Orange County NC Website
2 <br /> 1 Arts Moment <br /> 2 No Arts Moment will be available for this meeting. <br /> 3 <br /> 4 2. Public Comments <br /> 5 <br /> 6 a. Matters not on the Printed Agenda <br /> 7 <br /> 8 b. Matters on the Printed Agenda <br /> 9 (These matters will be considered when the Board addresses that item on the agenda <br /> 10 below.) <br /> 11 <br /> 12 3. Announcements, Petitions and Comments by Board Members <br /> 13 Commissioner McKee had no comments. <br /> 14 Commissioner Bedford said it would be wise to prepare the Vice Chair, as part of the <br /> 15 process on COVID-19, in case the Chair should fall ill. <br /> 16 Chair Rich said that would be a petition. <br /> 17 Commissioner Greene said she is glad the Board can meet this way. She attended the <br /> 18 Chamber of Commerce's zoom discussion, where there was a lot of interest in the small <br /> 19 business loans. She said she was impressed the way Aaron and his staff understood the <br /> 20 application process. <br /> 21 Commissioner Marcoplos said he attended a climate change webinar today, with <br /> 22 people from all over the country. He said it was interesting to hear all the ways this problem is <br /> 23 being tackled, and there was a lot of interest in the County's climate council and climate tax. <br /> 24 Commissioner Price piggybacked on Commissioner Greene's comments about the <br /> 25 SBA grants and loans, and she has been on some town hall meetings about this as well. She <br /> 26 said she has asked if the Chambers and Economic Development staff can help spread the <br /> 27 word, and they can, but people will have to go directly to the lender. <br /> 28 Commissioner Price said she attended another local meeting about evictions, and <br /> 29 wanted to know what was happening in Orange County in this regard. <br /> 30 Commissioner Dorosin said it would be helpful to get a periodic update on the <br /> 31 emergency loan program, and how the County is getting the message out. <br /> 32 Commissioner Dorosin said he has three specific petitions, with the first two being time <br /> 33 sensitive: <br /> 34 <br /> 35 He said he had previously mentioned that the ABC board is considering whether to <br /> 36 adjust its pay scale to meet the new living wage threshold, and he fears it is leaning <br /> 37 against because of costs in adjusting the entire scale to avoid compression. He said the <br /> 38 Board should strongly encourage (by resolution/letter) that the ABC board to adopt the <br /> 39 new living wage scale, even if it means a potential reduction in total funds returned to the <br /> 40 general fund (he said he does not know that it will, since sales continue to rise). And <br /> 41 they will need to discuss this soon as the ABC board will also be preparing their budget <br /> 42 soon. <br /> 43 He said that the recent election has highlighted important electoral issues with <br /> 44 continuing to have a multi-seat election. He said there were significant numbers of <br /> 45 undervotes in the district 1 race, and it is also inconsistent that in non-presidential years <br /> 46 it is a single seat race (thereby changing the nature of the election depending which year <br /> 47 one runs). He said the Board has talked several times about revisiting the method of <br /> 48 election, but have failed to take any votes. He said he believes the County needs to <br /> 49 change its electoral process to eliminate the multi-district seat. He said there are various <br /> 50 ways to do that, which have already been researched. He said since Commissioner <br /> 51 Marcoplos already has a voting petition on the action item list, this could easily be added <br />