“This transportation stuff is screwy,” Henderson Mayor Clem Seifert said Monday night, and nobody argued with him.
That conclusion followed Planning Director Grace Smith’s presentation on the local transportation priorities Henderson and Vance County will present together at a meeting May 12 in Rocky Mount.
“The process has become a little bit … cumbersome,” City Manager Eric Williams said.
The Henderson-Vance list of 11 road construction projects is separate from the list of five projects the city and county jointly presented to the five-county Regional Planning Organization. The RPO, operating under the auspices of the Kerr-Tar Regional Council of Governments, is meant to wield more clout by putting the weight of all five counties behind transportation requests.
A Transportation Advisory Committee meeting today is expected to endorse the final RPO list, including the five Henderson-Vance priorities, for presentation at the Rocky Mount meeting, which covers District 5 of the Department of Transportation.
That’s the new way of doing things.
At the same time, the old way goes on.
That’s where the 11 local priorities come in.
The list, in order of priority:
* Phase II and III of the Western Outer Loop, from County Home Road to N.C. 39.
* The widening of Raleigh Road to five lanes from Dorsey Avenue to Zeb Vance Elementary School. Smith said this project was set for funding and thus fell of the TIP request list. But the funding was canceled, so the project jumped back onto the list.
* A two-lane service road between Poplar Creek Road and Ruin Creek Road.
* A true interchange where Interstate 85 and U.S. 1 come together in northern Vance County.
* The widening of U.S. 1/158 to the Warren County line.
* The widening of N.C. 39 from Bullock Street to Chestnut Street to make room for turn lanes.
* The extension of Pinkston Street north from Water Street to U.S. 1 Business (North Garnett Street).
* The widening of Beckford Drive and Graham Avenue from Parrish Mill Road (where it narrows now) to Ruin Creek Road.
* Welcome Avenue Extension.
* The widening of Vicksboro Road from Andrews Avenue to the Warren County line.
Smith said the list is basically the same as it has been for many years. The city and county keep sending the list and hoping some money happens to escape the hold of the big cities.
One twist this year is that the No. 9 priority on the local list, the Beckford Drive/Graham Avenue widening, has won a federal transportation earmark of $960,000. If that funding comes through as expected, Beckford Drive will come off the local list.
That fact led to Seifert’s exclamation about “screwy” transportation. “The question is,” he said, “how did we get money for our No. 9 priority?”
As far as the state is concerned, the mayor said, the city needn’t worry about anything below No. 5 on the list because it won’t get any money through the TIP.
The council endorsed the local list on a 7-0 vote (John Wester was absent).
Also Monday night:
* The council approved seven minor budget amendments without discussion.
* Smith told the council that the Planning Board might not have an amortization ordinance on junkyards and auto repair shops ready for the council’s May 9 meeting. The Planning Board will take up the issue at its meeting next Monday.
* County Emergency Operations Director Brian Short missed his appointment to speak to the council about a plan for the continuation of city operations after a disaster. Short was busy at the Iams plant, which was evacuated at midday because of the fear that some smoke or steam had toxic elements. There was no danger outside the plant, and no one was hurt inside the plant.
* Police Chief Glen Allen said he’s “tickled to death” about the site visit of the assessment team from the Commission for the Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies last week. He said he expects to receive a detailed written report in a couple of weeks and to win reaccreditation in July.
* Williams distributed the budget requests from the Henderson-Oxford Airport, Gateway, and the county fire and ambulance service.
* The special committee working on overhauling the evaluation of the city manager — Bernard Alston, Mike Rainey, Lonnie Davis and Mary Emma Evans — will meet for the third consecutive week this week in the hope of being able to present a final report to the full council soon. Alston said the committee is revising procedures to work with any city manager, not necessarily Williams. Rainey said the committee wants to focus the council’s evaluation on the manager’s work with the council, as opposed to his relationship with department heads, about which the council members know little. The committee also wants to evaluate the manager more often than annually.
* Williams passed along the Vance Organization to Implement Community Excellence’s full support for the police budget request.
* Recreation Director Alan Gill explained what happened to the $20,000 that Southeastern Shelter Corp. donated to the city in 1999 to settle some title problems on land next to the Henderson Heights apartments. The money did not go into recreation at Henderson Heights but was spread among Jackson, Fox Pond, Chestnut Street and King’s Daughters parks. All of the money was spent on additional items, rather than replacing money the city otherwise would have spent on the same items.
* The council voted 7-0 to grant Schewel Furniture a 30-day extension to resolve a restriction on the title of a piece of land the city is selling the company for a net of $90,000 near the Operations & Service Center. Lowe’s, which sold the land to the city, barred any competitors from using it, and Schewel and Lowe’s compete in selling major appliances. City Attorney John Zollicoffer advised that the council should grant the extension only as a courtesy and not recognize Schewel’s assertion that the deal will be off if Lowe’s doesn’t budge. Zollicoffer said the sales contract contained no due-diligence contingency, so the city could fight Schewel if it tries to back out of the purchase.
* Rainey repeated his request that the city re-examine the idea of moving all city offices into the Operations Center, thus saving on utility expenses and allowing the city to sell the Municipal Building.