Show #181 - Bryan Marley discusses board integrity, public safety, and town management

Peter Pappas: everyone. Good evening. Welcome back to the Carolina Cabinet live broadcast on this beautiful Monday evening. is the marathon. It's the marathon. really is. Mills. I feel like I've seen almost everybody from Hope Mills this evening. Yeah. Well, we're missing a few, but. We are. are. Well, hopefully, you know, the people watching, they'll start like, share, follow, you know, give us some questions to put screws to Commissioner Brian Marley. Welcome, sir. Thank you, sir. Good evening. we have so far this evening, we have spoken to ⁓ Mayor Bell Flowers. have spoken to candidate Ronald Starling. Yep. Lots of law enforcement background there. Mr. Bell Flowers has a lot of experience, military, he's an educator. So that brings us to you, Mr. Marley. So tell us about your background, like what do do for a living? And tell us about running for office. Well, I'm in emergency services. I've been in emergency services now for almost 32 years. I work full time in a neighboring County. I'm the emergency services director. I cover the emergency management department, fire marshal's office, and volunteer here in the County at a fire department. Okay. All right. Well, so I didn't do the actual dialogue, but you know, I do want to say this. So, you know, I wanted to introduce you as a man that some people call steady and a lot of people call silent because you're kind of a soft, you're a Very soft spoken. been told that a lot. I don't see you out there yelling and carrying on, but... Supporter of the century, but quiet when it came to the facts. I think you have some explaining to do. ⁓ okay. So let's jump right Get right in. Let's just get in there. we, and we discussed this at length with Mayor Barrowflower. So ⁓ our opinion, I guess, of the cabinet or are just looking at the, is the statutes or what are we looking at? What are the statutes? I was looking at, I don't even know where I found the information from. And we were, you were just rattling them off. Okay. there's procedure in place for. So long story short, I'll tell you, ⁓ everybody wants to know why everybody wants to know the ins and outs. ⁓ there's some things, you know, we can say, I'm sure mayor Bell flyers probably told you, ⁓ there's certain things we were able to discuss. Some things weren't, I'll tell you personally. why I made the motion, why I put it on the agenda, why I made the motion to do what I did. This wasn't just this incident. This was a combination of two years of... openly speaking and when a board member is out in public and they are representing the board and they're openly speaking they represent everybody okay in this situation I don't really know how to say it, but this was basically like a shot heard around the world. Okay. So it picked up a lot of traction. ⁓ Personally myself it was There are there is a video I will tell you that there is a video There are several people that came forward with complaints Came forward and were very outspoken about it. It picked up a lot of traction this is something morally and That that that had to be done. Okay. Okay. There's a lot of people that live in Hope Mills a lot of different backgrounds of people There's a lot of different backgrounds that work for the town. Okay. I myself am not going to be grouped into that category. I'm not going to be considered. I'll say it. I'm not going to be considered a racist. ⁓ that that's not how I am. I'll treat people the way I want to be treated. ⁓ this one commissioner has been open and vocal in the community before on Facebook, on certain Facebook groups about her plans for the election. what she wants to happen if she can get two people to go with her and vote with her, what she wants to do to certain employees of the town. And you know, that's fire certain employees. And you can't go around saying that when you have ⁓ employees that essentially work for you, you cannot create an environment like that. can't, so you're speaking openly for the board. My main thing is morally and ethically the right thing to do. ⁓ Like I said, it wasn't just this one thing. The investigation that's going on right now that we can't really talk too much about. A lot of things will come to light after that. People say you jumped a gun. It's a witch hunt. If you may, let me interrupt you. The perception is, okay, that... You all went into closed session on Monday, last Monday, that was in regards to personal. Well, and that's what we found out with Mr. Bellflowers, but see the perception is, and that's what was written in city view and other things was y'all went into closed session. Yeah. You decided to do whatever you hired someone. Then you came out and said, Hey, commissioner Craver center without giving her the due process. Now, when did you first hear about the comments allegedly made by commissioner Craver and did you speak to her before the center? This was probably. I don't have the dates wrote down, but the incident happened September 11th. It was at a local business in town. We can just say Southern Hibachi. My producer here was new to the country. said, we're going to have Southern Hibachi. says, what the hell is that? So, I mean, it was a local business in town. when that came in, it was in public that it occurred. ⁓ We did call a, the mayor called a ⁓ special meeting. We went into closed session. Ms. Craver was in closed session with us. She heard the discussion. She knew all about it, the claims that she didn't know what was happening, didn't know this, that, or nothing about an investigation. I'll be honest with you, they're all false. Now the censure was on me. Because like I said, morally and ethically, I'm not going to be grouped into that group. And I'm not going to have that perception of me. Okay. You can think what you want to. Let me ask a question right there. So you're saying you don't want to be grouped in with her. ⁓ because she made a comment, how does that make it just because you serve with her? You're saying that that's the way you would be perception of the citizens of the town at this point. And I'll be honest with you. The perception of the citizens of the town and a majority of the employees that work for the town think that that's the way we are and we're not that way. Her views are not my views. Her views and her feelings and her beliefs do not reflect that town. The consensus of the board, the consensus of the board. will have integrity. There will be morals and that's what we stand for. And we strive to do that through transparency. And so you say there's a video and there's no sound. So do you have proof? And that's why you sent her. her why she went to the restaurant and tried to get them to erase the tape. I'm asking you. I'm telling you, I don't know. Ask her, ask her, ask her. She will be here on Wednesday. So we plan on doing just that. Everybody comes at us. Right. Like, Hey, we're trying to understand. Yes. It's looking for transparency. I'm telling you, yeah. And like I said, the investigation for you and for Craver and for bellflowers separately. So you're all your own people. And I understand where you're coming from about, you don't want to be misperceived as that's a consensus of the board that you're hostile towards any group of people, whether it's racial or otherwise. Um, but the question was, did you speak to her before you moved toward the center? So Did you? That's something I did on my own. Okay. you, I'll you right now, I'll take full responsibility for it. I did it on my own. Okay. Okay. If she didn't know it was coming, that's okay. Did I say he was soft spoken before because he's not being soft spoken out. I like it. I'm here for, I'm here for, and I'm sorry, but you know, I'm tired of, um, you know, getting blamed for a lot of things, but I'm going to tell you right now, I'll take full responsibility for, speaking to her ahead of time. Yeah. Okay. All right. So you're saying you spoke to her. She knew it was coming and all of this. didn't speak to her and I'll be honest with you. I didn't speak to her about it. No, I didn't. I did speak to our attorney about it. I went to our attorney for guidance. I asked our attorney to draft a resolution that I could read in open session because I didn't want to say anything wrong. didn't want to. Is that what you read Monday? That's what I read Monday night. It was a resolution that I asked the attorney to prepare for me. Okay. ⁓ and that's what I read now. did get a second and we voted on it. was some discussion and it was a three, two vote. So obviously two other commissioners felt strongly enough about it that they went with me on dissension. Well, the accused, the accused and a commissioner leg, right? that the one? Okay. So are you aware? So let me ask you this, you know, if you're not, if you're not guilty of anything, why wouldn't you vote? for the investigation. We're talking about the censure. We're living America and you're innocent until proven guilty. So let's not say that why wouldn't you do this? If you're running around telling everybody you're not innocent or you're innocent, excuse me. If you're running around telling everybody you're not innocent or you are innocent, I'm sorry I said that again. And you believe that. When we did the investigation at the board meeting, it was on the agenda. She knew we were doing the investigation. If you don't have anything to hide, don't you want somebody to investigate you? When you vote to be investigated, that's our concern. know, innocence, he'll proven guilty kind of rationale. Was she offered due process and was she from your perspective, was that the last step you could have taken besides saying, Hey, we're going to investigate. then by the next meeting, we're going to center her. It just kind of felt like from the public perspective that it happened really quickly because we don't know the inside baseball that happens in a closed session or whatever else. So it's the treatment of our town staff after every event we have on Facebook, degrading town staff. It's out there looking at us. that from commissioner Craver? that coming from her Facebook page, from her post on ⁓ several different groups? Well, what about the complaints against the town manager and the assistant manager? Why were those not treated with equal concern? We don't have an assistant manager, so I don't know where that's coming from. But the complaints about the town manager, that's a that's a personnel matter and that was investigated. We did. There was an internal where they censured prior to the investigation. Was who? Whoever the commissioner? Yeah, or the manager? Is that all tied in together? The complaint from? the local business and from townstown, is that all kind of muddied together now? Yeah. It's all grouped. Okay. So we have really one incident, not really separate. And it's not just, and it's not just, and I'll tell you just like, ⁓ just like, ⁓ Mary Bellflower said earlier, I called a little bit of his, ⁓ video, know, you get one, it's one thing, but when you have multiple of the same and different people come in, You know, it's been, this ain't something to happen a couple of days ago, a couple of weeks ago. This ain't just one incident. I'm telling you, it has been, and you will see when the investigation's done, the complaints, were thorough. They were well-descripted. They were pages long. And all that's been turned over to the investigator to do his due diligence. And when the report comes out, it'll all be answered. Okay. So when the report comes out. And she is found guilty, let's pretend for just a moment that it she is. That's the time that you sent to her, not I sent her and then let's go do an investigation. Don't you think? for me to censor her is whenever her beliefs aren't matching my beliefs and I'm getting group. ⁓ no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, And I'm getting group. That was a public. This sounds personal. You can call it whatever you want to call it. I'm telling you right now, I'm not going to be running around that town representing that town. representing our employees, representing our citizens, being called racist. I'm not gonna do it. So was told you do have an assistant manager. It's your finance director and his name's by your former, Melissa Adams is your assistant manager? that- No, she's a former town manager. Okay. The only town manager I know of that we've approved, that this board has approved is Chancellor McGough. Okay. But do you find that, okay, because I found where I was, ⁓ the- ⁓ Okay, so I think Brian, what I'm trying to suss out, and again, we know there's attorney-client privilege. We know there are other, I said the inside baseball, okay? But why go straight to censure if the option remained for you as a board member to say, we I'll tell you what, let's do this. I'll tell you what, I'll clear it up for you, okay? I took full credit for it. When that investigation comes out, and I'll tell you this, I'm a man of my word, and I'll do it. When that investigation comes out, there is no wrongdoing, no findings whatsoever, I will go back in that boardroom publicly and apologize and take that censor back. I will do that. Put it on record right now. Okay. And that's kind of what I was getting at was instead of just going straight to it, which is done, it's horses left the stables done. I wouldn't want it done again in the future though. No, but. If it's not addressed now, then how can we change it for the future? feel like a little kid, know, when little kids do like this, you know, okay. So what I'm trying to say was Brian, as as a commissioner on the board, you still had the option to stand up and say, there's stuff going around Facebook right now about another commissioner. And I want everybody to know that those feelings are those sentiments are not shared by this board and we are going to invest in. know this is going to sound bad when I say it, but have you been watching our meetings and watching our merit at the beginning of every meeting? having to dispel lies and rumors every meeting from these Facebook pages. I have the public office. Yes. And I signed my name on dotted line and I got it. But I'm telling you right now what the truth is, because they're not telling the whole story. They're telling their side. They're not telling the whole story. Everybody's the hero in their own story. Let's be honest. exactly right. mean, there's there's there's their side. There's my side. And then there's the middle. What really happened? Okay. There's three sides to every story. So, do you disagree that that was an option that you could have said, look, I'm Brian. I don't agree with whatever's going on, but we're going to investigate. just feel like it was a, you're such a quick, you could have, but that ain't the way I just stronger about that. the way I did it. All right. Would you, if somebody made allegations against you, would you want to expect it to do the same thing? I want everybody should be held accountable for their actions. I'm out there speaking for everybody. and I'm making these comments and everything. Somebody should call my hands. Allegedly, there's been no investigation and she hasn't been found to have done it. So you can call it allegedly this, allegedly that. You can call it whatever you want. I did the censor and. But mean, according to the according to the constitution that you took an oath for, you swore that you would follow the constitution. And part of the constitution is you are innocent. until what's that key word? Proven. But you censured her prior to her being proven guilty. I mean, you can censor for anything. You can't. You can censor anybody for anything. if it wasn't probably during election period, then it would probably be less of an issue. But you're literally hurting her reputation. This this wasn't this is more of a moral thing and an integrity thing than it was. Well, unfortunately the timing and the, again, we are looking at it from the exterior lens looking in. Okay. So, I said to Mayor Bellflowers- I was reading this. I was mad. ⁓ my God. I love the constitution. I pray to it at nighttime after I pray to God. So, you know, we're looking through the lens. told Mayor Bellflowers, you know, this is not house of cards. It's town of Hope Mills, but the timing and the lens and the view lends itself to be what's called the October surprise. We know that commissioner Craver has been, maybe had some opposition. didn't tell her, you know, the alleged comments in September. way that it seemed to be hurriedly And I didn't tell the people to come forward in October and file the claims. Okay. You know, that's, that's not my, that's not my doing. But if this has been going on for a while, why wait? We've been behind closed doors. We've asked her, we've talked to her, we've suggested things like, Calm down out there. Okay. You want to, you want to get transparent? Let's get transparent about this stuff. Okay. I'm going be honest with you. The audits, the audits is a thing. The state audits is a big thing. The state audits and everything. So every time we have a meeting, every time we have a closed session, the very next day, there's always public records requests. Every, after every meeting, it just keeps coming. Everything that happens somehow, some way. Somebody's getting information about what's in closed session. Okay? Just so happens the same people that she's aligned with are the ones that are making the same person is making a request. The state audits. Everything that's being sent to the state auditor or whatever to come down and do this How narrow or wide are those audits? Can we talk There are some specific issues. There's a wide range. Just everything from... business expenses to Florida to a conference to a legit conference. Nothing to hide about that. ⁓ Matter of fact, the manager explained that last board meeting. It's all the way down to ⁓ a fish and derby, cottontail trail. ⁓ Now they want to audit all the closed session minutes and everything. So every audit Request or whatever this Ben Sinean can be tied back to a public records request by the same person. Okay What's with that? That's that's nothing wrong with it, but I don't know what they're looking for You know, it's taking a lot of man hours. It's taking a lot of our employees time that they could be Using to do other things in town then chasing witch hunts out if you want to call it that I don't know what you want to it at the same time I don't know what they're looking for. Why don't we get them on here? and get them to go ahead and tell us what they're looking for and what they hope to get out of it. And we can provide that to them as a citizen. If I think that you guys are doing, I'm going to bombard you with FOIA requests because I want to know what's going on. So I can tell you now you won't find that. And we are we welcome it. We welcome everything they get. Our town manager doesn't he calls that department head, hey, get it to him now. Get it to him. We don't we don't hold information that is a different attitude. than I think in Hoke County where the newspaper had to sue their County Commission to do FOIA requests and they're still in the middle of that. citizens want transparency. ⁓ Well, thing is we have audits coming and everybody like in the last election was all up. We want Doge. We want to doge everything for reason or not reason. Now, just because they have an audit doesn't mean there's wrongdoing and they're being investigated for to make sure they stuck by the rules. And if I can have a personal point of privilege. I will say that just when Mayor Bellflowers was here, he was very open and non combative. And so I felt like he was very open and transparent. And my conversation so far with you, I'm not getting that. find you very defensive, which makes me think, okay, I'm telling you how you're perceived by me. that you're very defensive and now I want to go file a FOIA. I don't know what for, but I want to file a FOIA right now. It's probably cause you're standing as she's sitting. no, cause he was standing too. I'm just saying based on the way you could be a perception thing. That's the perception. You know, that's not what I'm trying to. Okay. I'm just, I'm just telling you, there's a lot of misinformation out there. There's a lot of people out there talking and nobody's, you know, and I'll tell you in my opinion. crucified me if you want to, but they're not telling the truth. Okay. They're not telling the truth. I understand that. And I understand getting defensive because people are lying about you because it happens to me all the time. I mean, everyone has their limits. think, uh, we have encountered that in our own party. Uh, certain time you just want people to go back to the rock from which they crawled and we need to discuss the election results too, because he certainly did 6.66 % of the votes. So congratulations. You know, you're talking about, you know, we That's one reason why we went ahead with the investigation and Jim knows the inside baseball over here. So it ain't no problem. But no, mean, that's, that's why we greenlit the investigation, the board greenlit investigation. Cause we want to get to the bottom of it. And we want to move on. That's, that's all we want the truth to come out and I want the truth to come out, you know, lifelong resident of Hope Mills. love the town. lived there. Um, I worked there for a long time. Um, I really care about the town. And in my perception, there's a group of people that's working hard to tear that town apart. And why you would want to tear a town that you live in apart like that, I do not know. I will say that based on your personal thinking that you're a firefighter or whatever, so I do believe that you care wholeheartedly. And I believe it's your... And a service that's hard. That's exactly right. So I love giving me inspections of the restaurant, probably finding. They never find me. Yeah, he didn't mind writing up something. So yeah, he does. He is a service oriented. But part of being an elected official is being questioned and based on what goes on as we as citizens see it, when we feel like we're not getting the full story, then we immediately it's just human nature. Go to the most negative place. true. Yeah. But I want to I want to let y'all know and let everybody out there just listen to know. You know, we is this board can't, you know, prior boards, but I can tell you the boards that I've been on, ⁓ especially this board right here to include Ms. Craver and you know, we welcome any request that comes in for information. We welcome it. We'll gladly give whatever information you need. We'll get it as soon as we can. Our town manager is, is, you know, he's open book. He's great. Like I said, anytime anything comes in, Hey, get this information. need it now. I need you to get this information in. So, ⁓ you know, I, I welcomed the audits too. We welcomed the audits, anything, you know, and if there's any findings, we'll correct it. now is this investigation just about Ms. Commissioner Craver or is this about the personnel issues also? it's all, is it all of it together of her with the, is still her and the town employees? It's okay. That's what I didn't understand. I thought we had. a town manager out of control creating an environment, you're saying this Craver is being looked at for all of her interactions. I think I misunderstood it too. thought that they were investigating not just her interactions. The manager is not being investigated. Right. Okay. okay. So the investigation is all focused on commissioner Craver and her interactions with the public and the personnel. Okay. What's the word you used? Alleged. Alleged. Yes. Alleged. I use that a lot when I admit stuff on Facebook. Allegedly I did that. Okay. Yeah. But no, but seriously though, ⁓ like, like the mayor explained a lot of that's, you know, tied up in investigation right now. So, you know, I don't really know what I can say. know the, I know, ⁓ the manager and not the manager, but, ⁓ the mayor had asked the, ⁓ attorney for, you know, guidance with statements and so forth. And, ⁓ the board was, you know, do a collective statement when people had. questions during the investigation. Okay. And I believe, uh, I brought up to the city view articles that did say that no one returned to call for comment. I didn't, I didn't, I mean, I, didn't see it till it was, it was like balance of it. mean, I know that sounds like a good excuse, but I didn't, I didn't, I didn't see the email. so, okay. All right. You're an elected, you have a lot of stuff coming at you and you know, sometimes something's going to slip, but, uh, so Let's change subjects. Let's do that. So you have fire service background. How does that shape you, ⁓ your public safety priorities and do you have any conflict of interest, safeguards that we need to know about? I don't have any. As far as like public safety background and stuff that I'm a champion of is recruitment and retention is a big thing. ⁓ think that's a big. a big problem with our town now. I mean, town wide with all employees, but mainly with police department. big is your police department and fire department? How many personnel? Oh, you're I can't tell you the exact number. Right off the top of my head. I don't. Do you have an ideal number, an ideal number of how many you're supposed to have? mean, 30 sworn officers, 50. I have no idea. Be honest with you. Be honest with you. This is why we don't prep. guests that you we don't you we want to we want to I don't know I don't know the exact number and I'd hate to say something wrong to you. But recruitment and retention is a big thing you know this board ⁓ commissioned the pay study pay study came back we we voted to move forward with that pay study and make adjustments to employee salaries across the board from you know top to bottom. to bring employees up to a medium or to be competitive. the compression thing? Yeah, to be competitive. We've got some employees and you don't want to see a five, 10, 15 year employee leave you for more money. I mean, that's the nature of the beast. we're right here at Fort Bragg. So we can't compete with federal money and we can't compete with federal jobs. You know, I don't blame anybody for bettering their self and making more money and moving on. But if we can keep them there in the town and have good experience people working for the town, that's what we need to we need to some money on some more recruitment and retention. ⁓ I, because we are coming up on 30 minutes and we do have commissioner Scarola coming, ⁓ by seven 30, I think, but I want to pivot to property taxes. You know, I think I spoke to you and I said, it looks like y'all went crazy. with the rate, but then you had a different perspective on the budget as a whole and everything. So tell us about why you feel like Hope Males needed to take such a, I guess, a large increase in the rate, but what were we missing? There were certain factors that contributed to the rate that we see this year. We'll go back and we'll start at beginning, you know, with the property tax revaluation. think the revenue neutral was 31 cents. is what it came back in Hope Mills. And revenue neutral for those watching means you get the same amount of money you did last year. No matter the rate the cost went up, you still get the same money. Okay, go ahead. So with that, know, the county commissioners, they moved forward changing the sales tax distribution that the municipalities in Cumberland County received. Hope Mills took a $2 million loss. How big is your budget anyway? A little over 18 million. So probably 18. That's pretty close to, uh, you know, we're, getting pretty close to 19. We passed the biggest budget in the history of the town this year. So right off the bat, starting with 31 cent, we had to make up, um, $2 million, um, just to, just to keep the same standard that we were at last year. Um, so that, that was 10 cent basically. Increase to recoup that two million dollars that we rely on. Okay now saying that you know, we could uh, There's a lot of things we could have done. We could have kept it at 31 cent, but you know, okay Where's the rate now? It's at 48 Okay, so 10 cents of that was to make up for Carmelin counties to make up to two million. Okay. Yes, sir We're at 41 cent. Where'd the other seven? The other seven cent is basically tied to public safety. Everyone knows that the sheriff at the time came to the municipalities and in Kernel County and said, Hey, we're no longer going to go to you. He just sent you a letter and said, got June 30th. I'm out. Yeah. That's all he did. Basically 30 days it's on you. So the board went with the, ⁓ the board got together with the manager, the police chief, ⁓ the board directed the manager to come up with a plan and bring it back to us. ⁓ because we knew we needed to, ⁓ we knew we needed to put, ⁓ protection in those schools. knew we weren't going to let the schools go without some type of protection to kids. So we took it on our back. What did you do to solve that issue? What ended up happening? Did you hire private security? just believe something? What'd you do? ⁓ we hired, I believe it was eight, eight police, eight SRO officers. Okay. You know, for each I think there was one for each school in Hope Mills, which I think is seven schools. And they hired one extra supervisor kind of fill in person. And with that, we had to hire a lot of part-time help as well for crossing guards. Because we had no crossing guards either. And that's what the other seven senses, crossing guards How much do you you all spent on that? It's close to probably about three million. By the time you know, because not only with salary, you had to car. uniforms, you know, you had to outfit officer, um, know, salary. So basically hope mail's got some surprise bills. hate that word. Like I watch TV and I see like, have you got a surprise bill? You know, come do your a payday loan or whatever. What's the price? didn't Really wasn't so well that yeah, cause of the sheriff. Yeah. So we, but I will tell you this, we had to make a lot of hard decisions. We made a lot of cuts in the budget. We went back to the manager back and forth with the manager. What'd you A couple times. What'd you cut? I want to know. Actually, positions. There was a lot of posi... Nobody lost a job. Let me take that back. Nobody lost a job. But there was a lot of positions that were asked for by different departments in the budget that's been asked for for two or three years. And, you know, we just didn't, we just didn't, didn't feel like we could do it. So were those positions funded and just not filled or were they just being requested to be added? They were requested to be added. we, we... So we tried to maintain a level of service that we had now. We had to hire police officers to put in the schools. We had to make up to two men. So that took us at the end of the day, basically that took us to 48 cent, which is three cent from what it was at a 51 cent. So yeah, I'm not trying to advocate for higher taxes, but it sounds like they had to backfill. But that's not the story that I'm being. seen or told on the Facebooks and the keyboard warrior in us. Right. I'm being told you're a bunch of money-grubbing. No, no. We tried to be very responsible. We always try to be very responsible with taxpayer dollars. Okay. So now you've raised the taxes. Now what happens when a budget slips and goes above what you have allocated for that? ⁓ How will you communicate and course correct so that ⁓ taxes don't go up again next year? That'd be a good question for the manager. I mean, really like, really like, cause to be honest with you. Well, you hired the manager, you? Yeah, we hired the manager. So what we do at the beginning of the budget cycle, the mayor has a good plan in place for the budget cycle. We have several meetings before we actually get into budget for priorities. And we sit down and talk to each department head, you know, get their wants or what's your wants, but what's your needs. And basically we direct the manager, hey, this is what we want. We want a balanced budget, no tax increase, make it happen. And it's up to him and the finance director to bring the board back. You know, cause we don't, we don't per se, we vote on the budget that's presented. Do you have an ability to tear out like to, yeah, we can take this. was just going to ask, is there a budget line that you're like, yeah, no, that's a no. do that in our budget meetings, our budget hearings. We, we review the budget. You know, it's. It's presented to us and then we have a, you know, we have a public hearing to get citizen input on the budget. then when did you have a public hearing for the budget? Just around about month, June, July, May, something like that. was probably in the May first part of June. And how many citizens showed up? No, I mean, you get the regulars, you get two or three. So then some did show. Yeah, you get you get a couple. mean, it's because you recognize the people that do participate, even if it's just a few. Yeah, we have regular citizens that come to every board meeting and, and, know, they were very engaged and we, we, we enjoy that. We wish we had a whole board room full of people every, you know, every, uh, other Monday night, you know, Hey, come out to the board meeting. I invite everybody now. We, cause well, had a full house last night. was going to say, somehow you had a full house on the night that somebody was being censured. the, um, but yeah, we invite. We'd love to see a packed house every night. Just for the simple fact, if people aren't coming forward and telling us what we need to hear, if we don't hear anything, then we think everything's fine and everything's good. So when we have citizen input, public hearings, appreciate you coming Saturday, taking your time out to come Saturday. Like say it was, there was nobody there. So yeah, we mentioned that with mayor bellflowers. If it wasn't for y'all bringing your spouses, there would have been like 10 other people. So, so yeah. Um, you know, we, we, we'd love to have more citizen input, um, especially with the, uh, hope mills lane use plan to kick off meeting on 28. We need all citizen input that we can get on that point. I'm not a citizen, but I'm going to give you one little bite of input. Um, I looked for mills days on your website. It's not on the website. When I Googled it, I found the listing from 2019, but it is on distinctly Fayetteville's website. Might want to say that's kind of what county manager. The old mill days, ⁓ Debbie Jones, the Hope Mills Police Foundation. They're the ones that actually put old mill days on. So they probably got it advertised. The town website should have everything. So yeah, I'm not a citizen out there. live in Fayetteville. However, I own property there. So I am still interested in what happens out there. So can we talk about the four year staggered terms? Yes. Go right ahead. OK. How'd you vote? Why? I voted for it. Why? For. In 2018, the voters said no. They did. They did. I feel like it was the right time for the town of Hope Mills to take that step and move forward. ⁓ Just for continuity of government, it helps. Like I told them Saturday, and I brought this with me in case it was asked, but because four of the five commissioners that are on the board now have been together for the last four years, this is a list of accomplishments that we've been able to finish. We've started the land use plan, I'm not land use plan, but the strategic plan for the town. This was the second time that we started. We were actually able to complete it this time. And that's an important document that's going to work with our land use plan when that gets done for the vision and growth of the town and, you know, citizen input, the strategic plan. We incorporated a lot of citizen input, what they wanted to see in the town. what how they felt how do you obtain the citizen input what's the most if nobody's showing up to the meeting well there was a we had a a ⁓ outside ⁓ agency come in and do the plan ⁓ they engage people with several she's she works like ⁓ another consultant you need somebody from the outside to come in and tell you what to do in your own community or your watch and tell you what time it is that's It's okay, Brian. Keep going. mean, that's not your fault. It's just so frustrating to me. It is. I understand. ⁓ went to different events in the town, like, ⁓ opening day. That was a, that was a big event. have, ⁓ you know, practically half the towns out there at the ballpark. ⁓ there was a table set up there. We put, ⁓ a census, census on the website and ask people to go on there, fill it out, you know, questionnaire that. that way, but that should be coming back to us here shortly. ⁓ okay. Okay. So four year staggered turns, you're for it continuity of government, then strength. You had a list of accomplishments, ⁓ with you. ⁓ do you mind emailing that to me? Cause I, share it with your, I'll share it with your, I got no copy here. I bet, mean, you know, just, just a lot of things we were able to get done for the, for, ⁓ community, rattle, rattle off two or three of them. Let's hear it. Okay, well, we got our ⁓ all-inclusive playground finished. We basically did an overhaul of the park. They've updated ⁓ playground equipment. We got REACH, Journey that partnered with us for the inclusive playground. Our splash pad's up and running now. We've redone the basketball courts. Phase one of Heritage Park has been completed. We're embarking on phase two. What does phase one entail? What did we do out there? It was a right there where the spillway is the dam spillway the flume there they were able to rehab that salvage a lot of that. Okay. It's got storyboards. It's a nice open green space. That's the first phase of a heritage park. Um, we just received, you know, a notice of funding, uh, through part of grants, um, you know, matching grants to get a phase two underway. So we're really excited about that. Just a lot of things, quality of life. That sounds nice. Now I do have one question from the people. That's what I was coming up on 40 minutes here. go ahead. How many people showed up to support the term change? And I have to say that I am for longer terms. am pro for staggered terms because of what Fayetteville City is facing right now. But anyway, how many showed up that were for the term change and how many showed up that were against it. And remember that the council can or the commissioners can vote. They have the authority to it I will tell you this and you probably know, all y'all probably know, you're not new to this. so the only people that come to board meetings are the people that have problems. Right. And the only people you hear from are the ones that have concerns or don't agree with what you're doing. And that's fine. I mean, we need to know that too. But the ones who, but the greater majority, that is out there that sees you in public, hey, I'm for it, know, everything. ⁓ They're not going to come to the meetings because they don't have a problem with it. don't. So what can you do to engage them to make them come so that the naysayers can see the opposite side? Because if you're a naysayer and all you hear is naysaying, you need to hear from the people that are for it. So what can you do to engage some of the public to get them there? That's a good question. and balance with you if you could tell me how to do it or I'll work on it. work. Tell us how to do it. I mean, you we're her consulting. Yeah, I'm a consultant and I charge $450 an hour chance from McLaughlin. Yeah, we have tomorrow. But no, seriously, we have, you know, we advertise ⁓ public, you know, public hands on matters and you just it's not there. Show some pictures of how many people show up. Maybe look, we have to I hate to say it, but sometimes I think we need to guilt the populace into showing up because they show out on social media or whatever else. Like, look, just come to the meeting. But the problem is you got people that, well, the majority of us are trying to work and take care of family and pay a mortgage. It's hard for a man and woman. I agree. But you can't miss all of You can get one once in a while, I would think. It's hard for a husband and wife to work full time, have two or three kids and they got... They got sports over here. I was a single mom, so I understand completely. they're never at the same place at the same time. know, so it just, you know, luckily, you know, some people don't have that. can come. Some choose not to It is a pipe dream to think we can get everyone engaged and everybody to show up. But I would like to see, mean, but as a consultant, I'll make that happen. We haven't even touched on the city of Fayetteville primary election and the turnout there, but we do, we will in here to submit it. Do we have any other, first of all, thank you for watching this evening, this extended marathon version of the cabinet. Yeah, we got one more. Do we have one more? No, no, no, we have one more person coming in from Hope Yes, do have one more commissioner, but do we have any more questions? No more questions I have asked them all. Really? it was earlier, they were very engaged with the whole center thing. Me too, because they were very... Because I heard they didn't like him and stuff. Oh, that's... He seems like such a he's such a hostile guest. I'm not going to make all the comments. And I want to say and I do want to say I apologize if I came off very defensive in the beginning. I start talking and you know, get I get involved. I completely because I have had that same problem where I am seen as aggressive and I'm not being aggressive. being assertive. So it is are you intimidating or am I intimidated? Right. Ain't nobody scared of her. But no. Yeah. So tell us about your campaign and where they can find out more information. I don't have a campaign Facebook page and I don't have a campaign website. Oh, my Lord. My phone number. can give you my phone. We the campaign, the candidate resource center, and we actually can help you with that. Thanks. Have to hit us up next time. So what's your phone number, can people reach you? 910-964-4876. And email, what is it for the town? we can reach you there. Bemarley at townahoemeal.com I believe it is. And Marley with an L-E-Y. N-A-R-L-E-Y. Thank you all for having me. Thank you so very much, you so much for being here and to everybody watching, just stay tuned. We're going to exit this. We're going to come back with a brand new link and we're going to see Commissioner Joanne Scarolo coming up next.