Dave Casotti, Boone Mayor, March 3, 2026

Today visiting with Mayor Dave Cassotti. Good to have you back. Thanks Jim. Good to be back. He's here. Made it and quick council meeting. It was. It didn't seem like a lot of different things on there. No, it wasn't bad at all.

I mean, there are a lot happening but it was a quick meeting. Yeah.

Well, I did think because of the discussions and the things that had been going on earlier when the initial things for the public hearing came up that you might have a few people raising some questions but no comments one way or another.

Yeah, I was fully expecting to have some sort of comments but. And there were very many in the audience either so. Yeah, real quiet meeting so to speak. Well, we made it through that.

Once again, the public hearings and one is again, this is I think what they say the last lot out there on Gulf of States. Yeah, yep. They're saying that's the last lot there. Hard to believe because I remember many many years ago when it first started. Yeah.

All of a sudden you think, will they ever fill it all up? That's what I talked to people along. You know, people that grew up with me went to high school that moved away and they're like to ask me about the golf course in the country club, you know, quote unquote.

And I'm like, well, it's 18 holes in the back nine in the houses, all those houses now. Yeah, it's just hard to fathom that it's been that long and that it's pretty much full now. So filled up and once again, this was one of the last lots but getting a little access to it.

That was the big right. Yeah, the easement for it. Yep. The other one that you had is the public hearing again, $1.3 million water revenue capital loan notes. Andrea at the meeting this time too, she was better. Yeah. She was actually there in person.

But this is one of those where starting to see some of the work that's going to be going in towards Daisy project. And again, folks, if I say the North Med transmission main, and we talk about $1.3 million, that's just engineering. Right. That's just engineering for now. Yep.

Because that's going to be a pretty substantial project. It is. That's that's going to be. Yeah. That was interesting to follow. That was one of those that of course, when you came on, it was already well into the works. Yeah. The way they've laid it out.

I know they've talked about it, having the redundancy in water service to community. Because when again, you think about the water lines coming into town from the water works, that's they're old. Right.

And I know there's a certain amount public works has a certain amount of apprehension about it. Yes. And there's when they break, you can't find parts. Right. That's what the two that we have now are different kind of odd size, so to speak.

So they're going to bring in a more common size, which if we have issues, then it'll be easier to fix. But yeah, so that's yeah, that's kind of a big thing. That'll be a big one coming up.

And once again, you're going to you're going to hear more about it because it's one of those projects that once they get into bidding and everything, that's really going to be the. Yeah, it'll be it'll be a big one. It will. I think one of the other things that we did hear from.

Well, from Andrea, she did say they got it started. They got started on the the ground, well, the ground storage, ground storage, which at the last meeting, we had the announcement of a five hundred thousand dollar grant to help cover some of the cost for that.

And they had been this was one of those projects that started several years ago and and now they're finally getting to it. But it's. We did went down there and he goes, yeah, once you get in there and see it, it was needed.

Yeah, that I would see why the people down there kept telling you, you got to fix this. Yeah. And it's it's stuff that we don't see. I mean, Waylon gets to check on it, but it's like I would love to go down and look at it just to get my eyes on it and understand more.

But yeah, Waylon knows what he's doing and that. Yeah, that's that's going to be a big thing, too. But I yeah, it's he know he knows the situation. So well, we got they finally got started on that. But that's one of those that we just need to get done again.

A lot of the different projects that are going on. And again, we're just barely scratching the surface of all the all the projects that you're looking at here in this next fiscal year. Yep, it's going to be a busy year for sure.

He did talk about them starting to get one of the things that this year, time of the year, everybody starts complaining about is the potholes and stuff like that.

But they've been a little diverted because now they're kind of focusing on making sure the storm stormwater is getting all cleaned out and getting all repaired so that they can get any brains out of the way. Right now. Yep. And it's coming.

So yeah, we'll get all that taken care of. And they're still working on some potholes. But and then we'll have street repair coming in not too much longer. So I should get that bid for first street pretty soon. Yep.

Which is that one of those timing wise, I know they would like to get started on doing some of this by the time school is out, but get the whole thing get the whole thing done before school starts. Exactly. Yeah, that will be a challenge and a half. Yep. We got that.

Another product or another thing that came up from the Public Safety Committee meeting and this was the parking that's going to be there. You did the ordinance, the first consideration on that ordinance. And basically that is parking out there by Boone and Scenic Valley. Correct.

And of course, rail explorers had come to the Public Safety Committee meeting and and the bottom line is as they talked about it, they decided let's just have parking limited to one side of the street prohibiting the parking on the south side, which that's where your residents are.

Right. And this opens that keeps that free for them to access their property. But they does get a little crowded out there. Yes, it does. It's which we like that we do. Yeah. I mean, that's it's a good problem to have, I guess. But yeah, a lot of traffic going out there.

So otherwise, not not a lot of other things coming up for you. No, Andrea did cover as well our website city websites. I don't know all the terminology, but the the person that takes care of that and the company, it's going to be outdated.

They're not going to be able to update it anymore. So we've got to look into getting a new company to redesign a website. And it also has to be ADA compliant, which that was something that has never crossed my mind. That was the question that he you raised folks.

I said, what does this mean? Yeah, I you know, ADA, I think of parking and wheelchair accessibility and things like that.

You don't think about it on a website, but it has to do with visually impaired, which I can understand that because I do have some a little bit of visual impairment.

So but it's it kind of boils down to where you can click on something on a website and it will talk to you and and then you don't have to read it. So which I understand with small print is hard to read for me. So I get that. I learned them too.

You got to have that to see what I'm reading. Yep. So right now and council was pretty insistent. They want something. They want something good. Yes. They didn't want cost to be really a limiting factor.

They want something that's going to meet their needs and needs coming forward. Correct. Yeah. We are not looking for the cheapest thing out there, but something that's cost effective that that will work for us and not have to redo again in a short amount of time.

So yeah, not looking for the cheapest, but looking for the best value. What again, basically counsel and she did have some suggestions because they know a couple of companies already have made some contact. But there are others that are available as well.

And I know that they are going to take a look at just what what might be there. Right. There's probably three or four and uh, uh, Congress or congressman, excuse me.

Councilman Angstrom said that he actually got an email from another company that said, or someone that had used another company. So they're going to look into that too.

So we'll look at three, four, five options, whatever's out there and not make a snap decision, but just make the right decision and get a good value.

So I know basically because of your staff and then again, she sort of prioritized the different things that the ones that will allow you to do the, uh, the next old notifications or the send out the email notifications.

Uh, and again, those kinds of things that you've been having people sign up for, you want to be able to continue that. Yeah. We want it to be as, as much similar as it can be to what we have now. So just to make it an easy transition and, and work for everyone.

Well, and, uh, you do, you have a few time constraints here. They just don't throw these together overnight. Right. They said it can take six to eight months or more to just get everything up and running and everybody get, you know, used to it and acclimated.

So it's, it's a process. So we do kind of have to start looking fairly quickly. Um, if, if your other company's going to be done the end of the year, yeah, you don't, you only have a few months. This is, this is the new thing that's on the front burner now. So yeah, way we go.

Yep. I did approve, uh, the contract for fireworks and she did say, uh, I think that, uh, already the track has indicated they are going to support this, maybe a little increase in some of the funding. Yep. Yep. That's now we got to have a big celebration. Yes.

That's going to be huge. It's, you know, 250th anniversary of our country. So it's a huge year. And we've got that on a Saturday, no less too. Yep. Jay, we're going to have all kinds of things happening there. Yeah. There's a lot happening in town this year. All right.

Uh, those things going on, there was, uh, some of the other things that, you know, when you first got elected to the council coming in, so learning a lot about budget and things like that outside of when you've been sick. But I'm done with that. Yeah.

Uh, there are a lot of things that I know one thing that discussion came up afterwards or at the end of the meeting in, uh, council member, uh, Terry Mormon at the last, uh, event that had, uh, Senator green Senator, or representative Bain at the library, uh, talked a lot about property.

He's getting a great deal of concern about the property tax issues. And I know, uh, you get to hear a lot about that too. Yes. First of all, property tax, it's going up. You keep charging so much more.

And at the same time, you're going, yeah, we've got certain costs for services that we've got. Right. That's it's a, it's a tightrope. It's, it's a fine line to walk and, you know, we don't want to raise taxes on our citizens and we're keeping the levy the same this year.

But if the assessed values go up, that causes the taxes to go up. Um, but also, yeah, with what the state's doing and can limit what we can do and get for, for tax income.

If we, yeah, so there's a, there's three or four of us going to try to be there Monday at that meeting at the library. It's at 9 a.m.

And, uh, push them to, to really take into consideration cause these bills are looking to pass are really going to affect the smaller towns, like 15,000 and smaller like us. And, and that's the big concern.

And I just, I understand that the state and the governor and everybody wants to keep people happy. And it looks great when they're lowering their taxes, but we have services that we have to continue to pay for fire, police, everything.

And it's, and public works and everything else. And it's like, if we, if we are not going to get our same money coming in, then it's going to be hard to keep. We don't want to cut staff either.

So it's a, it's going to be a tough one, but yeah, that'll be an interesting meeting this next coming Monday. One of those things.

And of course you're learning now in the, on the front end of it, uh, basically just coming in, doing the budget and some of the things that they, you talked about, obviously everybody, the big hot button issue, uh, when you were running, it was, you know, adding to the fire department, expanding the fire and then you go on.

Where's the money? Yes. Yeah. That's something we'd love to do, but it's, you can't hire someone and not be able to pay them and then have to get rid of them right away. So it's, it's, that's another, it's all, yeah, budgeting. Yeah. I never dreamed it would be this fun.

Well, I knew it was going to be a learning experience. Right. Right. And it's, I'm not new to the whole thing. I mean, as far as with the city, I am, but when you run a business, you run with the same, same issues, just on a much smaller scale.

So, and then, uh, we've got, well, one of the others that's coming up, I know Mark Peter was there.

Uh, Mike Cornelis was not going to be able to, uh, take part in the meeting last night, but the parks, he gave you kind of a little bit of a, because they were at, they specifically asked, how are you doing on your plan? Yep. Which is something the council had wanted to see.

Uh, they're getting very close to, uh, trying to put together final things, but they're looking at long range planning and expenses for the parks. And again, that's one of those areas that could be impacted. Definitely could.

And we've got, it's amazing how many parks we have in Boone. I think it's 20, 20. There's a lot more than that. It's a lot. I knew the number. I don't remember right now, but yeah. So that, that's going to be impacted as well, or could be.

So, so the things that, again, we're talking on the property tax side, really is police, public safety, police fire. Uh, you also have, uh, the, uh, parks, a lot of the library related things, uh, things like that.

And then you've got your water and sewer part, which is different because that's funded by some of the rates that are going on. Right. Yep. So, yeah. So that's, yeah. We'll just keep forging ahead to see. Right.

And everybody keeps saying, when Daisy, well, you know, we got to work with what we know right now. Yeah. That's a process. And that's it. We're still a couple, two, three years down the road before they get online. So we're going to be having some public hearings coming up.

And I know we, without looking at any of the dates or anything else, you got to have your maximum tax levy thing, which you say, you know, basically determined already is going to be unchanged. Correct. So that public hearing will have to come up separately.

And then you're going to have, uh, basically your budget hearing and, uh, everybody will be going through that about the same time as well. Yep. Uh, we'll go through all of that.

Then it's just a matter of get our projects done and hopefully everything else keeps holding together, holding together and running smooth. Yeah. That's it's, it's going to be a busy year. And then with rag brag coming through, it's there's a lot. Yeah.

And we're just learning on that part of it. Yeah. We got a few other things that are happening too. So while we look forward to having a very busy time coming up here, I think we'll do, we'll keep it pretty. Yeah. Go ahead.

Now, if we don't have any more snow and then because already I've been told that most of my, snow removal hauling away budget has already gone. So sorry. You're right. Every time you hit a weekend, there goes your overtime and everything else.

So they've, uh, actually, uh, yeah, keep our fingers crossed anyway that we don't have too many other serious things coming. I hope not.

Uh, once again, uh, for you anyway, uh, next council meeting, you're not going to be coming up until what do we got here on the 16th, 16th of March.

And, uh, again, that'll, we'll be getting closer to, uh, any of the hearings and things that we have going on, maybe a little more business. Uh, it was actually pretty quiet last. It was very quiet. 16th will be a lot busier. The next two, three, four will be a lot busier.

Dave Cassati, a Boone mayor, a guest on the program. Thanks for joining us. Thanks Jim. Appreciate it.