Show #183 - Hope Mills in Transition: Mayor Bellflowers on Challenges, Spending, and Engagement

Peter Pappas: That's the old one. Okay. We're live and we're back. small technical issue, but, okay. So we were talking about the national league of cities, ⁓ the super bowl of cities. So for me to send guys from little old hope mills, what's the point? you, that maybe how you figure out how to bring other businesses here or other programs that the citizens would want? Like, what's the point? One of the main goals that, that we went there for is, is grant opportunities. That's where the deals were made. Okay. Is in these types of conferences is that, and it's also learning about what best practices or in other municipalities, the sharing of what what's going on good. And then the sharing also on what can be improved lessons learned best practices. That was my takeaway from all the conferences and workshops that I attended. How many of the commissioners go this past year? had a only ⁓ commissioner scroller went and I went. ⁓ mayor, tem doctor came on McCray went. And were there grants that you were after or you, or is this like where you go to figure out what's out there? was a grant opportunity that was sponsored by the national league of cities that was available to all municipalities and cities. ⁓ but you had to sign up for it. You had to be part of the workshop to get it, to get involved. It was infrastructure grants. Well, welcome everybody to the Carolina cabinet special edition mayoral candidates of Hope Mills on this happy Thursday evening. Welcome mayor bellflowers and Mrs. Laura Musler, my dedicated co-host. Thank you for being here. So, well, I know we got places to go and people to see, so let's get right to it. So mayor bellflowers, thanks for joining me tonight. We got what six days till like, Okay. And that's when we really need infrastructure grants. kind of electric plumbing, heating and air? do we need? ⁓ no streets, streets, streets. Okay. Because we're looking right now. We need $22 million to improve the streets and hope mills today. well, DOT has the main roads. So what streets do you have to improve? The ones that, ⁓ the town owns and maintains. me an example. God, what is. how long? Four, five days, four days. How many days? This will, Tuesday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, but only early voting today, tomorrow and Saturday. And then the big event is Tuesday, the fourth. And you're looking forward to that. It's going to be an all day. I'll tell you what I look forward to. And that's the engagement of citizens and getting feedback from them right at the polls. Okay. And I've been doing that, you know, at the early election, down at the BOE as well. I'm trying to think right off my head. It's okay. We don't prep our guests. expect you just you know, chop. I didn't bring it with me. The priority list. Cause we, cause we have a priority list of streets. Streets that need to be resurfaced. resurfaced. Okay. $22 million worth. And we submitted that up to the state way and we just were getting ready to submit it again to, to, uh, well, don't they, doesn't the state give you some money for resurfacing? Like I think the city gets like 6 million bucks. They complicated things this year. They gave you the board of elections. They gave you Clifftail. They gave you Kiwanis. But I think from Hope Mills, historically, think if anybody early voted, they went to the board, I would think. The number I saw yesterday was 136 have loaded from Hope Mills. How many? 136. Wow. That's a haul, I mean, to drive all the way from Hope Mills. I mean, we do get some, much do you think you guys, lot of these streets that we need to fix were brought into the town when there was no oversight. So, now through the years, you know, the asphalt is crumbling or it's beginning. There's holes that are there. One of them was Deaver circle, which is a little bitty road that was an orphan road. Nobody owned it yet. So you're either going to go to cliffdale or are going to go into the Kiwanis or are going to go to early vote? So there's nowhere in Hope Mills to vote. Nope. There's nowhere to go. Sure is not. And that's typical for a, um, for municipal election. That's not abnormal. No, it is. I you don't see any, uh, um, early voting sites in spring Lake or any of the other municipalities. No, think on the general election in spring Lake, they barely had like 10 people show up anyway. So I don't think we want to do an early vote out there. Over 2000 residents use it every day. Wow. This thing last year became potholes. There were people out there when it rained, these things were filled up. were people that broke axles, popped tires on this road. If there was one thing that I'm really proud of what we did this, this year was we spent the money about $35,000 to repave and fix that one road that is so critical. Okay, just waste money. so many people like getting okay. So when you run for mayor, how many votes do you need to win 11? At least at least one. I'm being too tough on Spring Lake over here. Now we're talking hope mills now. Laura, I need to at least one. So yeah, at least get them one. One. So let's let's dive right in and let's discuss the Whereabouts is that? ⁓ it's all in rockfish. ⁓ it's right. If you know where that boat, we call it the bow tie where rockfish and Camden intersect. It's right beside the school. Okay. Seeing Wayne Collier. It's you, you go right by it, but you never know. 22,000 cars a day. It's about 2000 people, 2000 people, 2000 people use that road because it connects to the neighborhood. Sure. know I know know what it goes. woman of the hour, seemed like was the four year terms that seemed like the biggest, I was to measure anything in Hope mill. So why are you a proponent of four year terms? Well, that's one and there's several, know those other ladies we've got to talk about, let's start with this one first. Yeah. ⁓ you know, I'm, I'm a firm believer in institutional knowledge and continuity. ⁓ and looking at this and what voters have told me so far, they get it. They see the value in the staggered four year terms. Yep. Next to the school comes back around into the, yep. know where the bow tie is. That's where I stopped. Yeah. But it goes next to school and then it comes back around and goes back into the neighborhood. it's, it's projects like that. That's the quality of life. It's those projects that mean the most to the citizens. Well, what do you know about economic development? And I think we do have an election on Tuesday. I mean, you've been in the seat for a couple of years now. many terms have you served? The one message that it seems to be the most popular that people tell me is that as long as they have the opportunity to vote for who serves in those four year term. That's probably the big thing that I'm hearing from voters. me about statutory because I know that the boards, ⁓ Town of Hope Mills, City of Fayetteville, ⁓ it is within your rules ⁓ given to you by the legislature and NC general statutes. total two terms as a commissioner. then now one time and then now one time was mayor. So you've been around a little bit. So what, what if you gleaned, what have you learned about economic development? What does hope mills need? What would you be going after now? What we need. ⁓ see that's going to be depending on who you really ask in home mills. What are you looking at? Restaurants? Are you looking at industry? You're looking at residential commercial mayor. do you think? ⁓ I'm telling you that is a. that you can just change the terms. don't want to say at freely, but you don't, that's part of the nature of your charge is to be able to determine that. And people elected you to make the decisions for as our representative. So what's the, because city of Fayetteville put it on a ballot beforehand. What's the merit of doing that versus just electing you as the commissioner and then allowing you to make the best decision for us. Well, you've got two routes you can The board can do it. question because I asked that a lot. What do you think Hope Mills needs as far as economic development? What investment would you look at for Hope Mills to have? And we've got some huge retail investments that's coming. I guess it's no secret that close to the Jack Britt area, the Target Complex is coming in, Camden Commons, that is really going to be huge for that area. And there's going to be a lot of different retail that's coming in. The governing body of the municipality can do it like what we've done, or you could go the legislative route to do it, which I think is the, the, ⁓ the direction that spring Lake went in. Now all their, their seats are all four years. You know, at least we've, we've got staggered seats for us and hope mills. So those are the two ways to do it. Or you got the excellent, and then, you know, you can put it on the ballot, ⁓ for voters to vote, to vote for it. Let's talk about taxes for a minute there. ⁓ that land was what agricultural before it's been. that's a different tax rate than, the commercial. So we are going to see an uptick in revenue from that. Not to mention the sales tax. we're going to not to mention, yeah, we're going to definitely see an ⁓ uptick in that revenue stream. And then look at the other ones we have like Wawa Travel Center. Wawa. There go again. They could have put that travel center anywhere. They chose Hope Mills. Just like it was in 1718. again, it was, is within the charge of views as a commissioner or mayor. ⁓ What about, so how did you decide who goes, like who goes to four years first and who goes to- Top vote getters, it? ⁓ Top vote getters get the three commissioner terms. Okay. And of course, whoever is voted for mayor gets a four year, sorry, four year term. Okay. So the top three ⁓ commissioners and the mayor get the four year terms and then the other two get the two. And that was a national project. Like that's the first one in the country. 41. They chose us. Yeah. I expect that there'll be lots of stuff at that exit, which is right over there on the great Galsbury. We have a property. I'm excited to those watching. I'm seeing all the street names, Woodland Hills, village green, Pringle way. Help me out. Help me out. me out. Yep. You got, you got a family calling an audible. Yeah. I think that's Karen Saracen right there saying Woodland Hills. So, ⁓ we have a list. Okay. Is that something you had to flip a coin on to say, or was it, is that just how it's spelled out in the statute that that's, I mean, how detailed is the statute that you follow? It's pretty detailed. mean, does it, does it tell you that it has to be the top vote getters? I don't know if it actually goes into the top vote getters, but it's, but traditionally that's who you're going to give it to. Okay. Is those top vote getters are going to get it. I think, I think the statute does reference that in a way. Okay. And welcome to all of our live. ⁓ We have a list that will amount to 22 million. Okay. Okay. Now is that in the budget or, is that the grant we're talking about? That's the grant. That's the grant. Okay. Okay. So yeah, this is 22 million just for the operation part. Right. This is the whole budget. That's the whole, this is the whole budget. The whole thing. So I think people under arrest or overestimate hope mills when it comes, you know, fables budgets, like 350, 350 million. You guys got 20. Watchers, guess right now, ⁓ somebody looking for audio. No, I think they got it now. So, okay, good. all right. So that takes care of the four year terms. I mean, it's done. This election will determine who's going to be four years and then the remaining seats will go in 20, what is it? 27, I guess. you know, and like I said, the citizens that I've talked to with all of the planning that's going on, you look at this election, this isn't so much about where we are today. 2 million, for their whole entire budget for the entire year, which it is a smaller area. It's what 10 square mile of something like that. It's 10 miles. So now this doesn't include 2 % cola. I mean, we did, I wanted to go back and say we didn't end up with 1.5. We, we increased it to two, but that was additional funding. that's automatic cost of living increase for the employees before they were to be promoted or get a raise otherwise through an HR process or whatever. Okay. It's about where we're going. Where's the town going in the next four years? I hear some people saying, let's keep Hope Mills small. ⁓ And I'm looking it from ⁓ a realtor point of view and a business guy point of view. And I'm like, look, people have already made the decision to go live in Hope Mills. ⁓ So ⁓ they're going There is that, that train has left the station. So what's the point of keeping you for four years? What can you do good for us in four years out there? Well, you know, we All right. Well, uh, Mr. Mayor, we're at a 5 52 PM. You have a six o'clock meeting. Go ahead, Laura. I know you, you look like you're chomping at the bit to ask something. I don't. I really don't have anything. I'm sure people want to know. usually looking at you with like, you got a gas can and matches in your hands ready to, you know, when you talk about the tax, you know, the property tax rate, like I said, we went from 51 to 48. I think we can go lower. In fact, I know we can next year. We can lower the 48. just approved the comprehensive strategic plan. that we've been working on for the entire year. English, English. Pretty much that's an. I'm a third grader, explain that to me. Well, the strategic plan is it's just, it's a direction of goals and objectives that the town would like to look at going over the next five, 10, 15 years. Okay. Where do we want Hope Mills to look like in the next five years? What do you want it to look like in 10 or 15? And that's a working document and it's going to work in concert. Okay, but it's going to take especially if you get more commercial properties, but it's it's gonna it's gonna take work It's gonna take folks that are willing to put in the time to do the work As I will tell you doing this job as mayor, I'm honored, I'm humbled to represent all 18,000 plus that call Hope Mills home, but I make less than minimum wage at doing this and I'm not doing it for the money. I'm doing it because I care deeply about my community for 27 years. It was service to country. Right. Since I've been retired now it's service to community and that's who I am. I I'm not different. haven't changed. With another plan that we just kicked off yesterday, Carmelin County planning came in and we kicked off the land use plan, the Hope Mills land use plan, which is now in, ⁓ in discussion. That's going to determine all of the areas within Hope Mills, the town limits and the municipal influence area of what goes there. see years, the zoning that people complain about. It's just, managing some headwinds. This was a unique year. You know, we, we, we had several things that happened in this past year. Next year, we won't have another reeval that we will have to deal with or sell, you know, the sales tax revenue change. So next year's budget, when we get after it in, in January, we'll have a lot of runway time, but you got to have the right people at the table. As I say, you got to have the right people in the right seats on the bus. today is things that were done 20 years ago. What I wanted to look at, and I know the board does too, is that when people 20 years from now look back at this time, this period of time and say, they did it right. And here is where we are. We didn't have any oversight like we do now. You know, when we came in this last board, especially when I came in as mayor, one of the very first things that we did was, ⁓ town manager, ⁓ chancellor McLaughlin put together the oversight committee that meets every Thursday to look at every zoning annexation request that comes to the town. Every department is at the table, Not one. Everybody is there and, looks at, you know, is it, does this meet the ordinance now does it, will it meet the land use plan and is it right? to make this thing happen. Because we can do it. And in fact, I know we can. We've got an exceptional staff that works and are dedicated every day for the town to deliver superior services. And I'm proud of our police department. I'm proud of our public servants in the fire department as well. So now you were two years on council and then one year, one term as mayor and- Four years. Four years, two terms, four years. Two terms, terms and I'm counsel and now one term as mayor. So then you're getting ready to possibly have four more years, maybe if you get elected. What is your long-term goal? How long do you see yourself serving as mayor? I'll serve as long as the people want me to serve because I'm, my whole goal is quality of life. It truly is. It's quality of life for all the residents in Hope Mills. So that's my driver. So you don't see yourself saying, I've done. Okay. For the direction in the future. So how much of this has a citizen input? How many, I mean, what part could citizens put their input into and have you included that in this process? We kicked it off at 12 o'clock on ⁓ Wednesday. What is Thursday? Yep. Kicked it off at 12. Citizen right there in the rec center. Okay. This was the first kickoff of public ⁓ input. We're going to have more of these meetings. We've got a survey that's online. ⁓ ⁓ 10 years, 12 years, 14 years on the council. It's time to give, hand it off to somebody new. You just want to stay there and see. I'll stay there as long as people want me. Okay. Four years from now is a long time. mean, ⁓ things may change. I may have a different, ⁓ outlook four years from now. I can't say, I don't know. My wife may, may say something different too. In four years. I want to make sure. Yeah. Okay. She normally keeps her comments to herself. She doesn't really say much. of the things that irritates me about when people get into positions. where citizens can either take the survey or they can physically come in and put their feedback on a set of boards. Okay. And the Cumberland County officials are collecting all of this input. That's what's driving this is public input. Okay. So it's not just you and the commissioner sitting in a room someplace smoking cigars and drinking bourbon and just figuring out where are you bourbon drinker? I know it does kind of. What are you doing to train somebody else to like you have a pro tem. What do you, what steps do you guys take to train person to take your position? Because eventually I'm not, we all go away. that's a good question, Laura, because that kind of concerns me with the, with the opponent that's running against me for mayor. he has not attended any meetings up until the last couple. ⁓ know if we get to do that, you been driven to drink? ⁓ No, sir. We're not hanging around. We're not, we're not hanging around in a rooftop in or in Tampa. Good governance, you know, you are elected to serve the people, but we do, there's a certain point that you need the public's input. And then there's a certain point that I think we've elected you to make the decision. So, ⁓ I just want to see how much public input is coming in. ⁓ he has never served on any, ⁓ committees, commissions for the town. He's not been involved in the town at all. ⁓ up until what? A couple of meetings and that's it. See, that's something that I've always said that you need to be participating in the committee. That's exactly right. mean, yeah. All these commissions and stuff. forgot to mention earlier that Mr. Henderson did decline our request to show up this evening. So out of fairness to mayor bell flowers, I just proceeded with. So how often will they have these? Is that like a standing exhibit at the rec center that anybody can go in or how long will that be up? We'll have the, we'll have the boards back. next board meeting is November 3rd, which is Monday night. Okay. We've got a special honor recognition for commissioner Jerry leg is going to be at six. Okay. The boards, the, ⁓ the, the input boards will be there in the boardroom. We hopefully there'll be a lot of public that will citizens that will come, they will have the opportunity. having, he had two shows now and Mr. Henderson had two shows. we're not bound by FCC fair guidelines or whatever, because this is off the radio right now, but, uh, we do it, we do invite everybody. But I will say that even though that I served two terms as, as commissioner for years, serving as mayor is a totally different obligation and different direction and different outlook. It totally is because now you're looking at, you're at the 50,000 foot level. to go ahead and share their input. When is this supposed to be finalized? We're going to finalize it probably early 26. Okay. So between now and 26, about three months left. two, three months. Okay. All right. So anybody watching, if you want to have input, go do it. Either come to the board meeting or go to complete the survey. That's where your voice matters. Really. Okay. Tonight at six, there's another public input. representing the entire town and in the good, the bad, whatever people want to say ugly. you got to do that as a commissioner. Also, do that as commissioner, but at that, and in a mayor's role, you're kind of the spokesperson too, for, for the town. See, I always say that the mayor only sets pretty much has the same job. He only has one vote. And it's the Lake Improvement Survey. Now those findings will be presented tonight at six. And all of that represents public input of how they would like to see the Hope Mills Lake area improved. ⁓ What kind of improvements are up for grabs? Like what could happen? We're looking at parking. We're looking at moving some parts and pieces around that's in the lake now. What does that mean? Parts and pieces of buildings and then some amenities that we're trying to bring in as well. But now. You just, don't want to vote and I don't have a vote. Okay. See, you don't even get to vote. So you just set the agenda and take all the credit and take all the heat. That's one thing I like. Well, that's one, that's one positive. Well, there's several that you just said, as far as the agenda goes, we manage the agenda very, very well. There's been some things that we've moved around on the agenda to make sure that it's workable and that the public understands it, that it's not too convoluted or, got. This is all tied to one word. ⁓ starts with an F it would be funding. I was going to say fricking taxes. That was two words. Okay. Now, all right. So I don't think you were going to say freaking. So how are we trying to just wastefully spend our tax money and hope mails? What are we trying to do now? Okay. ⁓ So we're talking about improving the lake because the lake is a big draw. I mean, I remember at my grandson had his birthday party there. something on there that is either on the consent. There's a lot of stuff that I actually put on new business myself, just because of transparency. want to make sure that agenda is fully transparent. you all have a work session? No, we do not. What would it take to get, cause I feel like some of these- seems like they have a lot of sessions. They do, but city of Fable has a, I'm sorry, that's what I know. So I keep going back to it, but they have a work session that is audio recorded, not video. Did he? Yep. When? It's our centerpiece. Okay. It truly is. Well, I used to always love working at the restaurant out there during summer because all the girls in bikinis would come in and order food. So it was great for me. ⁓ is one of the issues now. Last year we finished ⁓ improving the sidewalk, which is huge. There's been so much positive feedback on improving just a piece of sidewalk. It means so much to people in a walkable community. And it is accessible to the public. So, mean, do you think that would help or hinder your program? I think they also have lunches or dinners at these local. They do. Yeah, they do. And there's been a lot of times that, especially over the past months where we've been criticized for, feeding people. Um, you know, so I don't, I don't know why we're Southern. Parking is the issue that we're really going to have to look at going forward with the lake. Are you talking about paving more area or just redoing what you've got? Well, redoing, redesigning what we have. And then we've got some additional lots there that we need to, to, ⁓ to pave and bring up to where people can use them in park. Do you think you'll have a facility like to rent out for parties? Do you already have that? What's down there? Well, we've got the one facility and it's, know, big teases has been operating out of that. Right. Right. Hospitality means we feed somebody, we break bread, we get things done. I don't see that big of a deal. Maybe don't go to, I don't know we can afford the Lord's chicken, but maybe the lady down on main street. you're not having Chris's steakhouse. I don't think it should be Chris's steakhouse, but, uh, you know, I, but I think you could splurge for, you know, Olive Garden. What's a, what's a box lunch that nine or 10 bucks. It's not a big deal. I'm just saying if you're doing dinner, it would be nice to have, you know, my point is to get more, getting the direction. forever out of that building forever. Yeah. seems like, yeah. And of course, you know, we have the, uh, the, the, the doc that's there more and more people every year, especially this past summer, they use the lake, they come to the lake, they enjoy the lake and across from the lake, have heritage park, which is an extension also another park that's available to citizens. Okay. But parking, you know, that's where the big problem is. And that's what we needed some public input. in one direction because I think they get, they would get in trouble if they have meetings before the meetings kind of thing. Because if you have more than what three of you, it's core. So it's hard to, and I'm sorry, but y'all need to be coordinated going into these meetings. agenda goes out at least Thursday, sometimes Friday morning, but at least goes out Thursday to the public and to the commissioners. ⁓ so that's the other piece is that seasoned commissioners will do their homework and you need to do your homework. So we're going to fix the lake, fix the park. Yep. We're going to have that discussion tonight at six. So you mentioned free. ⁓ just out of curiosity. long will fixing all of this all fixing? thought you told them about the discussion. I don't think they know what they want to fix yet. No, that's what this meeting's about. Yeah. There was three options, ⁓ that was presented to the public for input. And, ⁓ so we'll see what, what the public says on option one, two or three. ⁓ Now let me ask a question, cause this is something that I've always with government. Yeah. And because, mean, when you're looking at voting up or down on an issue that's going to be on that agenda for Monday night, you need to go out, do your homework, do your research. That's what my strength is. Everything that's on that agenda. I have either looked at in one way or another, or it's fueled by public input. And for the large amount of, of, ⁓ of voting this, this two years, we've been pretty consistent. So these people make these bids, I'm gonna fix this for the X amount of dollars and it's going to be ⁓ done in this amount of time. It's always goes over budget and it always takes longer than decided. As a, I hate the word leader, but as a representative, wouldn't it behooth you guys to say if you go above ⁓ or for every day that it takes you longer, you lose like 1 % of your funding or whatever, then they'll get the job done. Uh, up until recently, there's been some descending votes, but, um, but back to, back to this budget, I mean, it, passed a four to one, uh, and really it should have passed five Oh, because we, we had to make up to 10 cent loss. Right. Right. mean, I don't like the 48. I don't know anyone who does. Well, look, in my opinion, make it clear how much services will cut. It would be nice. You should put some penalties in there so that we're not wasting our money. And okay, that was your bid. be it. know that DOT puts performance, uh, performance incentives in their contracts. And I'm sure that the town could address that. I don't know how common that is with municipal like construction. don't, don't know. It's, it's who you, it's who you select on the very front end. Sure. And if you select a design build company, you're going to get if we don't approve a certain budget. When I say that, Peter, I not tell people. said, okay, you want me to cut it. You want me to go from 48 to 41. What do you want me to cut out? Be specific though, because that's one of the things that I learned when you ask for volunteers. Hey, I need to volunteer. Nobody volunteers. But I said, Hey, I need somebody to do this. No, I've already known this, whatever. So here we go. We can have 48 cents. company that's going to not only design it, but they're going to build it. Right. And that's what you want. You want to marry up those two on the front end. I'll tell you that the terrible part of any construction project is two words and you don't know that they're coming until they arrive. And these two words are change order. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ yeah. Now it could either be from the design or the contractor, or it can be from the client. Or we can get rid of five police officers. could have two police officers and we can go down to 46. Um, and we're going to get the, so you tell me what's of those things you guys be specific. And then all of sudden, while we do need that, uh, well, we, yeah, you know, we'll do trash once every two weeks. Um, just tell me, the boardroom, you know, for years, the boardroom needed an upgrade. Well, that's $50,000 for years. Maybe there's something that the client didn't put in and they wanted to add it or change it. can add another one called indecision. Well, that's another, so I mean, look at the crowd center, 10 years in the banking that project was, and that the cost balloon from like 30, $40 million up to 140 over 10 year period, because nobody made the decision to just get it done. It's, and then you got the oversight pace. I mean, you just can't, you know, just approve the funding and say, go build it. Public has complained. They couldn't listen to the meetings or the video was not good. so, you know, finally we decided this in this budget, we would take 50,000 and upgrade that boardroom. And it's probably the best decision we that we did because now, you know, everybody can, can hear and, listen to the board meetings. But when you're dealing with $200,000 per penny and you want to go from 48 to 46, that's only 400,000. Well, watch from the windows because they may not build it. speaking of that. So city of Fayetteville added an entire, ⁓ position in the city for contract review because of what they went through with the contractor up and quitting and all, ⁓ what kind of apparatus do we have in the town to manage or to, we have a construction management? We did someone and we still don't. Okay. Because that's of course that requires funding. That's an extra position and we've got. Right. So what do you get? What do you want to give up for 400,000? Just people don't think about how $400,000 sounds like a lot of money to me and most people, but they don't, but they don't think about specifically what it entails. ⁓ I can cut. could find two cents to cut, know, no, you're not cutting two cents. So here's what we have for $400,000. Show me here's the budget. Let's go over. What would you like me to cut? We can get rid of, we can sell the fire trucks. Do you guys want to sell the fire trucks? especially in the budget that we just approved this year, you know, it was close to a bare bones as it was, but we had to, when we get to talk about the budget, I can get into personnel, but you've got to have some, you got to have oversight that has to look at and over and oversee the performance of the general contractors. Now back to the, um, the John Hodges public safety building, that thing started out with the octratec about eight, about seven, eight million. That's what it started out. people will come to a little more reality as opposed to, people can't take into their mind what $400,000 is they're thinking about two cents. Yeah. Well, I was going to say, I went to Bojangles and the drive-through, have a sign for the people to read that says a ketchup packet is this much, a barbecue is this much for the actual cost. Right. So, you know, we need a chart like Bojangles to make it Bo time. It ended up with a little over 16. And I mean, so, it was change orders. Then you had COVID. mean, there was a lot of different factors that, that, brought that price up. There is put some up on the wall. did. Now going going forward, our vision going forward is in this budget, we did set aside $100,000, a half a penny for looking at a substation site, because we know that we're going to have to expand a public safety. So in this budget, finally in this budget, we did we set aside 100,000, just to look at a substation. Has that money been spent? It has not. without, so, again, so Hope Mills, this isn't first thing they will been building if they do something at the lake. are they building or improving ⁓ improving, but it's a construction project. So what I'm getting at is how, basically we had some mismanagement maybe of the the Hodges safety building? didn't have any mismanagement there. What we had was change orders ⁓ and then we had COVID as well. Okay. Okay. So, and we did have oversight with that building. And when we talk about the lake improvement, we'll have oversight there from our various departments. ⁓ works will be part of that. ⁓ and Rec will be part of that. So you will have oversight. ⁓ we will have oversight. Okay. Okay. Okay. What does that mean to look at? When we're looking at different sites? Does that mean you're going to hire an expert to come in and tell us where to have a substation? Our fire department and police department pretty much know exactly what areas. we're not paying somebody to come a hundred thousand dollars to come and tell us where we already know we need something. I already know the location. We've got, like I said, we've got some smart folks at work in public safety. now, and the other part is we haven't even talked about the real growing Plus the town staff meets every Thursday. ⁓ that's the thing. Like if not, cause I'm not suggesting that you go spend money on another position. The last thing that I think government needs is to get bigger. Okay. Because I want it large enough that I can kill it. So, ⁓ I think we do pretty good. How would you handle the oversight? just weekly updates in the meetings, maybe have a construction representative there. mean, I think we do, department, which is parks and rec. We need a building that one we've got to 1983. So now we're looking at partnerships with TJ Robertson life center, because now we're going to have to go and do some contracts because we are, we have maxed out the capacity for parks and rec programs and hope mills completely maxed out. Now, if we don't have kids in programs and activities where we will, where we'll. we really do ⁓ a really great have, when we look at the oversight committee that meets on Thursday, We have reps from DOT, PWC are there contract, whatever, whatever contractors that are associated with that project are part of that meeting. I've been in a number of them, especially one of them was with Wawa travel center that got bogged down with, with PWC and that had to be worked out. ⁓ they were behind schedule. It was some tasks that needed to be done and the general management team from Wawa. kids go. Go break some glass and steal some guns. I mean, that's what happens over here. I mean, if you don't otherwise engage the children, yes, I believe they will turn to just mischief and that mischief will eventually turn violent or possibly deadly. you know, that's what we hear from the principals of the seven schools that we're involved in right now for community policing. So how can you put a value on put together a zoom meeting with everybody in the room. And when that happened, when you get everybody at the table, you solve the problems. And that really worked with Wawa. I'm, I'm, I was part of that. was to be part of that. I was really glad to see that because there's a, there's a lot that's involved, but you gotta, know, everybody's got a call. got on the phone. Wawa had you guys, damn it. did it. ⁓ Wawa did it with, ⁓ community policing when it's working so very, well with our kids. So we've got to ⁓ continue parks and rec opportunities, but that's funding. Right. Well, it's the most American of flaws. We want instant gratification and I only read headlines to get pissed off. Yeah. That's what I like to do. I guess sometimes we do have one person in the chat. We acknowledge Lori. So say hi, Lori. Hi Lori. She says that public They got PWC, town Hope Mills, what other state called it. Okay. Any part, any, ⁓ participant in that construction project was on that zoom. Okay. Or either that or in person. All right. Our town staff, of course, was in person in town hall. And then on the screen, we had probably 10, 12 people that were there from various. So it wasn't a meeting just to have another meeting. no, you guys got it done. This was a working meeting with one goal. Let's resolve whatever the issues are. officials should be working for the people. Uh, but she hasn't responded yet. I'm kind of sad. So, uh, you know, I kind of think, do you feel that you work for the people? I work every day for the people. And it sounds like they have a lot of meetings that you can attend. So if you're not attending the meetings, I find a schedule for the meetings? Right. They're posted on the town website. Okay. We, if I'm, what if I'm, uh, it's also on the market. We also post them not only on town website, we have a town Facebook page that we push out the meetings. Let's collaborate and talk it out. And that's exactly what we had two of them. All right. And that's all it took. Well, sometimes you gotta shake the tree. sounds good to me. So, ⁓ all right. The, the big hairy monster in the room. Let's talk some budget. ⁓ Why'd you raise everybody's taxes? ⁓ I tell you. Just like Monday night. mean, we've got a special one at six o'clock to honor commissioner. I want to bog this down, but I have to ask, okay. Because I asked everybody else. I looked for old mills days on the town website. It was not there. I had to find it on distinctly Fayetteville. What's your beef with old mills days? Okay. Here's what happened with old mill. Okay. Now it's not run by the town's parks and rec. Okay. It's now run by Debbie Jones and the hope mills police foundation. Right. Okay. So that's, that's the, ⁓ the person that's behind it. Cause there's a thing called revenue neutral that everybody's tossing around right now. And they say, well, they went above revenue neutral. went above revenue neutral, but tell me why. I don't know as much as I don't know about that. I brought a copy of our $22 million budget with me and it's the facts. Okay. Okay. And that's probably what I'm going to talk about is the facts that surround this because I I've heard and I've seen, it is. And it was really run well. Wasn't she doing that beforehand? Anyway, she's been doing it a long time. yeah. She's been in her heart is all if she's watching. Hi, Debbie. And, ⁓ heart's in this. She, she knows my family real well. I think she worked with my dad long time ago, long time ago when the world was young. Okay. So it's police foundation runs at not town of Hope Mills. Well, it's a partnership, but mainly, but mainly Debbie and her husband and the foundation. I mean, they pour a lot of time into this and the It's a lot of misinformation is what it is. Explain it so a sandwich maker can understand it. ⁓ So this all starts with the sales tax revenue at war. We have to kind of start there as a baseline. ⁓ For years, probably 20 years, I think, or longer, the county had a different sales tax rate for the municipalities. So, and it was renewable every five years. comments from from Saturday was just just huge about in fact people want more community events. Okay, that's what I hear. Well, okay. I'm going to make this request as a non-home mills taxpayer. That sounds like an event in the public interest. So maybe can you put a bug in the ear some whoever makes the schedule and because I shouldn't have to go Google City of Fayetteville events. Yeah, fine. Okay, Mills. Yeah, just you know, since I got you here, your social media person, you know, I'm going to leverage the communication right now. know, so So when I first came on the board in 1718, it was renewed again for another five years. And then the County would always say, well, at the end of the five years, we're going to switch and go add the lawn. Well, so it got renewed and then again, and then all of a sudden the County decided we're not going to renew anymore. It's done. that was what year? We're going to go, what, three years ago, four years ago. Okay. Yeah. Uh, okay. So old mills days, you'll be back on the calendar. Okay. And you're welcome. So, uh, mayor bell flowers, tell us about how people can get in touch with you, learn about your campaign. If any website or whatever, please tell us now. I'll be at a board of elections tomorrow and I'll be there also on Saturday. Uh, and of course they can find me definitely Tuesday or people can call me. They can text me. Last minute donate to your campaign. How do they do that? Just, We're going to give you a couple of years to figure out whatever you need to do, but we're going to go and Valor and that and see, and it's not a hope knows issue. This is a nine municipality issue, all of Cumberland County. So everybody lost sales tax revenue, everybody. Okay. You know, some municipalities could afford to lose that. The smaller ones, of course, you know, that's a big chunk. Just reach out to me. I'll meet them or, or, ⁓ get up with them some in whatever way that they want. ⁓ and Lord knows Bambi will be all over it. Cause she's all over every time we're So I'm going to tell you hats off to Bambi. I more hats off to my family who has continued to inspire me and support me on this journey. You can't do it alone. You have to have it's family as a team. I mean, we have a lot of conversations. For us, it was a little over 2 million. Okay. Then we had to, to, ⁓ fix in this budget. So you, so you had two, you had almost two perfect storms at once. So you had the change of ad valorem and then you had the re-eval. Two perfect storms kind of working together at one time. County hasn't done that in seven years. I hope they go to a four year model. She cares about Hope Mills as deeply as I do. Our granddaughters were raised here and our daughter is here. So and, I get a little passionate about this because, you know, you really got to have the heart to do this. And I said this to Jackie Warner, former mayor Jackie Warner, when we honored her and put her picture up in the boardroom. I looked at her that night and I said, Jackie. ⁓ would be really great if they were to do that. I think so. think that's the direction the county is going to go in, but the property tax rate. I got probably got to say this three times, property tax rate, property tax rate in Hope Mills. Decreased. I'll say that three times decreased decreased from 51 cents to 48 cents. Because I hear all this, the property tax, hope mills raised property taxes. How did you do this job for 12 straight years? And I meant that every time. And when I said that to her, how did, how did you do it for 12 straight years? I believe it. No, I know it's a lot of stress. ⁓ I think having run for office, Laura, and I know that we realize how much we don't know until you get involved with that process, and especially sitting in the seat, ⁓ having an attitude of learning and wanting to continue. That's a big deal for an elected. you gotta, but you gotta go in. property tax rate decreased. What increased is the value of people's homes, residential commercial. And we had nothing to do with that. That was all run by the county that increased the value of ⁓ residential commercial properties. So then we come to this revenue neutral, but let me back up a minute back to add valorem. already knowing something and gotta know a little something, spend a little time doing a little homework and don't just, know, several times the mayor referred to the staff, the staff, the staff. wasn't I, I, I. Right. So whatever's happened, good, bad, or ugly out there, they have a staff that he feels is very capable that despite the elected sitting at the dais, you've got a town that's going to run. have the utmost trust and confidence in the staff. I do. Okay. Now it doesn't mean we agree all the time. Right. Some years ago, back in 1718, a good friend of mine who's not with me, not with us anymore, he was a councilman on city council, Ted Moen. We looked at this some years ago and we thought and made the proposal to the county, why don't if you're going to change to ad valorem, at least phase it in. Don't do it all at one time because the municipalities are not going to be able to absorb that loss. No, I'd be, I'd be interested if you did, but no, I don't think you would. well, Mr. Mayor, thank you for being here. This is, ⁓ Peter Pappas and Laura Musler signing off for the Carolina cabinet. Thanks y'all for watching. Thank you. Thank you very much. And Ted and I, know, some years ago when I first came on as commissioner, that was our proposal. Phase this in, you know, over a three year period. Don't hit us all at once. Well, that's what happened for, for Hope Mills. was over $2 million. So then you had the property reavow. So we go to revenue neutral. Okay. So that's established at 31 cents. That's our baseline. 31. from what was it before 58 or something? 51? 51. I mean, the rate was 51 cents before the reval. Revenue neutral to get about the same amount of money was 31 cents. 31 cents. Right. Okay. So you got to add 10 right there. For two to equal $2 million. To absorb the two plus, two million plus in loss of sales tax revenue. That we had to add right there's 10 right there. Well, why did you need to make it up though? Why can't, why don't you just stop picking up trash or I mean, just fire a couple of cops or something. Yeah, well, that goes into the next piece. Okay. So, so at 40 at so that comes up to 41. We haven't even paid the bills. Okay, we haven't even looked at this next operating year. Not at all. I mean, we're so our new baseline is at 41. And then we've got public safety needs. We've got community needs. Uh, one of the first draft budget came in, came in with a COLA for our employees at 1.5 cost of living. 1.5%. Yeah. I can't get nothing for one and a half pennies. You can't even get pennies anymore. Right. our surrounding municipalities were looking at, you know, average of 3 % hat. So security is going to be 2.8. Yeah. Yeah. And how did we end up with 1.5 where that went from? Because that was the very first. number that came in to try to keep the property tax rate as low as we could, because we were operating now at 41. We, mean, this is where we start with this budget that I got in my hand. The $22 million budget starts started at 41. Okay. Not didn't start at 31, 41. Right. Because you had to, you had to figure out without, cause otherwise you'd be cut. What could you do? You just have to cut services, right? Well, it's either cut server. You'd have to either cut services because if you don't have additional revenue streams and sources, then that's what you do have to cut. Okay. have questions. Go ahead. Okay. So you have your budget and let's say the police chief asks for a million dollars. Let's just use round numbers. It's easy. He asked for a million dollars, but he's how many officers short? What happens because, that would be fully funded police officers. Correct. What happens to the money with, if the officers don't filled? Where does that money go? Does it come back? Does it get refunded? Does it get put in a slush fund? Where's that money? Well, first off, if the board approved the million dollars, which the board would not do, I'm just using fake numbers. know that. Well, we did approve and this was based on public input that the public wanted the state, public safety building, the police department open 24 seven. ⁓ So we, so to fund that that's extra positions. Okay. That's extra cars that we're going to have to put in this budget starting at 41 cents. Okay. To add that in, to open that building up. And then we unfroze a couple of firefighter positions that had been frozen for a number of years. So that was part of the increase from 41 to 48. This still didn't answer my question. So how many officers are you guys short in Hultmills? I don't know the exact number of how many were short today. But you are short. We are short. Yes. Is it 10? Is it less than 10 greater than 10? think it would definitely be less than 10. I think the whole department's got 30 or Yeah. We may be one or two short. Okay. So you're talking about $60,000 a year. Where does that money go at the end of the year when those positions have not been filled? What happens to that money? It stays in general fund. It doesn't go to the police department. No, you know, everything at the end of the fiscal year reverts back to general fund. Okay. Everything. There's nothing rolls over. think maybe Laura, that was what you were looking for. Nothing rolls over. now it's sitting in the general fund. let's say you were Fayetteville and you had 80 officers short. That money is sitting in the general fund. Does that mean we get a refund and we get a check in the mail or we get credit on our taxes or where does that money end up going? Or we just spend it on, we were going. to Disneyland, Florida with an Uber and an rooftop bar. I would really like to know where, cause I see things and I see, and who goes through each line item to see that there isn't waste because I like, if you go to the hospital and you're like paying $70 for a bandaid, that's a little excessive. who's following these line items to make sure that we're not just wasting because we paid it before we're going to pay it now. When I came in as mayor, We took a different direction on the way we're looking at budgets. And the first budget workshop was in January, where the proposed budget for the next year in its very early draft form is what we call the first look of kind of where the departments are. they get every are we on par with what was approved in the past budget looking forward now? There are those, all of these budget workshops are open to the public and we always look for public input at all of them. even have the attendance like at the public forum, public input, very, minimal 10, 20, probably less than that. Okay. So all these people that are up in arms about the budget that are not participating in these events, maybe they should start participating in what I understand, I'm just saying I have a little bit of defense form because they are living their lives, trying to pay the mortgage. get that, but there is a lot of fervor about. And I think I've said it already. Who the hell wants to pay more taxes? Nobody does. Nobody is comfortable with 48 cents. Yes. Nobody has, but you know, you know what people don't talk about. And this is one of the goals that I'm looking at going into next year is the focus when we get in that is if I'm reelected, I'm better say that if I'm reelected, I will ask the board. And when we get into the budget workshops in January, let's look at lower, lowering the 48. People don't, you can raise property tax rate, you can also lower it. Yes you can. And see, and that's the other piece of people don't look at, or don't talk about. We have the opportunity next year to lower that tax rate. We had a couple things happen in April, May that kind of shot the tax rate up a little bit. We had a cell tower that we thought we were gonna sell for about 500,000. And in fact, it was, it was a done deal all the way up until the end where we had to adopt this budget and the company decided, ⁓ they wanted to go a different direction. Okay. So that was some positions and, ⁓ some equipment that was needed for public safety. majority of the increase from 41 to 48 is primarily all public safety related. Okay. Let me ask you a question. The average house. sells for, okay, Mr. Realtor ⁓ average house in Hope Mills, North Carolina sells for what? Any ideas? Three, 300,000. don't know. I don't know. I was going to say if I had to get, let's just use $200,000. Okay. So how much per year does this, you're going to make me math. am going to make math. Okay. How much per year? So, then let's divide it out by month. Cause most people put it in there. At 41 cents. much was it? now at 48, how much is it? So how much money are we talking about? Now there's one more variable, Laura, I got to share with you. One more variable in this equation. What does one penny bring in as far as revenue? At Hope Mills, that's a little over 200,000. Right. But what I'm saying for a person, and then I'm going through my bills and I'm like, holy smokes, my tax bill went up. I have land, so my tax bill comes due and I have to cut a check. It's not like it's, you know, but I have a house out there too. And so my tax bill went up and when I see my escrow amount go up, but it only went up like, you know, like $40 or $50. the original taxes at 41 cents would have been 820. Okay. And because it's 41 cent per hundred, you take your value divided by a hundred. Anyway, the new amount would have been 940. So $120 more, which is about $10 more a month. Okay. About $10 a month. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yep. That's quick and dirty math for you. mean, right now, the revenue when we look at what one cent brings in, okay, for this budget here is $200. It's a little over $200,000. Now, will that increase next year? We were hoping it will. It could decrease too, but we don't see that. I mean, we're in a very positive forecast with this much commercial growth that's there now that we will start receiving. you know, revenue from in the following year. And then we've got additional rooftops that are, that are being built as well in the Hope Mills. do you charge commercial properties? They pay more than residential? Nope. They pay the same property tax. but the difference there was the county reevaluation was different between residential and commercial. It only went up like 20 or 27%, something like that. Commercials. Yes. Residentials went up 83%. In Hope Mills, we was an average of 70 % increase on residential, but that's not true with commercial. well, commercial had already been, we had a revaluation seven years ago, right? know, so ⁓ they had already been ⁓ and what you got there in the housing ⁓ revaluation was the tail end Corona. Yeah. Crazy market when were for a hundred thousand dollar house, they offered 120 because there weren't houses to buy. Right. So they were paying like $20,000 due diligence fees that could have been lost because they wanted that house. So we had that kind of built into the values and anybody that is mad about their valuation, please give me a call. 221-5789. I will list your house and help you move out of Hope Mills into the county. Why would you not want all that additional equity in your house? I don't know. We bought a foreclosure 18 years ago. ⁓ And we paid like $180,000 for it. And it's now worth, got a thing, my bill says it's worth 425. How long ago did you get it? About 17, 18 years ago. And look at that equity. I know that's why say I'm okay with that. got an offer. I get offer letters in the mail. Here's a check for 350. I'm like, Hey, I got 400 here. It's all fun and games. I for us, I mean, I'm a real estate guy, so you know, it's good news for me, but you know, you do have citizens on fixed incomes. That's the issue that I have. Yeah. Well. You should away more nuts for the winter as far as I'm concerned. mean, look, it's not like we don't know that we're on an eternal land lease with our government. We don't really own our houses. Don't pay your taxes a couple of years and see if you own your house anymore. ⁓ I mean, you know, until we get like Florida and abolish property taxes altogether, which I really would like to know where the hell they're going to get, how high their sales taxes are going to be to make up for the revenue not getting property. See, I like sales tax. The more money you spend, the more money you pay. To me, that makes sense. Yeah. But that also makes it consumption based. I would, ⁓ I'm telling you, would to see... if it's 25%, if ⁓ you don't have the 25%, don't spend If I was to look at in sales tax, just a quarter cent, ⁓ a quarter now, not a half or fourths or even a penny, a quarter cent and just apply that revenue to public safety because ⁓ everybody would pay that ⁓ regardless of you live in that or not. If you, if you shop in Hope Mills, you would pay that quarter cent sales tax. if you applied that just to public safety, because public safety, the campaign promise, when public safety goes to an incident on one of the roads, they don't ask the people, are you a Hope Mills resident? Well, maybe they should. No, you're not from Hope Mills. I helping you? No, no, no, they don't. They, they help whoever is in the car. It doesn't matter where they live. does not matter. And I think when you look at the amount of public safety that citizens in Hope Mills, we're pretty safe right now. We're really doing well. Our schools are doing excellent. And we just had a trunker treat ⁓ last week at Rockfish Elementary. The principal stood out there and just was giving huge praise for what we're doing in community policing in Hope Mills. I heard the same thing from Southview several weeks ago when we had the tribute game Tuesday night for EE Smith, when they came, because I was there and it was huge. It's the public safety piece. You know, the community policing with our officers that are involved in all seven of the schools. That is value. so how much did the sheriff drop in the SRO deal on you guys earlier this year? How much did that affect your budget? The thing we had to pick now, the SROs are paid, their salaries are paid from the county. Okay. Okay. So we have to pick up the TCOs, which is those traffic control officers. mean, we have to pay for crossing guards. Well, they don't TCOs. They don't like crossing guards. They're traffic control officers. And you have sanitation technicians too, I'm assuming. We do. Do you also pick up, do you still have home bill sanitation department? No. No? No, we have waste management. Oh my Lord. they said, you still got the same three guys. probably knew when I was out there at the restaurant. Okay. And they're, they have technicians that drive around in green trucks. I'm not throwing shade. just think the whole thing's silly from growing up as a Gen Xer. Everything's gotta be PC. so, then we have to pay for the cars. Okay. Okay. That's not covered either. So we have to pay for the cars for the officers, but the salaries are included. So how much dollar impact where you look at one, two, 300,000 a year, like how much did it go to impact? ⁓ it's definitely about three, little over $300,000. Okay. All right. So, that's in, so, know, that's in part of that's what two or three cents worth. Okay. So far you getting less than we got 10 cent plus we got two or three cent. Where's the rest? I'm going to, we're going to put you upside down. Shake. I've got an entire list here that will tell us. I do know from working from the government in years past though, when you do have a budget and you're asking for X amount of dollars, say I asked for a hundred dollars and it gets towards the end of the year and we've only spent $80. Everybody says, what do they say? We better spend that $20. Cause if we don't spend it, how do know other departments don't? We don't do that because that's the standard of the town. Drew Holland, our finance director. cuts everybody off. Okay. All right. Because it, yep. right. It like they have a good system in, in Hope Mills. And we do. impressed. And we do. He cuts everybody off, ⁓ and, and begins that in May, as we get close to adopting this, that's when that physical management piece comes in to manage the budget. And you got to have a strong financial, ⁓ manager that's in place to do this and a solid team. And that's what we have. Can we borrow you for Fayetteville? And that's why we, that's why our audits are clean for six, seven years. Our finance department has received awards for those years. Now we do have ⁓ some state auditors that are looking at some of the things that were some folks have made some complaints and called and the auditors have come down and they've looked at every, every one of the complaints. that's not come out yet. And can you share with us what they're looking at or the final? Well, some of it is travel like the, uh, the Tampa, the Tampa trip is some of it. What was the Tampa trip? Holy crap. national league of cities. Okay. So that's a big, uh, junket. No. What do I call it? go there to learn and compare stories and see what works other places. It's like all the, the council comes together and it's the super bowl of cities. Okay. It truly is. I mean, and I will tell you. the city of fable, all just about everybody went. But you know, they're not, of course, being audited. I mean, there are some folks that want to audit that trip, you know, they're not just the field. So I mean, in defense of the taxpayer that wants it audited, think, ⁓ Laura and I have discussed this before. We're kind of in the sphere of this governmental stuff. have an idea how budgets work. We just because we took an interest in it. And for some reason we like it. don't, I don't know why we're nerds. We really are, but I think most people like, what are doing my tax money? And you know, how dare you spend X, Y, and Z, but did you not have a travel budget? Do you guys not have some kind of, cause I know a city of Fayetteville, the, the councilman get, ⁓ their salary and then they get so much a year allotted for travel. how is it set up in Hope Mills? We're not set up that way. Okay. So how is it set up? How did you pay for the trip? We take it right out of the general fund in our, in our budget. We budget for, for travel and training. So it's not really assigned to you, but there's a budget for there's a budget line item that is there, you know, for, for the board, you know, for travel and training. how much you set aside for souvenirs and bourbon? Uh, zero. Okay. That's all out of pocket. If you want to run for commissioner. Yeah. If you want any swag, you get, you got to get it yourself. But some of the lessons that I've learned, and of course I'm just coming in as, know, as mayor for the first two years is that a lot of municipalities, they look at me. and Hope Mills and say, if you guys don't want that growth, we'll take it. If you guys don't want that traffic congestion, I wish we had that in our community. There are some communities that really, that are dying out because they don't have growth. But one of our issues in Hope Mills too is managing that growth. And that's going to be the challenge, the huge challenge for this next year. Let's pause right here for a minute. We're having some tech issues. I'm going to ⁓ switch over to another. We're getting messages on the chat that they lost us. So we back up. Not yet. No, I'm lost too. I am just, I just saw a message waiting for broadcast. Ken Juana is on here. Karen Saracens on here. ⁓ your wife. Yep. ⁓ yeah. Okay. Well, she's got to keep track of him. And she does. And she does. And she does. Still? Wow. ⁓ This live video has ended. That's what it says. All right. Let me stop it and go back in. It's fine. I'll just stitch this.