheriff's 
office and i'm gonna be before you today to see   if we can't come together to do something about 
the problems that's taking over our county and i do not have slides so um thank you so much for inviting 
me special thank you to pam and terry   this is really hard for me to do this i do not   like public speaking i'm not shy but i do 
not like to get in front of people and speak   so last night i decided to type out what i'm 
gonna say and read it pretty much so okay   so um anyway i'm gonna share my story of a few 
nightmares and highlight just some of some of my   experiences in the last 10 years of my life 
and continue to live at this present moment   and just please keep in mind that many families 
right here in our county are going through the   same familiar nightmares as me and my family and 
probably worse and they have been through worse   so anyway i have knocked on doors and windows all 
alone in some of the most crime-filled areas in   burlington and rural parts of alamance some in 
charlotte and a couple of times in greensboro   but mostly here in our county i have ridden for 
hours on our streets that some would consider   no place for a lady alone asking strangers 
questions with my car window partially down   seeking out my information that i really needed 
and wanted i stood on a front porch couple years   back where i had been told not to go without 
an escort from the police but i did it anyway i   knew the police in this county would be there in a 
heartbeat i admire every one of them but i had to   go alone for several reasons at this particular 
house that i went to i knocked i knocked again   and then again i waited for someone to show up 
while they were staring at me through a curtain   and i am sure i saw a shadow of a pistol pistol 
in their hands i was determined to talk to them   i noticed other people walking in and out of 
the back side of the house in the back kind   of ignoring me and then finally someone came 
to the door while a person inside was yelling   she looks like she just might be at the wrong 
place but a young man finally opened the door   just enough to put his head out not showing his 
hands or his legs he at first was very agitated   that i was there he started out rude it was a 
very cold day i had on a big coat so i made sure   to keep my hands out of my pocket so he could see 
my hands then i started talking to him he finally   got a little relaxed and spoke to me and hesitated 
for a moment looked down took a breath and then   he told me some of what i really needed to know 
i said thank you so much and i hope your family   are having a very nice thanksgiving and 
he looked at me very confused and said   um okay yes ma'am you too no this was not a smart 
thing for me to do or a place i needed to be   but i got my answers i have been in a few of 
our most dreadful motels in alamance county   begging the attendants to tell me what i was 
there wanting to know and which door to knock on   begging to give me information that i knew they 
could tell me but they wouldn't i have delivered   food and clothes to some of these drug-infested 
motels on occasion i have driven through parking   lots i have been inside i have picked a person 
up several times behind some of the motels   where i have seen with my own eyes probably 
drug dealing and probably prostitution   but i had no choice i have probably been on 
some surveillance videos seen in hallways or   sidewalks by doors in mild conversations yelling 
matches maybe an angry push or two and maybe even   some hugs and some tears while i was pleading 
and pleading on one occasion in the past while   on one of my missions i got in an argument with 
i assume the owner of one of alamance infested   hotels motels and told him i know exactly what's 
going on here and you're turning your head because   i know you want to make your money he absolutely 
started yelling at me in a foreign language that   i had no idea what he said but i am sure that i 
got cussed out i stood there and then i said well   go ahead and call the police if you wish i will 
if you don't want to i'll be standing right here so then he looked a little stunned   and he told me right then without looking at a 
computer without looking at his book bookings   or calendars and he told me exactly 
which door to knock on isn't that odd i am sure the motel where i visited 
that day had some bizarre events that   involved drugs dealings of drugs and prostitution 
and no telling what else my cell phone used to   have so many cell phone numbers in it that it was 
hard to keep track of i getting rid of them for a   few years because it used to help me with some 
of my missions i had to keep the phone numbers   for several reasons i had many conversations with 
i am sure human trafficking pimps drug dealers   lots of addicts that i didn't know thieves 
perverts and more just to get what i wanted   information i used to i used to sit and 
text these numbers for hours of the night   when i couldn't sleep people i had no business 
getting involved with just to get my answers   i have had calls from strangers telling me things 
to throw me in a panic and found myself actually   doing so-called armchair counseling with criminals 
addicts or people that i had no idea who i was   speaking with and i got drawn in for a few moments 
at a time sometimes because they had information i   wanted and sometimes i felt like they really 
actually just needed a person to talk to   themselves that cared i at times found myself on 
my front porch doing things like this on my phone   until two o'clock three o'clock in the 
morning because i couldn't sleep anyway an event that took place around four or five 
years ago you know you kind of lose track of time   i was driving into my driveway 
from work when my cell phone rang   and it was a greensboro policeman asking me if i 
knew a certain person and i said yes yes and uh   the police officer actually told me some news that 
threw me into a very dangerous situation with my   own driving to get to the destination where 
i needed to go in greensboro someone almost   died that night and greensboro police injected 
narcan to save that person's life a precious life   i am not a police officer i am not a paramedic 
i am not a detective i am not a preacher   i am not a counselor and i am not a social 
worker but i am a very desperate loving mother   that chases searches or hunts 
down my daughter at times my daughter is a heroin addict 
living in and out of strange houses   dangerous motels and on the streets 
she has been a victim of abuse   she has been used and taken advantage of 
in many ways that i can't even imagine   it all started around 10 years ago from 
pain pills and bad boyfriend choices it escalated for years and kept me her dad and 
my other two daughters in stress and sadness   along with anger and heart-wrenching experiences 
again and again and again and it hasn't stopped i've had her on missing persons 
for two times with law enforcement   only when my missions didn't work when 
i was trying to find her or hunt her   down or look for her in dangerous 
situations and horrible situations   she herself has been and is still going through 
this drug addiction disease that has taken over   her mind and her body and her sweet spirit her 
health her relationships with family are in ruin   the evil that has taken over my sweet beautiful 
little girl who grew up in ballet dancing cheering   happy competitions and of course yes every 
sunday sunday school church and youth group   and mission trips all of it good grades 
all up until her high school graduation day   a's b's sometimes c's but you know she was 
kind of a free spirit didn't care about the   a she would just say mama it's a c it's not an e 
just be okay with it and i'd laugh and say okay   so anyway she's just the average girl that 
does what girls do she is my daughter that   is sweet beautiful and very compassionate deep 
down she wants to be what she was meant to be at   31 years old but the drug has possessed her 
and she cannot find the way or the strength   but like my daughter has told me before 
mama it's too hard and it's just easier   to stay higher to get a fix mama i really want 
to i want to but i can't mama you have no idea   i'm glad my daughter tells me these 
things and she does share with me at times   she never ever used to hold back from 
me she always shared things and i would   always sometimes have to make promises not 
to tell anyone the people i worked with   the people that i was associated with at 
work and i promised and i didn't because we   didn't ever know what the consequences 
could happen i have watched her sick   vomit in hospitals and even in my bathtub me 
trying to savor myself trying to detox her because she wouldn't go to the hospital she'd get 
violent and get angry so i have put her in my own   bathtub it doesn't work i've had to call people 
to come and help me take her to the hospital   if her dad wasn't around to help 
but he he usually was always there   but i had to sometimes keep him at a distance 
because he's the father of a young woman that   is very beautiful and he's very protective 
and sometimes he gets very angry just as i do   and sometimes i would have to do these things 
alone without even telling him at times and i know i have heard so many times it's like 
a voice that won't go away well penny she has   to do this herself penny she has to want to get 
better penny she needs tough love penny you and   her father and abel penny she's an adult she has 
to do it penny stop worrying stop chasing her down   stop it before it gives you a heart attack penny 
are you praying about it have you asked god to   protect her penny just give it to god well i have 
over and over and over we all pray in my family   well she is getting worse she has had moments 
of being violent and the last couple of years   she actually has started to get more violent 
talking out of her head family we've had to   call 9-1-1 at times she has threatened she has 
threatened herself she talks out of her head like   she's mentally ill screams and we just stand there 
sometimes frozen and we just don't know what to do who knows can you imagine 
her having to live like this and there are a lot of families like you and i 
being touched by this drug infested community   and everywhere else i am sure she or anyone 
else living on drugs really deep down wants   a better life i and cannot seem to get there 
they need assistance they need professional   help my daughter and a lot of others need a 
tremendous amount of help from our community   experts doctors counselors judges attorneys 
law enforcement prosecutors and of above all   christ amen none of us can do anything 
without god's guidance and strength   to be honest i have grown very 
weary and sick to my stomach   over this horrible drug crisis that affects all 
of us in this community in some form or fashion   i have been to counseling i have been to 
support groups i pray her dad and i and   my other two daughters have been grieving 
and watching a slow death for many years waiting to hear the dreadful news i'm scared that 
i'm going to hear my doorbell ring in the middle   of the night my oldest daughter says it's 
horrible watching your sister die slow death and by the way the second od event she was with a guy friend that decided to do some 
heroin from greensboro that he had heard about he   sent my daughter to get it in greensboro 
all alone she drove her car because she   was desperate to she wanted it she drove her car 
alone to buy heroin from a dealer in greensboro   and decided to go into his bathroom and try it 
out the person from alamance that sent her to this   address to get the drugs all by herself and to 
bring some back for him shame on him shame on him she owe deed in the dealer's bathroom   and to this day my daughter still thinks 
that that drug dealer saved her life did the dealer save her life the irony of 
this a hero was he just an intelligent dealer   and you know usually dealers 
do not do the drugs themselves so did he save her or did he do this not 
to get himself in trouble i try to tell my   daughter he's protecting his own self well 
he the drug dealer put her in her own car   and drove her to moses cone and pushed her out on 
the sidewalk at the emergency entrance entrance   and drove away in his car i mean in her car excuse 
me he took her car but he put her license and her   cell phone in her pockets before he pushed her out 
of car i guess but he kept her purse in the car so when i got the call about the od i thought 
i was going to pass out i was in food line   with a basket full of items so heavy that it was 
cutting through my arm and when i got the call   and heard about the od at the moment i didn't 
know does this mean she's dead does this mean   that she's dead at the hospital am i supposed to 
go there is she going to be alive what's going on   so i dropped everything in food line and excuse 
me i hate to say this i urinated all over myself and didn't even realize that i had done 
it until a few minutes later i guess   so i rushed out to the car went to moses cone not 
knowing if she was dead or alive and when i went   into the lobby the doctor i guess they were 
waiting for me i guess for some weird reason   the doctor came out i didn't wait he took 
me back and he told me she barely made it we got her back she is fortunate very fortunate   she probably would have been gone in another 
15 minutes or less if the drug dealer hadn't   taken her to the hospital and 
dumped her out on the sidewalk and at the moment you got to think in your mind 
i didn't know the events that took place prior to   her being in that hospital other than that phone 
call so i had no idea about her driving the car   to greensboro by herself at that moment so i'm 
standing there in the hospital with her you know   and i'm all panicky and you know nervous when 
my daughter finally looks up at me my daughter   that almost died for the second time in her 
life looks up at me and said ma where is my car and i said what your car and i just stood 
there again frozen i didn't know what to say so we started talking and then 
i discovered what had happened   she told me what had happened the best she could 
recall at that time i used my anger my stress my   sadness my grief my fear and my pain i was going 
to get her car back i guess that was supposed to   make me feel better for some crazy reason her 
dad was at the beach with my dad trying to help   my dad do something and that is why her dad was 
not there at this time i had a friend to take me   to where my daughter described where her car might 
possibly be my friend and i were in the places of   greensboro just like some places and elements 
where you absolutely just do not want to be   we were at a stoplight trying to find the 
place that she was describing landmarks   everything trying to find her car and i don't 
know maybe i was just losing my mind at the moment without street names or anything no address and 
we are at a stoplight talking and saying and   just talking and my friends saying you're crazy 
you need to call the police are you crazy call   the police i said no i'm not calling the police 
because we don't know who these people are why   don't they go after my daughter in the hospital 
you just never know about these people these drug   and drug dealers you know you just never know 
or who who they were associated with in alamance   county so anyway we're at the stoplight and you'll 
never believe this her car goes right down the   road and turns off in a little in an area well 
my friend looked at me in fear and knew what i   was gonna do follow it they were driving i was in 
the passenger seat still controlling the situation   follow it follow it i got my car my 
daughter's car back without calling the police   you see i didn't know anything about this 
dealer man and did not want them going   after my daughter or family we followed a man 
driving and a young woman in the passenger seat   the guy driving the car pulled in a driveway went 
inside a small house apartment and the car was   in the back i told my friend to park back and to 
stay in the car and if anything looks really odd   or starts happening to please call 9-1-1 my friend 
was speechless and i'm sure absolutely terrified the man left the car running believe 
it or not the motor was running   and it was filled with smoke and marijuana and 
i go up to the door and open the driver's door   the girl is halfway sleeping nodding in and out 
whatever hi i got her attention and told her i   was there to get my daughter's car i said this is 
my daughter's car and i'm here to pick it up and   she just kept laying there and i said honey are 
you okay so i go around open the door and help her   out and she falls to the ground but she's okay she 
looks up at me and i'm sure we were being watched   and when she fell to the ground and 
looked up at me i asked if there were any   items at all that were hers in the car any 
items of that guy's in the car because by   golly i didn't want to drive away with 
anything in the car that belonged to them and she said no so i got in that car and i 
drove back to burlington a few months later   this guy in greensboro was 
arrested for drugs firearms   and trafficking my daughter probably went back 
there maybe a couple of times within that next few   months because she's the one that told me about 
the guy being put in jail and she was angry at me   because she thought that i turned him in and 
called the police afterwards but i didn't my daughter blamed me for getting him arrested 
and was telling me my daughter telling me   i better watch my back she was angry you see when 
she left the hospital that time she only stayed in   a rehab two days and left i could have been killed 
that day my friend could have been killed that day   anybody could have died that day and i 
should have called the police i was being   very crazy and out of my mind that day i guess 
as several times that i have done in the past but that's how sick and twisted drugs can make you 
and a family the drug is stronger than the person and yes she's young and beautiful and she 
has had many opportunities to get better   she's had a loving family that wants her 
to get better ree has several six or seven   she has no insurance and now it is almost 
impossible to get help if you don't have thousands   and thousands of dollars to send someone to a 
nice rehab forget it they're not going to help you   in the hospitals last couple years she's 
been over alamance hi out of her mind   escorted there taken by the police   gets there and is evaluated by a psychiatrist 
and they let her go my opinion no insurance how could she have been released 
when she was that crazy and acting   just out of her mind and they let 
her go back out in the streets and i'm not bashing the hospital but maybe you need more than one psychiatrist 
opinion within 10 or 15 minutes of an evaluation there are good places that can help addicts 
but you need insurance or lots of money   she has a history of going to rehabs that 
leaves and has someone to pick her up as   soon as she finds someone or she gets kicked 
out she's been to six or seven rehab centers   after long long hours of paperwork phone calls 
you just you just wouldn't believe it if you've   never done it it's just it's horrendous 
and then when you can get her in some place   and you leave and you get her settled and 
you go oh thank you god maybe this is it   you get a phone call six hours eight hours 
later a man we can't keep your daughter here   right now because she's not totally detoxed 
we're gonna have to send her to the hospital well so you know how all that goes we'll take her back we'll take her 
back when she leaves the hospital   only if there's a bed left in our 
rehab center believe it or not so she has lost a bed before just because she was 
sent to the hospital to finish detoxing because   she was so sick so then she goes back home with me 
or her dad wherever and then back on the streets so then the chase is back on for me trying to 
find her and make sure she's alive she is 31 and   has never had much happiness in her 20s she i am 
sure has been taken advantage of in so many ways   and she herself has done 
things that you can't imagine   just to get that high that takes over and 
possesses her body her mind everything   i asked her dad out of respect if he wanted 
to say anything he's kind of quiet and shy   but very smart but i did ask him if he would like 
for me to say anything today on his behalf i got   a text right back quote i think people don't 
realize that drug addiction is a disease   it starts as making bad choices with free 
will but at some point it takes over and   you have no control and can't choose to 
stop without a tremendous amount of help   most addicts have mental issues going 
on two or two also either from the drugs   or issues they had earlier that were pushed down 
or issues that were never taken care of who knows   i think people need to start looking at it as 
a disease no different than some others that   start out with making bad choices that 
can lead to other diseases and issues   people don't ostracize when 
they have those kind of issues   there needs to be some compassion and not turn a 
blind eye i am sure the large majority of crime   is drug related at some level unquote so 
my daughter has been in trouble a few times   in her early 20s then in her later 20s 
and now at 31 this is the third time she is over here in jail since july 21st   and i have to tell you a lot of people cringe if 
they see me say this i am so glad she's in jail i have prayed for something crazy to happen 
not her life i don't want her life destroyed   but i have prayed and prayed for god to use 
these situations to put my daughter in that jail that's awful to say about your own 
child but when she's in jail she detoxes   and i'm hoping and praying 
that she's getting her mind   back together you see she goes in 
these places and she's this big around and she calls me the other day mama please 
get me out of here i'm getting anorexia   from being in this jail caged like 
an animal i know better than that her problems did escalate because she needed 
help along the way she couldn't follow through   and didn't get help they have to get that 
high so they are going to break the law   and they are willing trust me they are 
willing to do anything and i mean anything   she has kicked me so hard before 
that it took me to the ground kicking your mom like that but i'm a mom i'll do anything to save my child   i am asking you to please do some research 
please and some readings on drug addiction   first study drug addiction if you really have 
never been touched with it in your life study it familiar familiarize yourselves with the 
north carolina judicial system drug courts   you can go to ncccourts.org i think 
there are 32 counties in north carolina   that have implemented drug courts 
some call them recovery course   and from what i have read so far because 
i'm still reading and i'm still researching but what i have read so far 
they can be very successful   they can be successful even 
for the county financially we can lift these people up and help them we need 
the beds at the jail for not the petty little   drug addicts but for the violent offenders 
that gave my daughter those drugs so anyway just please read and research we 
can try this we can do this you can do it   my eyes were open today just coming to this 
county commissioners meeting and i'm so glad   that i did because i had no idea i had no idea 
what what kind of stuff that you guys had to do   and i really appreciate you i appreciate all 
of you it's a hard job but as a community and you work together as a team 
with christ in the middle of it   and with everybody our our law enforcement 
by golly what would we do without them the bible says each one should use whatever gift 
he or she has received to serve others faithfully   administering god's grace in its various forms 
and the word grace i hope everybody really truly   knows what grace means read about that too if you 
don't if you don't really understand what grace is first peter it says in first peter it is in 
our service that all will see god's grace in   action as we demonstrate our faith service is 
the embodiment of christian love toward others   and i'm not standing here trying to say keep 
addicts out of jail because by golly if they   commit a crime they need to be held accountable 
for that crime my daughter has been in trouble   and we have tried to get her in rehabs that 
wouldn't even take her because she had a petty   pending charge or a little i mean some people 
might call it petty some people might call it   big but my daughter when she's my daughter that 
i raised and she's not owned drugs she's awesome so it can happen to anyone 
and i'm just asking for you to   come together and let's do 
something about our drug crisis too   i mean on top of every daggum thing else you got 
to do i mean it's so much and but i just and hey i would love to help in some form or fashion 
if i can i might have a couple of gifts so that's it just wanted to share my story and 
uh and just understand i'm not the only one   miss fogelman let me share 
something if i can yes sir   my daughter's middle name is grace i 
know really oh and thank you so much   for what you had to say today you're very 
welcome and thank you so much for having me   let me say i understand we have somebody else 
on the line michael graves is that correct it   was supposed to be here and talk yes let me tell 
you that's just one of hundreds of families here got him online mr grabs are you online 
yes i am can you hear me yes we can okay chair paige lee commissioners manager 
staff chair uh thank you for this opportunity   i will be brief because i have an 
appointment that i have to get to   but uh the ad program started about four years 
ago thanks to the sheriff with a meeting in his   office and i told him that there were 
a lot of people in the jail um some   innocent some guilty but they deserve their time 
to uh go in front of a judge and tell their story   that sometimes we're sitting languages in jail for 
months by even getting a visit from their attorney   and i told them that the shelters tell me well you 
know michael about 80 of the people in that jail   is in there indirectly or directly because of 
drugs i found that very hard to believe but   he's a friend and i trust him um but he's wrong 
about that i think i think he's up with the 85 to   90 percent uh people that's in alabama county jail 
are there because of drugs indirectly or directly   in the four years or more that we have dealt   as dealt with uh inmates in the county jail i've 
noticed a couple of things one our judicial system   is broken it's absolutely broken but that's about 
you guys bad grade ladies and gentlemen pay grade   nothing to do about that but i noticed two other 
thoughts one there are people that's in the county   jail that should not be there because the mental 
illness i've been in the healthcare and employed   a second board in health care for over 22 years 
only a sister live in rest homes and group homes   um i've seen individuals who because whatever 
reason go off their meds i've seen individuals   who have family members that are mentally ill 
that may have an argument the police has called   the police come there the person because 
they're often made or not even diagnosed   yet goes off when the police police have no 
no alternative but they arrest the individual   take the individual with the jail for petty 
charges probably he would be in there for about   maybe 30 days if he was convicted of anything but 
sometimes it has 60 70 days i'm 66 or seven months   um the average sale of a person in 
alabama's county jail is 192 days at 77   per day those people should not be 
incarcerated they need to be evaluated   and they need to be in a place where they 
can get the medical attention that they need   housing people that they are there in the middle 
hill i mean that a mentally causes several   problems one if you want to look at it from a 
standpoint of how much does it cost to counter   77 a day on the average of 192 days that's how 
much it cost every taxpayer in alamance county another thing it's caused me my staff is 
trained to deal with mental health issues   my staff they're training it's not an overnight 
training that you can get it's a continuous group   of trainings that you go through i do not 
believe that the alamance county detention   uh officers are trained in those times and so they 
can become overwhelming it can become stressful   for them to be dealing with these situations 
so what would that do that would cause you   to have a person say i didn't sign up for this 
and then they will leave now again the county   has lost a employee but you have to then 
train another employee to take that position   and all the while you're dealing with an 
individual that's mentally ill and all   the while somebody that it may again may get the 
early days since it's been there for 192 days   they are not getting the help they need so 
what happens when they leave they'll be back   they're going through the same same process 
again that person never receives the help   that they deserve and as a society we have 
failed them we have failed their families   number two that i've noticed is that again 
as the sheriff has taken and as the lady   uh spoke it really touched my heart because   i have worked with hundreds of inmates i've heard 
those exact same stories i have unfortunately   have family members that were on drugs in the last 
two years my mother had buried two of her children   one who was actively addicted to drugs 
and another one who was drug free   drug free for 20 years but the damage that was 
done to her while she was out their own drugs   took her life in the form of a 
massive heart attack at the age of 52.   you don't know the pain until you 
have to sit beside your mother   at a funeral staring at a casket that contains 
your sibling but her child and sit beside her   after losing her husband and two kids in less 
than two years you don't know that pain you   don't want to know that but this is a pain that 
i think is inflicted not just by the drug dealer   mr sheriff is doing everything he can to 
get rid of those individuals but you have   to understand you will never wipe drugs out 
of this county it is too big of a business you're going to have to try to limit   their customers and to limit their 
customers you're going to be drug programs you're going to need drug court do you know 
anybody that wants to be a cancer a cancer patient   you don't know nobody that wants to die of cancer 
there is nobody that wants to die from drugs   nobody wants to die from drug addiction those 
people won't help but they cannot find help   because they are stuck in their misery 
they're stuck in their addiction and until we as christians   realize that we are our brother's keeper 
it will continue to happen to my family   and please don't get twisted it can happen to your 
face drugs is a demon that will transcend always all social economic it has i have met people in avalanche county 
jail from all walks of family and i know   what type of family i've come from it's not that 
those parents were bad i had wonderful parents   wonderful grandparents that kept us in 
every baptist church in in alamance county   my brother said my sister was raised like that but we in this county give her   family housing as a journal court i've 
looked into it it's very successful if we say just one family delay that 
spoke if we could just say her daughter my brother my sister back in 
the 90s if we could have saved   one family from this greek that we experienced but they experienced we have done our job   i hate to appeal that seems like everything 
that we deal with now has to be broken down   if it's conservative belief or a liberal 
belief it's sad that we arrive that that [Music]   but i will point out again that 
this will say you the county money   because if you continue to allow these people 
to go to jail come out steal drug addicted   i guarantee you unfortunately with the ladies 
that just quote if she get her daughter out today   tonight if she doesn't have help 
she will be in another drug house committing another crime or crimes 
somewhere down the road they will   come back to the alabama jail you haven't 
solved anything you haven't done anything   and when somebody commits crime there's a victim a citizen of alamance county 
is going to be a victim   my brother had many victims where he would 
steal that from citizens of alabama's county   so you're also protecting the citizens of this 
county and so i would impress upon the community   uh that foundation is putting together a a 
program which i've talked to commissioner   carter after the sheriff knows about but i 
would i would impress upon the commissioners   to please do some research on the drug 
court plea to the personal research   on the center that will uh deal with the minute 
we ill that's currently clear at the jail   i think again that it is a thing that we have 
to do that will satisfy the tax prayers of this   county but it's also something that we can do that 
will satisfy the christians in this county we are   our brother's keeper our brothers are suffering 
daily i see it every day i hear it in their horses   and so much that the lady talked about 
with insurance my family experience and   i guarantee you families that we don't 
know have experience at the same time so i would implore the the the leadership 
of this county to please investigate   uh the drug court uh please investigate the 
first center that will deal with the mentally ill   it is worthwhile to put some time into this to 
put some money into this and to help our citizens   who right now at this point cannot help 
themselves but i will say this in the end   some of those individuals that i've seen in the 
past that cannot help themselves now when they   got the help that they needed and i'll say this to 
the lady there is hope if they get the help that   that that is needed my sister 
was one of those 20 years so so i i i i will tell you i'm praying for your 
daughter and i'm praying for others like your   daughter uh that there will be a success 
story like my sister and me 20 years clean   but they need help of county commissioners and 
i hope that you can sit in your wisdom and your   leadership to uh provide that help and work with 
the sheriff's department to uh get these people   the help that they need and i thank you for 
your time thank you michael thank you michael okay i know it's been going long but let 
me just say this folks what they're saying   what both of them said is absolutely correct 
we have got to do something in this county   drug court and a diversion center i've heard 
for three and a half four years about diversion   center divergence center and where we at nowhere 
i'm probably going to make some people mad but   all that federal money come here can be used to 
get that diversion center going in this county   and we're working with judge brown and the a group 
that is looking at the drug courts in this county   there's a whole lot of these young people 
that could have been saved that is now   basically hopeless for them i can tell you i am 
not a liberal when it comes to drug dealers i'd   want to lock every one of them up let them stand 
in retro life and i think we need to do that but   there's those individuals that are drawn into 
the drug world that are used as prostitutes human   trafficking around the country and i'll guarantee 
anybody uh that you see has been drawn into that   uh they didn't want to do what they did but they 
had to that's the only way to get their neck fixed   and let me tell you something you are the 
leaders here i'm a leader here and i can tell you   that we have been working we went to texas we've 
been to the buncombe county uh to look at their   systems and stuff we need debt here in alamance 
county not tomorrow but today and i'm telling you   many ain't many weeks i go by i don't have five or 
six in my office with problems with their children   just like this lady right here and 
i have to look at her and say well   right now i guess the only way she'll get off 
or he gets off is if he wants to to get off   we got to provide a system to 
help these individuals do that   so that brings me to my main presentation 
here it's called the maple avenue quarter   corridor excuse me where we're having major 
problems as the lady said with the hotels with   prostitution uh with drug dealings uh and we'll 
give you some information on as we go through this   in 2016 8.2 million adults had co-occurring mental 
illness and substance abuse disease disorder   in the past year they go together folks something 
has happened in that person's life that gets them   to turn the subject along drug abuse can 
make symptoms of mental health issues much   worse when they come in their jail like she 
said some of them coming out on misdemeanor   drug paraphernalia post a 
bond then next thing you know   they get out they go straight back get worse and 
worse continue to to to commit crimes and like i   say i you know i have no uh sympathy for the drug 
dealers and the major criminals in this state   subjects may sharply increase senses of 
mental illness or even trigger new ones this is one of our problems and i want 
you to know myself and my chief deputy   uh met with the chief acting chief 
of burlington and assistant chief   eric kearns the chief and brian long the assistant 
chief and they too agreed we need to get together   and stop what's going on in these hotels and 
i can give you some statistics in a minute   but these have been major problem areas for us 
as far as drug prostitution human trafficking   and we want to work with the people 
running these motels now i can tell   you now you probably go in they ain't going to 
show you the register and if they do they're   going to show you names that that people go 
and check they don't even ask for their id   we're gonna work with the owners of these hotels 
and with the manage these hotels to be able to get   what we need to to do our job and clean this 
corridor up i can tell you there's options   and i certainly ain't threatened enough but you 
know we can work to do a nuisance and abatement   on this hotel right with just a number of arrests 
that's been made there but we're going to try to   work with these hotels to try to stop this stuff 
and i can give you some statistics right now this is my brand new quarter hotel this is just 
burlington's statistics then i'll give you mine   but if you'll look at the 2021-94 rest uh sexual 
fence six robbery nun aggravated assault 12   you can see it i don't have to 
tell you you can see that up there   what's going on here and that's just the the 
quarter now i'm gonna give you the drug arrest   that we've made uh so far from january 1st 2020 
july 15 2021 we might we have made not just there   but over 1096 drug arrests in alamance county 
on the whole county no that's just the county   that's just the county that's not burlington evan 
hall river just in the world that's exactly right   we've made 82 arrests in these hotels and what our 
people do we have two officers here i'm going to   let them tell you in just a minute but they work 
these hotels religiously and a lot of times they   will follow the cars or the individual once they 
leave out into the county or on the interstate   that interstate is a problem for us uh and stop 
and find a lot of drugs as you can see up there   the arrest that we make something else that really 
alarming to me overdoses alamance ems response   this is just merchant medical term 445 january 
20 21 through july 28 2021.

This does not include   uh you know your unconsciousness cardiac arrest et 
cetera we just assure the sheriff's office since   january 1st 2020 through july 16 2021 alamance 
county sheriff's office have responded to   sure so 102 overdoses 10 fatalities 
and utilize 56 cases of narcan   folks we got a problem here and this is just what 
we know about this is just what we know about   sheriff can we shut this place down can we go to 
the owners and say look you're causing a health   issue believe me they'll see the sheriff faith 
when we start this operation because uh this is   ridiculous well i'm telling you these owners know 
this is going on oh yeah so they're culpable here   well i don't want to buy them out of the hotel 
though i do know there has been some problems   but i can tell you we will utilize whatever it 
takes within the law clyde may have to do like he   did with dockside dolls and the french quarters 
down there oh boy he needs some help now boy   but i i think we can if we do follow the right 
protocol and getting it done and nothing is off   the table you understand what i'm saying okay uh 
mental health commitments this is so you know 2016   we had nine 1919 mental health commitments 
the reason i'm doing this mental health and   drug addictions go hand in hand 2017 1861 2018 
1845 2019 1864 2020 1762.

And if you'll notice   the 2020 that's when we started having our people 
trained answering calls trying to de-escalate it   burlington had co-responders 21 so far as of 
july the 15th there's been a thousand and four   mental health commitments uh here in the county 
and that i'm telling you that takes money   that takes officers times and believe me the 
officers don't mind dealing with these individuals   because that's part of our job but when you look 
at them having to be there versus out on the road   stopping the drug traffic versus 
having a mental health commitment north carolina this is interesting too 
i pulled it off the center for these   control overdose data north carolina's 
ranked 12th in the nation for overdose   2020 3260 2019 23.83 increase of overdose 
deaths this is death now 877 increasing   over a year that's somebody's child that's 
somebody's daughter that's somebody's mama and i can tell you our mental 
health system in this state   is broke when it was taken out of state control 
buddy everybody's in it now for the money   but we got people dying we got people with mental 
health disorders that could be saved before they   die or before something else happens uh we we were 
the sheriff's conference training conference we   had a pound of shirts and the cliff remembers it 
i asked the question what would you say and i knew   what the figure was going to be i said what would 
you say the percentage of people in your jail   with mental health issues and that involved drug 
suffering percentage was you know what to say 75   every one of the shirts that's 
a lot of people and just think   could we be saving some of these people 
could we and i think we could then guess   what we'd be saving 77 a day or more than that 
if there's medical issues with these inmates and i'm loving it for any question 
but i would first like to call   two of my officers that work these hotels 
special operations please step up here i want you to explain these commissioners what 
what y'all have to do every day and what y'all   see with your own eyes i know they probably don't 
want to hear me but they may listen to y'all good afternoon commissioners mr chairman 
distinguished members of the of the panel my   name is lieutenant chris crane i am the supervisor 
of the street crimes unit at the sheriff's office   then our primary mission is to investigate drug 
activity in and around alabama county i mean the   things that the sheriff has shown you i can tell 
you from firsthand experience is true uh stories   like ms vogelman has shared is absolutely 
true i've seen it too many times and one   thing i can tell you is that we're not uh we're 
not fighting the war on drugs because war's end   and this thing's not ending so we got to figure 
out a different way we've been doing this thing   as the start this the same way for years and 
it's just not working um i don't know what the   answer is if i knew that i wouldn't be here i'd 
be somewhere else making a whole lot more money so   uh but i do appreciate the raise with god 
that was good thank you for that but anyway um i can tell you that um we spent a lot of time some 
of the numbers that that you've shown that you   were shown about the drug overdoses are are low 
uh we've had three more deaths in the past week   uh and if you look at 10 over the past uh 18 
months and you got three in a week that's an   alarming rate uh so we've got some fentanyl 
that's starting to come in now and also some   suspected carfentanil they started to come in 
it's been pressing the pill for them people are   taking it and it's killing people every day so 
it's a very real situation in this opioid crisis   in my opinion is what's driving it um so 
if you have any questions for me before i   pass it off to my my partner here craig 
i'll be happy to answer them if i can well um i came to see y'all a few weeks back 
the suit i'm so impressed um it looked a lot   different today you do but either way you're 
awesome and um and i'm just we just had a huh um i just um i know what you work with because i 
work with it at the jail um it's just not about   getting high and um when i come to see y'all about 
these motels i come in there like on a room just   ticked because we've got several clients that 
have been involved over there and i know there   are children that live over there sometimes and 
i had someone tell me that their bible school   picked up kids at a college one time for bible 
school and they went in to get two children and   their parents were just so stoned on heroin she 
said we could have just took those kids and never   known them but the fact that they went in and 
got kids for bible school makes such a difference   i think we have to realize that um people have 
families that this is involved in because if your   family has a drug problem a kid and your whole 
family has a problem and and i sit there and and   you showed me people who had been killed for um 
drugs because you don't really matter unless you   pay it up or you settle your um i had a really bad 
rape one time of a male that was out of not paying   a drug deal i've never seen anything like it i'll 
never forget him for the rest of my life but the   thing of it is is you showed me people i saw a 
girl with one shot in her shoulder and her back   that was somebody's mother or somebody's daughter 
i saw a boy with he was hid underneath the piece   of metal and the only thing sticking out was his 
legs how disgraceful to treat somebody like that   we had a teacher that was in a shootout a highly 
respected teacher a coach in another county   and it's like penny said it crosses all boundaries 
drugs doesn't it's not selective it's just whoever   it can get to devour and um it's just it's so 
crucial that we work on this as much as we can and   uh it's so crucial to have motels that you stay in 
for vacation or on your way to another destination   not to come here and sell out somebody's body 
or pimp out somebody or get high i was in court   two thirsty ago and everything before judge 
hanford even the 17 year old defendant with a   murder does now 21 getting sentenced everything 
was the core was drugs this is this is an evil   that owns your bones i see it with 
what i go to interview at the jail   and i can the first time i meet somebody and 
then the next week and the next week i slowly   watch that scum come off somebody because they 
can't get their hands on it and but the minute   they can walk out it's waiting on them and the 
thing we have such a hard time finding placement   for a rehab center it's just unbelievably 
difficult we can't have that difficulty we   need our own place here in alamance county 
to take care of our own people and because   regardless of how you want to hear people say just 
just get rid of them i promise to say that about   teenagers that get in trouble just get rid of them 
you know what we need to all look in the mirror   and realize that we have all been in situations 
where we made really bad choices and we just   happen to not get arrested so um i can't i know 
what you guys i know a small part of what you do   and um and i i don't know what it's going 
to take to shock this county to wake up to   realize that people are dying before they die and 
young people are getting this younger and younger   and and kids with this crap in their house do 
not do well in school they bring it with them   to school we see a lot of their discipline 
problems and and i you know these motels   these motels we're watching you because that ain't 
what you're supposed to be doing and sometimes   homeless children are housed in these motels and 
that is not safe for them and you must always open   your eyes to realize that you've got to look 
under every rock to make sure wherever you put   a kid they're safe so um guys just you you know 
you just you just need to tell us and tell this   county how it is how it really is you don't 
have to hold back you don't have to be pretty   they need to know because it's not down 
the road from us it is the road and we   don't know what streets you shouldn't drive 
down because you don't want to get in trouble   none of them because it's everywhere 
it goes to church every sunday you know before you gentlemen sit down i 
don't think he's finished yet okay you finished now i want to address all three 
of you lieutenant stevens uh thank you for   having me today i don't know what else i 
can say that chris hasn't hasn't already   explained he and i work hand in hand 
every day we talk about on all the time we refer to it as the wake 
you can see the destruction   that it you see these people 
from start to finish basically   you see the destruction that the um the 
drugs are having on i don't feel for her it's it's a bad deal i don't know how else to 
explain it in my my opinion we've seen um i don't   think it's heroin so much anymore i don't remember 
last time we saw brown powder heroin everything   we're seeing now is white which lends to either 
cut with fentanyl pure fentanyl or parchment   and again depressed pills so i think that's the 
cause what the solution is i do not know how about   telling us what it does to you to face this every 
day the nights you work the crazy situations you   face and you just shake your head why do people 
do this to each other or to themselves what's the   wear and tear it has on you because you're away 
from your family i mean it's hard on the heart   anybody that has children or loved ones anybody 
has any kind of empathy or compassion at all   you know it's hard it's hard to 
watch that sometimes you just have to   to switch it off i don't know how else 
to explain it you know alamance county early in your career in my career had the alameda 
council at one time it was a three-county mental   health authority at that time mental health 
authority had psychologists psychiatrists   all kinds of facilities right here in 
alamance county governor hunt came along   and the democratic legislature at that time 
wanted to outsource everything and they did away   with all the mental health authorities mr albright 
now worked sort of together in dissolving the   mental health authority here in alamance county 
and because it was under a statutory mandate   that they go away and ever since then everything's 
been outsourced and i'm not trying to put down   the outsourcers or the agencies but things 
have gone downhill dramatically every day   since that day we've got to go back to some 
type of the diversity center is just a start   and we've got to have that and right now 
we've got the next thing on the agenda mr   albright's going to tell us about the opioid 
settlement and we're talking about dollars   earlier in this meeting we talked about 
the arpa money again millions of dollars   we've got the money we've got to have 
the determination and the willingness   to spend the money in the right areas 
absolutely and solve some of these problems miss hey good my thought is and i guess i'm a little emotional because i don't know 
any family that hasn't had this problem we need to get this group the four of you folks 
right there this gentleman right here or his   person and some of us and then larry brown 
i think either tom lamberth or brad allen   and we've got to determine what we can do to solve 
and the drug court is just one option diversity   center is another there are all kinds of options 
but we've got to put the money in the right place   to do what we need and i'm just going to add to 
that john i've met with andy hanford because i've   told you that andy hanford and larry brown said 
they wanted to lead this in a recovery court and i   met with judge jay bryan and larry and i are going 
to orange county september the 8th brian and um   to what observe orange counties but vaya is also 
going to come here to meet with us to help us get   the diversion center going and look at a recovery 
court because that's what they do because as much   as i want this and i know everybody in this room 
is we need the professionals that know how to   start this because orange county may be one thing 
high point may be one thing buncombe county may   be one thing but it needs to be almost counties 
because we are our own county we just can't go   take something and think that will work here but 
it's gotta fit with everything and it and it's um   the the way it's just it's economical but the 
thing of it is with drug addiction alcoholism   anything it is going to always be there you don't 
fix people you fix buildings you fix roads but   this is a lifetime commitment with someone that 
walks in these shoes because it's chasing them   like anything that has us it chases us forever 
and that's what the community's got to get around   is this isn't a fixed quick you know quick fix on 
something and money's gonna fix us we've learned   this with schools another million dollars does not 
fix a kid and i'm not throwing off an abs i love   them but i'm just saying we got to really open our 
eyes wide to understand the trauma behind doing   all these drugs you just don't wake up it's like 
it's like human trafficking it's like prostitution   there ain't a five-year-old girl in this county 
wants to grow up and be a prostitute she wants to   be a fairy princess but depending on what happens 
to her or him along the way can determine that   choice and it's a nightmare it's a cancer it is a 
real cancer and there's no chemo that can fix it   but it's going to take the whole sport of the 
community and to realize that it is ugly and you   have to fight ugly because it's going to kill 
us sometimes i feel like we are the television   show the walking dead because people are just 
walking around i know what they're doing just   just go to the jail one day and just go meet 
people and go go to motels and just watch i went   over and sat in the parking lot i know i've lost 
it i'm in the parking lot taking pictures thinking   what is going on over here i drove to every one 
of those vehicles i thought why are these parking   lots so full at three o'clock in the afternoon is 
this a big destination of tourism i don't think so   and i'm on the phone with terry calling 
him just and i'm thinking that i'm gonna   be kidnapped but that's okay god help him but i'm 
just saying we've got to go to war on this this   is a war and um we we can't we cannot keep acting 
like or just we just can't keep not doing this   and there'll never be enough officers there'll 
never be enough nurses there'll never be enough   teachers but we got to give them everything 
they need and our commissioners have got to   get on board we cannot be a group of five that 
all we do is vote we gotta fight and that's the   big difference and i know everybody at this desk 
right here are fighters and we've got to really   lean into this and stand by our law enforcement 
the whole county burlington hall river everybody   law enforcement it's a community county problem 
it can't be left on one law enforcement agency   i'll say this i can tell you uh acting chief 
kearns and assistant chief long has dedicated   to us coming together wanting our help because 
they're short officers we showed officers   but together we're gonna make it rough on some 
people i can tell you that hey don't get out   of this county they keep dealing dope stuff like 
that we're coming after them and i want them to   know that yeah i do too it's power and unity 
well i may have some news that might help oh   i met with a group last week who's 
considering donating a facility to the county i'll find out more probably later this 
week or early next week they would if   they if they do it they would probably want 
to donate it to the county and let the county   determine what organization might run it well 
i'm telling you we need a diversion center and   all these non-profits i think the commissioners 
need to look at them hard who is accomplishing it   exactly they should be a con and who is not and i 
can tell you it's hard to put a price on a human   life oh definitely well via when we all did the 
interview with them a big issue was the divergence   right uh we wanted to make sure they were going 
to be part of that but your daughter until you   get her into a three to six month center is not 
going to make it oh i know that so i've got a jd   not an md but i've been around the jd business 
long enough to know that and i was you know   chairman of the mental health board and so forth 
back when it was a mental health and i've seen   it over and over again so somehow we've got to 
have the facilities and the resources to do that   sort of thing wouldn't it be nice for everybody 
to visualize something really big the corridor think about it the motels could be   a positive corridor and i think burlington is 
looking to try to work i've got information   trying to clean up some of that area and 
make some changes which i think is fantastic   but you know i i get sick in time time 
hearing mothers like this lady right here   come in and there's nothing you can 
do but catch them and put them in jail   i mean that's all i can do we have we have money's 
coming in now and i'm not trying to take any coven   money but i'm telling you yes he is if we can get 
a diversion center we're going to keep some people   at that jail at 77 a day what was that said 100 
some days in jail or whatever it was that's a lot   of money folks and that's not counting the medical 
expenses on these people we got one right now i   guess still over the hospital is that correct 
that uh come in on drugs and guess what seizure   boom you know hospital we're having people 
say we're around the clock around the clock   folks the people out there need help and i'm 
telling you we need help and law enforcement and   i know everybody in here feels the way that i do 
about this lady's situation if it didn't touch you   you're not a human being but that's just one of 
hundreds in this county that we deal with every   day and i know we've gone a long time so we're 
going to sit down and shut up thank you guys   thank you and we thank you mr good but we asked 
the four of you on this front row right here   and some of the others to come back with us 
on the uh 16th yep i said the 19th earlier   uh on the 16th with some proposals and maybe a 
committee what what what your suggestions are   sure yeah thank you mr chairman i've had an 
offer for if they decide they're interested in   donating this facility an offer for the for us to 
take a tour of the facility and see what we think   of it before we have to accept it so where is 
this facility i'm not at liberty to say right now   and i don't know either the decision has not 
been made it's just being considered okay   mr chairman one thought is that uh in preparation 
for this meeting and had some conversations with   folks guilford county has established recently 
in conjunction with cohn a mental health facility   that includes a diversion center that may be a 
good place to start just to look and see what was   recently created i know we want to have something 
that's tailored to us but that might be a starting   point because they're sisters mental health 
and drugs they're really wicked sisters   one cause and effect i don't 
think they're gonna be quick okay you're good it's all right yes sir we're gonna 
give you three and a half minutes but in 2018 we got together with about 4 
000 other attorneys across the country   and decided we had enough of the opioid crisis and 
the lawsuits were filed with the big manufacturers   cardinal mckissin amersource bergen and johnson 
johnson and purdue pharma purdue farmer filed for   bankruptcy and we have filed our proof of claim 
we think that might generate 100 million dollars the big four settled or proposed a settlement for 
26 billion dollars and according to the national   settlement agreement the states have 30 days 
to sign on to and we as a local government   have 150.

But the county attorney association 
and the association of county commissioner   and josh stein then a rare move of 
cooperation worked with us and came up with a   memorandum of agreement which i'm before you 
today i ask you to authorize me to sign it   and what that does the memorandum agreement 
as outlined in the document itself gives 15   of this money to the state 750 million dollars as 
north carolina's share state will get 15 percent   80 percent goes to county governments and local 
governments i think there's 17 municipalities that   qualify it's all laid out in exhibit g to the 
agreement i think all of you have a copy of it   kevin leonard emailed it to us 383 pages so i 
thought i'd save you some time uh we we think   it's the thing to do about 53 local governments 
have signed on and others are signing on at their   meetings this week so let me tell you what dollar 
amount we're going to get we get a percentage it's   1.378 percent of 750 million dollars which totals 
10 million 335 thousand 217 dollars and 25 cents   i was afraid 10 million 335 217 and 25 cents 
over 18 years do the math times um it's seven   574 thousand 178 dollars and 50 and 73 cents 
per year give us that to alamance county 574 178.73 thank you doesn't include 
100 million we expect from purdue   i'm not sure how that's going to be 
divided but i don't expect that will be   a great amount coming to us 
we'll just have to wait and see but i think this very favorable uh agreement 
and if we don't sign it we may get something   a lot worse it's already is 
that the net number after   attorney fees our attorney fees come out of that 
number and that's another source of contention   the national firms have signed on to this the 
local firms are crying that they need more money   they have an agreement with the national firm 
we have an agreement with the local firm and um   this moa addresses that but i think it's uh 
25 and if you include their cost 35 percent but the attorney's first week elected   the national agreement includes 1.6 billion 
dollars to pay attorneys 1.6 billion so we   feel like signing the moa would be the thing for 
the county to do so i ask that you authorize this resolution or authorize me to sign it and and 
then give the manager i think the resolution   gives the manager and me authority to uh 
receive the money and then we'll spend it and addressing some of the concerns of addiction so 
we can turn that money around to go into the very   issue we were just talking about yes 18 years 
five what's wrong with them people you paying   them lawyers all that money up front why can't 
you just go and pay counties up too that's what   i just asked and we're not going to pay them as 
we collect them is that the chicken people no   there's another panel you should go see how much 
this made off if they're willing to give the given   uh the lawyers one points one billion dollars 1.6 
billion they made a boatload of money on this one   well and it's you got to remember these laws 
these big firms are going to continue in business   so as long as they continue in business 
they can pay the settlement fee but anybody that's struggled with addiction i 
don't think there's anybody in the room that   hasn't or doesn't know someone absolutely it's my 
own personal thoughts maybe i should shut up but   we spent five million dollars on an animal shelter 
thank you well how we can use that money to best   serve this group a population of people that 
struggle and i mean everybody says just don't take   it i'm sorry it just don't work that way toward 
the operation of the divergent center right right   sure you could combine it with the maintenance 
of effort money that we already spend by law   annually to pay for diversion center hours to 
expand those hours or to find other programmatic   uses inside the diversion center or something 
else along those lines but absolutely yeah   it would be good funding to have uh we've been 
struggling to try to take the diversion center   from its current number of hours to 24 hours a 
day and to add these chairs where individuals   can stay for 23 hours and whenever these funds 
start coming in they'd be dependable funding   for 18 years so it would be it could be a part 
of that sustainable funding the via folks we're   speaking about how do you find this money to keep 
it going we're going to get half a million dollars   a year for 18 years that's a reasonable way to 
consider to use it that's a lot like alcoholism   once you're an addict you're always an addict and 
simply taking you putting you in jail punishing   you and throwing you right back out it's not 
gonna solve the problem you just hold your   breath in jail that's what you do i'll make a 
motion that we accept let um mr albright sign   this or however i need to word it well the board 
needs to approve and sign the resolution you have   a copy of it we need to have a second i'll see 
any other discussion about what he already had 35 of 10 million 335 thousand 217.25 is three 
million six hundred and seventeen thousand   three hundred and twenty six dollars and pennies 
right payable over 18 years when we get paid they   get their share still an incredible number yeah 
it is but you know how those lawyers are mr town i'm getting a little uncomfortable here 
guys are you surrendering your life   mayonnaise on a sandwich here what well they 
they did fight a tremendous fight a 15-week trial   in west virginia that produced the suffering 
so as you know being an attorney you you have   to apply heat at the appropriate spot in order to 
get a settlement and these are big firms that had   their own lawyers that put up a fight [Music] 
like aaron brockwich any other discussion all   in favor signify by saying hi you know 
thank you thank you thank you thank you [Music] we've been asked to do a 
10 minute break i apologize good afternoon um i am before you to talk 
about a compensation plan for dss um you   probably have heard that we have been um we've 
had so much turnover there right now we have   a 20 vacancy rate um i looked at our stats this 
morning and just on friday we had um it was six of   our staff last day so we had six people to leave 
just on friday um so so this is workers were they   i'm sorry what type so some of them were 
social workers and some of them were our   income maintenance workers um so we have been 
working with the county manager's office to look   at just some creative ways some strategies that we 
can address this turnover problem i will tell you   in speaking with my colleagues from other counties 
it's pretty rampant in dss across the board   so we have looked at three bonus plans um and so 
you can see we have looked at a retention bonus   for our staff who have been with us who have 
stayed dedicated and who are working lots of   hours right now we're also looking at a sign-on 
bonus some of our neighboring dss's are doing the   same thing looking at sign-on bonuses for some 
of the hard to hire positions and we're looking   at a referral bonus we thought that if we could 
have our staff who are with us now refer people   potential candidates for employment that would be 
an incentive to be able to give them a bonus for   referrals um and and in these three bonuses we um 
looked at some compression issues so we do have   um just a small amount of compressions it just 
involves five positions that we're looking   at in this plane what i'm sorry i didn't catch 
compression compression yes that's what i thought   you said that's right so when um so if workers 
receive increases but their supervisors don't   or if supervisors receive increases and their 
managers don't then you have them bumping up   right there at each other with salary so we have 
to address some of those compression issues there   do we have some of what going on in dss with what 
similar to what happened with the sheriff's office   uh yes we did we did last year i believe it was 
we implemented a targeted raise program for dss   using their budgeted funds we operated 
inside their the department's budget   same issue tried to target high turnover 
positions but that did not target everyone   so we had some supervisors that now uh employees 
are catching up to so adrian's uh suggesting that   we consider i believe it was five individuals 
their employees are getting near and [Music] here for additional s this is done through the 
salary budget of dss for this fiscal year we're   certainly hopeful that this will help dss [Music] 
we know that the turnover they're experiencing   sheryl does turnover reports through hr every 
quarter and dss out of the top nine positions is   at least in the top five every time particularly 
social workers and income case workers that's   just unbelievable amount of turnovers so the 
idea would be these are these are bonuses for   the most part bonus uh as adrian said bonuses 
for everyone in the department uh bonuses for   the folks that are signing on in these 
tough tough to fill positions uh to be paid   after six months completion they get through 
their probationary period they receive a bonus   if they get through another six months because 
what we see is the turnover really happens   between years one and five that's when people 
are leaving alamance county government general   particularly dss so where are they going so 
um we're seeing in these top five turnover   positions they're either going to counties 
surrounding counties or they're leaving the field   um and that's that's pretty much what we're 
seeing um and and uh like let me just talk   you talked about the 2019-2020 budget and 
the funding then did that not help anyhow   uh i think the raise that we did was in 
2021 it was february of this year actually   um and it was a four percent increase 
for our three top turnover positions   and we're wagers provided information i don't 
believe they've seen help from that move and   uh the information we have that compares us to 
orange county durham county and randolph county   where average pay for social workers is a little 
over forty six thousand dollars and the the lowest   of those three is randolph at a little over 48 so 
even with the the four percents we're still low   and it doesn't seem that that action didn't 
seem to have the effect that we desired well   and i think i think the difference here is that 
we have traditionally been a training county so   we tend to hire staff who don't completely qualify 
as social workers uh we our highest level social   worker is the social worker iant and that's our 
investigative assessment treatment social worker   most counties don't hire them unless they're 
fully qualified so they come to alamance   they get fully qualified they get some experience 
and then they can go next door and make four to   eight thousand dollars more um so while they're 
starting salary may be somewhat close to hours   that's not what they're leaving for i mean they're 
leaving for much more than that because they   do have that experience so they can negotiate 
their starting salary and i have a friend who   has a daughter a friend who has told me that her 
daughter did exactly the same thing experienced should we be addressing salaries or bonuses well 
i had hoped that our merit program and even the   merit and cost of living this year 
would be of some help i think it's just   we may be moving slower in in the uh increases 
that we've done we did try to speed it up with   the four percent but that that didn't help either 
so at this point you know those are funds salaries   realized over the course of the year so the 
thought here was would a thousand dollars at   higher after six months plus another thousand in 
a 12-month period is that trying to get money a   little quicker to the employee but i think in the 
long run yes i think adjusting uh dss's salaries   is going to be the answer to that and that's kind 
of what we looked at budget and didn't approve   well we we the commissioners approved additional 
funding for dss i think in 2021 dss was funded   in such a way that uh they weren't fully funded 
they had to leave on average 11 positions open   throughout the agency this year the amount of 
funding that dss received for salaries was more i   think they are on track right now to back to make 
it through the year with a balanced budget that   have to leave on average uh eight positions open 
in dss but i think you have over 40 at this point   as of today we have 46 openings so we're getting 
to a level of real concern to be able for them to   be able to continue to meet their their mission 
which uh my understanding is some of the areas in   dss have struggled i think child support uh the 
child support agents have struggled because the   turnover is so quick i think they're struggling 
to meet the goals of revenue that they collect   on behalf of kids because it takes training and 
know-how to do that work and when you're turning   over as fast as they are they're not able to to 
get that knowledge and and right now we're seeing   um the number one reason for staff leaving is just 
the amount of work that they're having to do i   mean they're they're covering two and three case 
loads so um and what we've heard is i'm burned   out um i don't have a work life balance and um so 
until we get some people in there that can share   that load you know that that's what we're seeing 
we're not seeing um that it's due to culture or   you know training needs it's it's just the amount 
of work right now and the fact that if you're   gonna do this work covet has has been a barrier 
um because you know like someone said earlier   our social workers have continued to go into 
facilities where there's covet or homes um but   what we're mainly seeing is the workload right now 
can this not be looked at as out of our code funds   i think some of it might be able to be eligible 
for premium pay if we use premium pay our funding   we're going to have to really look at the dss 
employees responsibilities to to make sure we   can draw some correlation to how much of the of 
their work are they doing to address covet so   i don't know that it would necessarily help 
every one of these employees that are in the high   the high turnover that is certainly a way to 
to try to do it i think if if the commissioners   were interested in looking at this plus 
any salary work yes we'd want to look at   premium pay and sit down with adrian say okay 
let's look at each employee each class how much   work are they doing today because that's going 
forward and the hope is going forward to work with   covet will decrease right so we want to make sure 
we understand how to apply orpha through premium   pay to these folks if we can mr i think all of 
us all five want to help you but i don't think   i'm going to suggest to this board that we 
put this over to this the 16th to determine   what's the cause why are they leaving if it's 
solely salary we're wasting bonus money like 400   000 or whatever that grand total is 393 239 yeah 
i think we need to find out what the problem is   um and miss hook and i guess mr haygood 
primarily uh let's determine what the problem is   and come back on the 16th with a 
solution that might solve the problem   instead of put a band-aid on it 
at least that would be my fault   i kind of thought you just told us it's workload 
it's the workload is the primary reason right now   we need to get people that are going to stay there 
and if the salaries are so low we're a training   center we haven't helped anything that was part of 
the budget yeah i got a question yes what are you   are you having difficulty bringing people in with 
zero experience are you having people that has   10 years experience and applying for jobs no okay 
so it is a salary issue yeah okay i have a idea   what's your starting salary for a person if you're 
bringing this off the street today what would you   what would you offer them would you what would it 
be uh would you have a parameter okay they have   this experience they don't have this experience 
you try to get an idea where they fall in your   do you have a that is that is how we look at 
salaries so we look at someone off the street   so we are under office of state human resources 
so there's a qualification that we have to do so   we have to see where they qualify if they 
qualify we look at someone um who's been   at the agency for a period of time because 
again there's this whole compression issue   that we're always dealing with as well um but 
we do try and negotiate if someone comes in   fully qualified they don't start at 
starting salary um so we do look at   that we do because my suggestion to you is just 
a suggestion because i've had this problem before   and this is how i solved it and it was not a 
problem that i saw in a year multi-year issue   i got a budget and i made sure that every dime 
of that budget i spent on salaries i went out   and hired people and paid them twenty thousand 
dollars more than i normally pay them just to get   the person in the seat and i gave them such 
a good deal that they didn't want to leave   and they didn't want to leave for two or three 
years because i had signed them up in such a way   that they realized that if they walk out the door 
they're going to lose money they're not going to   go to the next job and make more money because 
they are making more money than they would in   the next now i know this is a situation that is 
a little bit different because this is government   and it's not corporations but the same issue 
applies if you can if we can sit down and maybe   let's it's up this sound if we haven't salaries 
problems let's up the salary okay let's do that   first and let's give them a signing bonus and 
let's give them another sign above after they stay   there for a year let's make it such a way in which 
they will think twice about walking out the door   now i know this is going to cost us some money 
but i think if we don't use the money that we have   allocated for salaries and a way to get a person 
in the seat then the money is actually doing us   no good we can have 10 million dollars and if 
we can't if we are you know we can't pay this   person 5 000 more a year because well well we're 
not doing ourselves any favor i'm saying let's go   ahead and that's a it's a it's it's attacked the 
problem that we have let's throw some money on it   and see how that happens because you know 
as well as i do that everyone gets up every   morning to go to work it's not because they 
love their job as they get paid every two weeks   i love my job but if you didn't pay me 
every two weeks i probably wouldn't show up but i'm saying there's ways we can do this i'm 
just not certain after i looked at your proposal   i understand what your problem is but i'm not 
certain that that will solve it i think it could   be a combination of that and some other things 
i think we can solve this problem so i think we   were looking at it that this would somewhat be 
an immediate it could have some immediate effect   absolutely um and that's what we were looking 
for just to really stop the bleeding right now   um that and so we we have worked quite extensively 
with uh how many people do you have applying for   these jobs very few so positions where um i'll 
use our income maintenance um caseworker position   on average we would get you know 100 applications 
for a vacant position uh for one because those   are really entry-level sure um i think two 
weeks ago uh hr said that for one we got 20.   so it's it's yeah we're just not getting the 
application do you think it might change i know i   hear things on tv you know certain but our state's 
not that way so it really shouldn't be that way   uh people waiting to you know they have um 
work issues that alleviate themselves and   like some people get i noticed i know several 
people who aren't going back to work until   the end of september because that's when their 
benefits right i wonder if that may help you at   all that could potentially um be the issue with 
those um i think entry-level positions because   the salaries for those aren't well let me ask 
you again because i think i forgot what is the   salary what's the what's the entry level salary 
that you're bringing i think you said 46 000   whatever that's social work that's social 
work that's not my income maintenance gotcha   who says the salary ranges does the county set 
them up no um office of state uh human resources   so we don't really have 
local control over the ranges   so the states that you're they they do but we can 
operate within those ranges and the county's been   uh very eager to help us to be able to operate 
within those so the state sets the grade that the   position is in but the county sets 
the range of the grade the salary   can you say that again so the state sets the 
pay grade that the position would be in but the   county sets the range right the number so we can 
increase ourselves and other counties have higher   ranges well i think it's a combination of other 
other counties have higher ranges other counties   not necessarily have some of them have higher 
ranges but also some of them are giving more   credit for years of service for education and that 
sort of thing so she has a base salary and then   she can add on to it based on qualifications and i 
think other counties maybe are adding more on for   qualifications and we have had this conversation 
before because she's at a place right now where   we're not able to find qualified 
people so we're bringing them in   a dollar under the minimum and saying we're going 
to work against the qualifications and once you   get a year in then we'll give you the extra dollar 
and you'll be in that pay range well once they get   a year in they'll go somewhere else because 
now they've got a year and they're qualifying   for more somewhere else and not all department 
of social services are under um office of state   human resources there are some counties that are 
consolidated so um they don't have to follow oshr   rules and regulations you find consolidated so 
in in some counties uh the public health and dss   is under uh one director you mean two departments 
yes yes and so they when they consolidate they're   not under office of state human resources are they 
consolidating to save money or that was an option   the state gave counties a couple of years ago 
and uh i remember right i think the counties can   it's where the board of commissioners become the 
authority right now the dss board is the authority   board over dss and the board of health is the 
authority board over the health department in   a consolidated model you have a number of things 
happen that the board of commissioners suddenly   becomes the the takes on the responsibility or 
can for those boards it it pulls the employees   of departments out from under office of state 
personnel puts them under the county's uh   guidance or personnel uh policies those kind 
of things so it was done to my knowledge in a   couple of locations where commissioners had issues 
with staffing at uh dss's or health because those   department heads do not report to the board of 
commissioners so the few that i knew of that   actually happened it was usually a rub between 
the commissioners and one of the bodies and they   did that to say we need control of this agency for 
whatever reason um so obviously here we have great   folks great missions uh being met i think the dss 
this this pay issue is the real the real bear and   uh you know commissioner isaac you're correct 
we can have lots and lots of money budgeted   but if we're not getting it to the employees we 
can't put the person in the seat we're failing   that's what i'm saying let's let's let's maybe uh 
incrementally start raising these raises on the   on the on the front end and uh don't be i think 
a thousand dollars is not enough for signing bugs   but i don't know how much your certain 
salary is if your starting salary was 45   and you gave someone a 5 000 
bonus spread out over six months would that help would that help that employee 
would that help your situation so i think you   would get someone in the seat i don't know 
that we'll be able to retain them retain them   because it's solid well so so i think we'd 
have to see because when we look at where um   where we're seeing vacancies it's it's within 
that first year like most of our recent vacancies   have been with people who have been with us 
probably less than a year could we um could we um   really up our salary games they go from 45 to 
55 and sign them for two years and give them a   bonus every year for those two years i'm trying 
to think of a way to keep someone in a seat for   730 days sure that's all i'm trying to do i'm 
trying to figure out how much it would cost to   keep them in that seat for 730 days yeah i think 
we'd also have to look at the ones who have been   there too how to keep them in that absolutely 
because if you start giving five thousand dollars   of signing bonus well maybe five grand too 
much i i don't know i don't know what the   magic number is but i like that but i would 
like to well you know i guess the next time   you um next time you bring another person in 
to that you think you might want to hire uh   let's talk about it i mean seriously i hope 
that's tomorrow well let's do it my phone   is working 24 hours a day so as long as you 
don't call me at 3 30 a.m we're gonna be fine   uh because i think there's ways we can do this 
and it's just a matter of maybe we may have to   think uh outside the box as far as the 
money that we have available to hire people   let's use let's get some people in the 
seats and let's think of creative ways   to keep them in the seats yeah and people we 
all know people are motivated by money yeah   and it would be nice if other people came here yep 
instead of going and leaving us to go other places   maybe we can create something in such a way people 
want i remember when there was um a shortage with   nurses because they got tired of doing all 
their job and not making a whole lot of money   so they decided fine then and then all of 
a sudden they could just about set their   their salary and where they were going to go 
so um you know everybody is super important   especially in this field and um this is hard 
work but it's it's a calling it really is and um   we just got to make it worth the while so we as 
a board suggesting we put this all to the 16th may i ask a question that will inform you of my 
decision on that mr chairman um director dave i'm   seeing five you have recommendations for five high 
turnover positions yes what what what kind of work   are those five so our social worker iant those are 
our social workers in child protective services   foster care adoption those positions um social 
worker threes are our adult protective services   okay so um a guardianship um that's another 
area where our numbers continue to increase   um and and if you notice under the 
social worker three i put child   welfare and adult services only because 
we do have some social worker threes   outside of um adult services and child welfare 
but those aren't our high turnover positions   and our income maintenance too workers those are 
our medicaid and food nutrition services workers   and then our income maintenance supervisors we're 
really having a hard time finding supervisors and   some of that economic services the qualification 
is very different so you don't qualify as the um   income maintenance caseworker too unless you've 
done the job for a year and and most agencies   don't have income maintenance caseworkers one 
so most of the people we hire we hire them in   a work against but you also have to be an income 
maintenance caseworker too for two years before   you qualify as a supervisor so that also is some 
of the problem okay is the qualifications and then   um the csa is our child support agent two 
positions and so those are the ones who are   establishing um child support as well as enforcing 
child support these are people who are i mean   rubber on the feet on the road that's right 
that's right things happen um that's right   one uh question is as i understand it with the 
the budget that was passed um a couple months   ago dss could hire 23 people with the increase 
that your budget allowed if we if we add more   money to this plan it would seem your ability 
to hire additional folks within your current   budget structure would go down that would be 
correct if we were able to hire yes do you have   a sense of of how many you could hire in your 
current budget structure if we accept this plan   so i think given where we are in um in the budget 
year i mean it just started but because right now   we have 46 vacancies right so they're not going 
to come in overnight so um you know i feel like   and and we always have vacancies and attrition 
so i really feel like we could get to a point   that we could hire those those positions 
within this budget okay i i really think so   because of if you look at history with turnover 
hopefully that's not going to happen but   it's kind of hard not to look at what 
we've traditionally seen um i understand mr chairman my initial thought was that we might 
you know tweak this a bit uh it seems to me that   there's an immediate need and then we have to stop 
the bleeding yes and that and this does that uh   to an extent but that we also take a long 
hard look at dss it's its pay structure its um   its retention root causes uh so that we 
have a i think a more in-depth look to   to not just stop the bleeding but but to allow 
the agency to to excel um so i would support   this today and that we look long-term okay uh what 
needs to happen okay putting that informal motion   um yes and and and i therefore 
still move oh so good i'll second it   the only comment i've got is i 
think we're putting a band-aid on   and not solving the problem well he just 
said we didn't want to stop here yeah oh   well we have definitely been working well with the 
county manager's office and so we will continue to   um look at this issue especially in light of the 
fact that this you're not asking for additional   funds this is within your budget that's right 
let me ask you one additional the bus station   uh supervised visitation center for children has 
that been reestablished or so that is not under   dss that was under family abuse services okay 
all right i have one question too what's an ims   ims is an income maintenance supervisor okay 
and then an income maintenance case worker case   caseworker what do they do um that's our medicaid 
and food and nutrition services our food stamps   okay i don't think people in general really know 
what all dss does no they don't and i think nobody   would have had a clue about the public health 
department if we hadn't had coping because during   times like this you really get exposed as to what 
all you do and and i'm i'm with you john i just um   this i i'm on their board and i hear 
it and i see the look on bob's face   every time he does a human resources i 
mean it's just really debilitating and   and everybody's kind of spreading their self 
to help everybody else it's a real team effort   and and that kind of work it's a lot of burnout 
and um and that goes with it no matter what but   until you really get their wages competitive with 
who they keep flocking and leaving the county for   i you know i'd rather have a wage that's 
competitive so i can stay in my own county than to   get a one-time bonus because that one-time bonus 
is like the stimulus thing and what you spend   on is your business but if i have a wage that 
compares to where i would have left for then i'm   gonna stay right here and do everything in this 
county and i'm gonna make a living that i deserve   so um i just don't and i don't want 
adrian to feel like she can't ask for that   i mean you know what i'm saying because we just 
came to keep inching up to it but as we're inching   up to it they're getting further away from us 
so um i just think we really need to look at the   salaries of department social services to where 
they are competitive to who they are running to   because it would be a really great thing 
for other counties to start running to us   and we have full staff so we can really serve 
everybody that needs the service in this county i have to admit i agree pam you 
know i've talked i've said before   i got an adopted grandson in another state 
who came through this process and it's   it wasn't pretty what in particular 
wasn't pretty for him and uh i just uh   i think we're looking at a theme here that i think 
we're all five enough five smart enough to figure   out there is a theme but not just dss not just 
the sheriff's office but other departments as well   our job is to make sure our citizens get serviced make sure that when they need something they can 
go to the department of social services or they   can go to the health department or they can call 
the sheriff's office or they can deal with the   tax office or whatever the department it might 
be that we're responsible for our job is to make   sure when they show up at the door make a phone 
call they get the service they need if they can't   there's only one place that default 
falls and that's sitting right here   in this dais well this agency plays the role in so 
many other agencies when it comes to intervention   and um and it's a it's a very difficult area to 
work with but thank god for them because some   like dss court jamie hamlet cps workers all kind 
of stuff like that and i'm telling you the very   people that we've heard about today with the 
sheriff talking about drug addiction and stuff   have had the same trauma that diaz has had to step 
in and try and save children from so um it's all   connected it really is this day i'm going to vote 
against this not because i don't want to help you   not because i i don't i do recognize as a real 
need because i think we're putting a band-aid   on and not solving the problem so i'm going to 
hopefully get another shot at this on the 16th   but that's the reason i'm voting against it okay 
let's give you a comment yeah can you just uh um tell me where your motion is mr turner what's your 
uh to accept this plan to accept what i see on   this screen here 231 thousand dollars in bonus yes 
okay can i ask well there's the second page too   yeah the the total no that's not correct 
393 pounds no that's what i said yeah i'll   just look at the top it's actually that's what 
i'm looking for 393 239 dollars and 22 pennies   i was just looking at the top part absolutely yes 
it's it's the plan the motion is to accept the   plan as presented by the department how do we go 
about doing what we're talking about with salaries   how do we go about doing i mean really doing that 
i think we'd have to sit down myself and sherry   and adrian and her team and we've done some of 
this looking at how to address this immediate   and look throughout their department we know some 
comps to where they're going orange county durham   county randolph county at least in the social 
worker field they are paying more than we are   we want to look at you know this focuses with the 
exception of the bonus for all employees the rest   of it is bonuses for the high turnover we really 
kind of focused on high turnover if we look at   agency-wide we'd be looking at okay how do 
we keep everybody comparable right if you   if you take those high turnover people way up you 
don't you can't take them above their supervisor   so we'd start having to look at the whole agency 
what would it cost to implement if you make social   workers pay fifty five thousand dollars who else 
does that affect who supervises them that might   put them above their supervisor we'd have to look 
at that across the board and then estimate what   annual cost that would be would it fit within the 
department's existing budget if so the only way   to do that might be similar to what we've done 
with the sheriff's department where we actually   froze some positions and said we can implement 
this immediately depending on the level of raise   that it would take but we have to talk with agent 
about can you stand uh the possibility of fully   hired being less than your number of positions 
because we're reallocating a term if not you know   we might we would be looking at okay how high can 
we go with the south they're working with that now   and they can't fill the position that's right that 
currently they're funded at a level to be able to   hire all employees with the exception of eight 
right it's just the dollar amount is such that   they could hire everybody but eight but they got 
46 openings right now so that points to salaries   are too low right in various positions to bring 
up those various positions significantly it might   take uh increases for other positions beside 
those ones because of supervisors and trying   to have some comparable pay internally i think we 
would be looking at can it be done in the dollar   amount that they have and if so yeah it's going 
to take freezing more than eight positions and   those would be questions that adrian and her folks 
would have to live with or ever tell us to say you   know if it went from 8 to 20 where would those 
20 be frozen could we live with it if everybody   else was fully staffed because the salaries got 
up to a point where people would come to work   might be possible to do that by the 16th i 
think that'd be we'd be moving wouldn't we terry when you're 46 down when the department is 
starting to struggle to meet the service   demands that they have and not because their 
people don't want to do it it's just because   we've got that many vacancies you just don't 
have people to give the work to the work's just   falling off the table right so uh it is a crisis 
i'm concerned about it i hear very clearly the   commissioners are also concerned about it if you 
don't implement this today then we're going to   have something back up here about the 16th and 
it's either going to be your choices would be   if you're going to do anything either this plan or 
something we've come up with that attack salaries   but has to be in a way that adrian's folks can 
deal with the possibility of froze positions until   next budget years or can we come up with a hybrid 
absolutely yes yes you could be once you start   getting into a significant rate the only folks 
in this plan that are getting salary increases   are the five folks that kind of got touched by 
compression from the last time we tried this right   if uh we go in and say we want to if we know that 
durham county is paying 55 000 for social workers   we can look at what if we pay 55 000 for social 
workers i agree i think that would be a huge way   to keep people hearing these seats we haven't run 
those costs and seen do we have enough money to   do that in this budget or not but uh it it's 
so important to me to to make sure we're doing   everything we can to help dss that we would 
have something back before you on the 16th yeah opioid monies we have arpa monies uh right 
now we're as flush as we're ever going to be   we've got to look long term but we've 
got us quit training other counties   i think that to use arpa money uh is 
possible i would be counting heavy on   andrea and mimi to sit down with us also and look 
at each one of the positions we were thinking   about giving a raise to and saying adrian what 
of this what time what amount of time of this   position do you think we could justify saying 
they're having a covet related work and to me   that could be going into coven uh positive homes 
you know if you're a child protective service   worker and you're having to when you leave 
you don't know if you're going into a home   there for a while they did we were doing uh 9-1-1 
and tracking it and all that kind of stuff but uh   i think you know we would try to do it in a way 
that wouldn't require freezing any position that   would be ideal but i just have a feeling that the 
dollar amounts we're talking about that will work   may have that kind of impact i just don't want 
us to be a roof that's always leaking somewhere   and we constantly are patching it because once 
you break that seal it's over you just if you   go ahead and re-roof it then look at the money 
that you haven't wasted until the point where   you do re-roof it so we just got to really 
think about this and doing something about it   because it's 4 45 do we need to take a vote go 
ahead so i will say that um it would have to be my   assistant director who would be here on the 16th 
as i am on vacation good for you need some time any other discussion but this is the plan right 
now with these bonuses that we're looking at   voting for that's correct all right all those 
in favor signify by saying hi uh oppose no no   just because i think we need to look at salaries 
not bonuses well his motion included taking a look   at that yeah so and she did say that she 
thought that she had money in her budget   to hire the folks that she needed to along with 
that's the only reason i voted for it i didn't   want to vote for it either because i want to focus 
on salaries because i think that's the problem   and i think we could use our money more 
wisely as we go down the road and i'm   not talking about this budget here i'm talking 
about next year i think we can use our money a   much better way gonna help her out and get that 
department up but we're just gonna have to bite   the bullet and this is what i was gonna suggest 
could we do something with dss like i suggested   with the sheriff with these positions now if you 
get on a hiring spree because fire salaries are up   people want to come work here i want to help you 
get those folks in there so we're going to have to   come back here and get you some more money to get 
those folks in the seats i'm willing to do that as i see you perform as i see you put these 
people in the seats okay she needs our help   we need to fulfill her up help you out and there 
there's money here to do it as we see you start to   do and that's why i told the sheriff he starts 
hiring folks we will go get the money to get   those people in the seats okay guys we're at 447. 
hold on hold on don't do that no don't do the vote   okay now we've already voted yeah but that's three 
two i want your salaries high that's higher i i i   wanna help you work on this too and i think i got 
some ideas that can help you all right well it   passed three to two yes thank you so we're good 
i'm on your board you need to know i want your   salaries better i don't i mean that that's the 
whole point of this whole issue is to pay people   okay this hook or uh i think uh slug's gonna 
speak to the health clinic all right mr day   thank you yes thank you very informative and mr 
chairman i think we all agreed on that just in   terms of just in style i guess we want to 
get both these things done our feedback he's got to go home and do his 
crunches apartment social services   handcuffed and brought trying to remove the room 
hey i'm just telling you what you told me okay   it is true um so i am back before you guys because 
the last meeting we talked about the contract with   everside health this is about the employee health 
clinic um we took this out to bid we did have a   a proposal from our current provider but we have 
looked and we are recommending going to everside   health this uh cost is approximately 456 000 900 
456 908 it's a little bit less than the proposal   from our current provider and then next year it'll 
be about 83 000 less than our current provider um   what you've got in front of you is a contract for 
one year and i'm just here to ask you to approve   the contract and answer any questions that you 
might have i had david young from everside i don't   know if he's on the call on the here or not and 
then cheryl ray from county hr is also available   so i think the commissioners had some concern 
last time to make sure that this contract was   for a one-year term period which it is and the 
contract that is in the packet is the contract   that's been reviewed by the county attorney's 
office and the company so it would be the one that   the chair would sign up on approval if the board 
does is the 456 included including that 75 000   to upgrade building it is that's why it goes down 
so much next year it is question to proof second   in discussion all in favor signify by 
saying hi you nevertheless thank you   okay mr hey good i think uh miss evans has two 
budget amendments to propose to the board good   afternoon commissioners the first budget amendment 
for you right now is to increase our dss trust   fund which is fund 774 by 1.3 million dollars 
you'll remember we processed this at the end of   fiscal year 21 due to gas b 84 regulations and 
we need to repeat that now for fiscal year 2122   and from this point forward it will be included 
in our annual audit i'm sorry annual budget so this is no county funds these are truly funds 
for dss clients that we are guardians of for our   adult and children motion to approve second any 
discussion all in favor signify by saying hi   thank you thank you and the next budget amendment 
before you is the home care community block grant   during our fiscal year 2122 budget we were working 
off of estimates we now have received our final   allocation which would be an increase in grant 
revenues of thirty eight thousand two hundred   ninety six dollars there is a required county 
match for one for those programs which equates   to 546 dollars we would do a transfer from the 
county manager's budget so there would not be an   increase in county funding motion to 
approve second oh in favor signal saying hi   unanimously thank you do we have any other public 
speakers i think you're crazy to wait till now   exactly i assume they're no commissioner 
responses to the new speakers okay   our county manager again um commissioners i 
will just briefly say that uh we've done a lot   of work through the technical review committee 
and the capital oversight committee we have uh   worked closely uh particularly with abs to come 
up with uh information to post on the capitol   project's website uh scott if you can pull it up 
just real fast i'm not gonna walk through it i   originally tended to but not at five o'clock 
in the evening but uh i wanted to encourage   commissioners and the listening public uh to 
go to alamance alamancecapitalprojects.com you   can we've streamlined the website we've made it 
very easy to just click on schools college county   and then you go to one website piece that you can 
see particularly abs i know the commissioners had   an interest in um uh their what the plan was for 
their 3.3 million a year and i think they put   three or four years on there uh so it's specific 
to the dollar amounts the schools and the projects   they've also uh posted their unfunded list 
their list of unfunded projects the top ten   as well as information about esser funding 
for projects that they would like to do   and uh that's the same case for acc and 
for the uh for the count so really scott   if you just real quick go over and click on 
that click on that right there scroll down   and click on uh five year cip paygo 
and click on fiscal year 2122 pego cip   there you go so this shows the commissioners 
that these are the projects that the schools   are planning to to do this fiscal year 
painting electrical work roof work   safety that is uh not school specific but that's 
at the school's request right so uh security yes   just uh for security purposes uh they are planning 
to spend 1.1 million the school system wanted to   be sure we understood in the county that these 
are fluid projects that if something happens   if something breaks and they reallocate that that 
can't happen right but it's the same thing for for   our cip we have a plan we're working on those 
projects but if something goes down it's more   important than what's on the original plan list 
they reserve the right to change we would expect   them to do that i'm sure um and really if you go 
back scott i'm sorry i can't i just i can't resist   uh if you if you'll click on the alamos 
promoting school system again please just   right there scroll down we've got some definitions 
there that has been a real problem for folks   myself included what what do these terms mean 
if you'll click on uh unfunded project scott   the big question mark thank you so there are 
their top 10 unfunded projects you know so they   have the education bonds they have five years 
of 3.3 million in paygo they have a couple of   capital reserve projects commissioners they have 
70 million which is on this page too of unfunded   but the commissioners specifically asked 
for the top ten these are the top ten   that the school system uh has listed you scroll 
down a little bit scott just on that page there's   their uh projects that have come out of that 
73 million dollar list that may be able to be   funded with esser which is their art type monies 
and you scroll down a little bit further there's   the comprehensive list of all unfunded projects 
that's big it's it's really helpful to have this   information from the school system to be able to 
give to commissioners what i hope to be able to do   is visit this we'll talk about these projects at 
every trc and osc uh meeting that we have but then   at the end of this fiscal year toward the end i 
think it'd be appropriate to ask the school system   to give us information about how these plans 
panned out which of these projects were actually   able to be done obviously not all will something's 
going to break that's going to mean some funds got   diverted to the to the crisis but it's it's really 
helpful to have it from abs and acc they have very   similar data on the college and we we've done the 
same thing with the county although we're working   a little bit on ours uh to make sure it's updated 
with some of this language but i'm very pleased   i hope this helps the commissioners see this 
i think the school system is pleased with the   plans and information that they've given and we'll 
keep this very transparent we'll keep this website   updated but just uh at your leisure peruse it if 
you have any questions for the school system you   at me or dr benson or todd are happy to answer so 
i know it's a very quick fly over but i wanted you   to see it and and for the general public to know 
it exists because i know you get questions about   what are they doing with the 3.3 million what what 
are they doing with the bond projects it's all   right there and as uh is pretty well updated 
i think it's very timely information to say   that that's all that i have the 
chair but you want to mention   um the legal department and mr albright's news 
about a position in his office i think i defer to   mr albright on that i'm not prepared to 
discuss that at this time we just want   to thank that individual for exceptional 
work oh he's still here he hasn't left   but he's been a tremendous asset to alameda 
county and i just personally wanted to say that   mr jimmy a quick question mr hey good let's try 
again the uh with respect to the top ten for ray   bss um i noticed there's there's not a schedule 
there on when those are requested to be to be done   do you expect through the technical review 
committee process to the oversight committee   process that there will be recommendations 
on when these things need to be done by   absolutely i think scott if you wouldn't mind 
going back that real fast to the to the top ten   you got to go back to the abs page there we go so 
uh yeah this we we've just seen these so now is   the time it's the great thing about this as you 
get more data you can have better conversations   about how to address these problems so i think 
one thing we learned uh about the top 10 is if you   scroll back up just a little bit scott right there 
three of those are traffic concerns uh i think   the school system has indicated they would 
be fully we believe fully reimbursable by   d.o.t right so i think in our next trc meeting 
we'll be talking about at those three schools   it i wouldn't be surprised if schools may want 
to come to you once we confirm that is fully   reimbursable they may want to use some of their 
capital reserves to go ahead and get those in   dot's hopper so we can be reimbursed and have that 
work done right so we may be able to knock a few   of these out really quick which i don't know what 
really quick is when it comes to dft that could   be another year but at least it would start dot 
has said from what i've understood from abs they   really won't earmark any dot funds until they know 
the upfront money is there that may be something   that we want to look at the other projects we'll 
be talking with abs about how do we intend to fund   these uh you know what's the next step but just 
having this listed this way able to present to you   uh enables these conversations to happen and then 
we can have a conversation about the next 10.   that's right which can change at any minute 
yes absolutely do we have a motion to adjourn   i make that motion second all in favor say 
aye and leave exactly that's a hyper word thank you for watching the alamance county 
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