City Manager Eric Williams did not update the City Council on the staffing situation Monday night, saying he will prepare a memo on personnel issues now that almost half of the city’s departments are facing vacancies at the top.
Planning Director Grace Smith is gone. Human Resources Manager Mary Cephas has shifted to a transitional part-time status to keep the department from being empty. Finance Director Traig Neal has his going-away party Wednesday and is in his final week with the city.
Henderson already was operating without department heads for utility operations (Bryce Mendenhall resigned in the fall) and for the regional water plant (Mike Hicks retired at the end of 2004). The high-level turnover has sparked rumors about who will be the next to go.
The Fire Department, however, had some good staffing news Monday. Fire Chief Danny Wilkerson said eight people, including all but one of his lieutenants, applied for promotion to captain to fill the battalion commander slot vacated when Bob Lloyd was promoted to assistant chief this month.
Monday was the deadline for applications. Wilkerson sought only in-house candidates, and he was pleased that so many of his people showed the desire to advance within the department. The applicants will go through an assessment center and face a written exam, interviews and a tactical scenario.
In some other matters that came up at the City Council meeting Monday:
* The council unanimously approved a change in the civil-penalties ordinance so that the owner of a junked, abandoned or nuisance vehicle will face a penalty as soon as the vehicle is towed and not when it is advertised for sale. Police Chief Glen Allen told the Clean Up Henderson Committee on Wednesday that he hopes to start assessing those penalties this summer.
* The council approved spending $3,733 in insurance proceeds to fix a wrecked police car.
* The council passed a budget amendment to use $20,481 in federal drug seizure funds — $2,481 for an electronic traffic-monitoring system and $18,000 for overtime related to recent investigations.
* The council voted 8-0 to amend the zoning ordinance regarding auto repair facilities. Unlike the controversial amortization ordinance that the council has tabled until July, Monday’s amendment does not affect any existing facilities, and it does not change the zones in which repair shops are allowed. It just changes the procedure for opening a repair facility in the I-2, B-2 and B-2A zones. Instead of having the right to open such facilities in those zones, business owners will have to get special-use permits, as they do in other business zones. As the only speaker during the public hearing on the proposal, Charles Bowman sought clarification on the purpose of the ordinance.
* Williams reported that he is including $60,477 in the upcoming city budget as revenue from Vance County Schools to cover the cost of stationing a school resource officer at each of the two middle schools. Williams expressed dissatisfaction with the offer, a 5 percent increase from this year, but acknowledged that the city needs the program. Mayor Clem Seifert said the city can take the money from the schools, or the city can get nothing, still pay for the two officers and find itself regularly sending officers to the schools.
* City Attorney John Zollicoffer said he has drafted an ordinance to allow summary abatement (rapid condemnation) of burned-out buildings and send the proposal to Richard Ducker at the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill for review. Zollicoffer said the ordinance would cut the time for condemnation to one month from five or six months.
* Brady Maddox, who appeared before the council April 11 to complain about the size of his monthly sewer bill as a nonresident of the city, appears to have been charged the proper amount, Williams said. Seifert asked to get an example of a bill for someone from outside the city to see what it looks like and how the charges are listed.
* Zollicoffer said the city will know next week whether K&R Associates is making a court appeal of the civil penalty assessed for the dilapidated house at 1002 Standish St.
* Zollicoffer confirmed that the sale to Schewel Furniture of a piece of city land on Beckford Drive went through Thursday. The city received $90,000 in the sale.
* The council reappointed Seifert to the Regional Planning Organization’s Transportation Advisory Committee for a two-year term.