Mondays night’s City Council meeting was long, ending near 10:00 pm; long past bedtime for some of the older council members. The unusual length of the meeting was due in part to the recognition of Eddie Hicks’ and Ray Griffin’s retirement, a long drawn out discussion of NCDOT’s planned improvements on I-85, and a another necessary closed session.
Retirement Services
Mr. Griffin’s retirement over shadowed that of Eddie Hicks although both men in their own way contributed to improving Henderson. Mr. Griffin is leaving at the top of his game to use a sports metaphor. Next month the council will approve a new city employee manual and a code of ethics policy for city council members completes Mr. Griffin’s efforts to bring order out of the chaos he found here when he arrived.
NCDOT’s planned improvements on I-85
NCDOT intends to resurface I85 from Andrews Ave north to the US 1 – I85 interchange. The plan is similar to the method used years ago in Granville County where one lane in each direction is closed for construction. Mr. Griffin reported that, “Several meetings have been held with both City and County personnel to discuss potential impacts to the Henderson area”. The hot button was the number and lengthen of time exit and entrance ramps would be closed along with the consequential surface street congestion caused by those closing. The safety and emergency response issues appear to have been resolved in the earlier meetings. Anytime a roadway is repaired or improved there is congestion and inconvenience due to the construction. The vocal objection by two business owners along with a silent third business owner centered on the inconvenience to them over the common good for all. An out of town business owner stated he would just close up his business and move away if NCDOT closed the bridge at Satterwhite Point Road as part of the reconstruction project. The NCDOT’s efforts to assure him that planned detours and notification signage would reroute traffic to his business seemed to fall on his deaf ears. The other vocal objection came for Councilmember Rainey whose business depends of customers having access to and from I85. He said he expected NCDOT to send him a check to make up for the lost revenue caused by temporary ramp and lane closures on NC 39 bridge over I85. He really did say that; maybe out of frustration or misinformation. It would have been better had Councilmember Rainey or any other councilmember stepped back to look at the whole picture. Mr. Griffin did and suggested that NCDOT should take ownership of Parham Road; a narrow road in poor condition that will be used and abused with heavy equipment throughout the duration of the construction period. While speaking of Parham Road Mr. Griffin said the city lacks funds to resurface city streets and certainly is without the funds to maintain Parham Road during the construction. Construction will begin in January, expect delays. An aside, the current construction on I85 is another NCDOT project. That project when completed will include our portion of I85 in the DOT’s centralized traffic monitoring system using closed circuit cameras. When completed electronic signs will alert drivers of road congestion due to construction and crashes, adverse road weather due to weather conditions, and even provide silver and amber alerts.
Public Comment non-agenda items
Gary Morgan, a resident of Warren County and owner of Tar Heel Economic Development spoke immediately following the NCDOT’s presentation. Mr. Morgan suggested the city go into the residential housing business as a way of rejuvenating abandoned residential properties and creating jobs. He proposed using reserved funds to buy abandoned properties then hire groups of unskilled people to rebuild and modernize the properties. I assume Mr. Morgan was so intent his presentation he did not hear Mr. Griffin say the city lacked the spare change to resurface and city streets. The City’s charter does not include the residential housing business.
The council recessed into closed session following Mr. Morgan’s presentation. During the first ten or more minutes of the closed session Cory Williams and Chief Marcus Barrow listened attentively to Mr. Morgan explain the benefits of his idea. The city is fortunate to have both Mr. Williams and Chief Barrow in their respective leadership roles because they have a realistic understand of the housing problems of Henderson and by extension Vance County.
Work Session
The council whipped through the eight remaining items of the work session in rapid succession. Of the eight items two are intertwined and two are related though one displayed why progress is so difficult. The two intertwined items were adaption of the City’s Employee Personnel Manual and approval of the Ethics Policies for the City of Henderson’s Elected Officials. Mr. Griffin intends for the ethics policy to be part of the personnel manual when both are approved in November. Reading through the ethics policy one can make a case that a councilmember whose business’s property taxes are in arrears for multiple years is: (1) not guided by the spirit as well as the letter of the law, (2) not adhering to a code of sound values, (3) not exhibiting trustworthiness, (4) not avoiding impropriety in the exercise of their official duties, especially if “in terms of whether a reasonable person who is aware of all the relevant facts and circumstances surrounding the Council member’s action would conclude that the action was inappropriate.”
The “Adopt a Park” Policy and the building of Water Spray Park at the Aycock recreation center are the new out of the box ideas to improve Henderson. Allowing a business, individual, or organization to adopt a park should with park maintenance while reducing the strain on city and county budgets. Except to Councilmember Simmons, Aycock is the logical location to try the water spray park. She vehemently objected to the location of water spray park; because it’s too far from other parts of the city; in other words not near her neighborhood. In her objection she told the acting parks and recreation manager to get off his butt and find tax money to provide public transportation to Aycock. Maybe she should have looked three chairs to her right when complaining there are no funds for buses to parks or resurfacing city streets.