Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the consent and action preview here with Charlotte City Council.

I'd like to thank everyone who are joining us here in person and those watching online.

Let's start with introductions going around the room, starting with our city clerk.

Ariel Smith, lead city clerk.

Terry Hagler Gray, Senior Assistant City Attorney.

Good evening.

I'm Victoria Wattlington, and I have the pleasure of serving you as a member at large.

Joy Mayo, representing District Three.

Kimberly Owens representing District Six.

Lawana Mayfield serving you, Council at Large.

JD and my sweater audio, probably representing East Side District Five.

JD must sweat on audience.

Yes, sir, and good evening, Mayor Pro Tim and Council.

I had a chance to speak with a few of you, and you'll see before you some questions and answers, additional information.

But before you vote, is there any other information that would be helpful to you this evening?

Council Member Mayfield.

Thank you, Mayor Pro S.

Marie, we were going over a couple of things earlier, and there was going to be some clarification that you want to check.

Is that in here in this updated one?

Yes, I remember Miss Mayfield.

So to not have you try to figure out through all my questions.

Number 26 regarding the Toby Creek Sanitary Sewer construction.

Yes, 26.

That ties to business item eleven, and the county will be um funding that.

I also had a question on number 36, which we have the public hearing on Somerville, Mountain Island Voluntary Annexation.

I wanted a little bit more clarification on one, Mayor Pro Tem and colleagues, the concern that I have is regarding the impact on the unincorporated area.

So this area by right can be built with 158 units plus I believe 14 single family.

Yet when you actually go to Mecklenburg County spatialists and you look at these properties and you look at the most adjacent property, I want to make sure that we're not causing the negative impact when we're looking at an annexation for a large swath of land because you have believe it's like four or five owners, but then those that are unincorporated that are still on that same line are not going to get access to some of the services that the city provide, whether it's sewer water, but also the impact of those residents during construction.

We've had we've all received emails from where the construction time, the construction site, where the construction workers part, the impact that it has in area.

So I wanted to the question that I sent to Maria as well as copied all my colleagues on is how exactly will the other neighbors be notified of because this is for us to set the public hearing meeting.

How would they be notified if we only go 300 feet?

And in theory, 300 feet are just the owners.

So how are the other residents going to know that this is going to be happening?

Yes, ma'am.

And to your point, other residents, this is a notice and it will be posted.

Um and I sorry I forget which uh venue will be posted in, but it'll be posted in print as well as online that it's upcoming.

I think it will be helpful if we take the additional step step of making sure that we mail to the residents that are outside of these particular parcel owners so that they are aware of this public hearing and have the opportunity to come down since it is an unincorporated area.

They not might not necessarily know all of the processes, and we want to make sure that their voices are heard.

And I think that's something on staff side that we should be able to accommodate.

Yes, I'm not sure about how many people we can mail out, but we are I forgot to mention we also have signage, but um, we have Holly here, and she can be more specific.

I'm sorry, I'm fumbling around, but she's the expert on how the process rolls now.

The notifications are.

Oh, you're not from me.

Come on up, Miss Holly.

Notifications are yeah, annexation petitions, Holly Kramer planning, annexation petitions a little bit different from rezoning where we do have that 300 foot boundary.

Annexation petitions don't have the same statute requirements that we do for noticing.

So we have to post the notice in the Mecklenburg Times 10 days before the public hearing, and that's what we do.

We also send out notice to our departments that might service the annexation, and we also notice any municipalities that we border about the potential annexation, but this is a voluntary annexation brought forward by the property owners themselves.

So in terms of our policy that we've had for a couple decades and statutes, we've never done noticing to adjacent property owners.

I can talk to the petitioner and ask what conversations they've had with their neighbors, though, and see what can be done ahead of the public hearing.

So, council members, I would like for us to recognize that we have the ability to look at not always doing what we've always done.

So, what we just heard is that based on our policy for many years that it has not been necessarily a different type of outreach because we have several individuals that want to annex, our concern should also be about those who aren't interested in being annexed into the city.

So we have the ability to direct the manager to make sure that notifications actually goes out because truth be told, how many of us on this table read Mecklenburg Times?

Does everybody even know what the Mecklenburg Times is?

So there's two of us that know what Mecklenburg Times is.

The question is if that is not a source that is readily and widely known, that's a great way to bury the lead to have the information out there to say, well, we presented the information, we posted it, but who is actually going to read it to see it?

There very well may be members that live in the unincorporated area that are familiar with the Mecklenburg Times, but I think if we're going to be setting a public hearing, we have the opportunity to ensure that everyone that may be impacted should be aware that this conversation is happening.

Should be aware that this conversation is happening.

So Holly and Stab to Councilmember Mayfield, can that be a takeaway for staff to bring back to us and to look how we can communicate with all the residents fashion annexation area?

Communicate.