The Vance County Board of Commissioners will be asked to pick two consultants for long-term projects and to endorse two long-term improvement efforts during its meeting tonight.
One of the improvement efforts is the creation of the private, nonprofit Henderson-Vance Economic Partnership to advise and assist the various agencies working on economic development in Vance County, including the Economic Development Commission, the Downtown Development Commission, the Tourism Development Authority and the Chamber of Commerce.
The partnership will consist of a 27-member board of directors, an executive director and other professional staff.
During County Manager Jerry Ayscue’s report to the board, the commissioners will consider a 2-1 recommendation from their General Government Committee to endorse the concept of the partnership and to appoint Commissioners Danny Wright, Terry Garrison and Tommy Hester as the county’s three members of the partnership board.
Ayscue’s recommendation for approval does not include the partnership’s proposed bylaws, which the nonprofit group is revising anyway. The Henderson City Council did endorse the bylaws when it approved participation in the partnership June 6.
Henderson City Manager Eric Williams has made an appointment for the Vance Organization to Implement Community Excellence to make a presentation of up to 15 minutes to the commissioners on the plan to apply for the federal Weed and Seed designation for an area on the eastern side of Henderson that stretches beyond the city limits to involve county agencies in the effort.
The Weed and Seed application doesn’t cost anything other than the staff time and effort involved, and VOICE is getting free technical assistance from the U.S. Department of Justice to prepare the application, which is due in October. The application must detail the crime and population statistics for the designated area and lay out a five-year strategy to weed out the drugs and career criminals, to implement community policing efforts and to seed programs that attack the social and economic roots of crime.
The proposed Weed and Seed borders and the application have won the backing of VOICE, the Juvenile Crime Prevention Council and the Vance County Coalition Against Violence. The City Council also will be asked for its endorsement tonight. The proposal goes before the Henderson-Vance Chamber of Commerce on July 21 and the Vance Board of Education on Aug. 8. The Vance chapter of the NAACP, the Clean Up Henderson Committee and perhaps other community organizations also will be asked to bless the application.
Weed and Seed is highly competitive. Police Chief Glen Allen said last week that the Justice Department expects to anoint only 31 new areas in the nation with the five-year designation.
While the economic partnership and Weed and Seed cross jurisdictions, the commissioners also will be asked to pick consulting firms for two exclusively county projects tonight.
Ken Krulik, who is leading the countywide zoning project, is due to appear to present a choice of four firms that responded to a request for qualifications for a mapping project. All four firms have completed similar projects in other counties. The chosen firm will convert the county’s tax maps into a detailed database to be integrated into the zoning map.
GeoDecisions of Newport News, Va., estimates that it could complete the basic project in nine months for a cost of $167,000, or as little as $104,000 if the firm uses a foreign subcontractor for some of the work; GeoDecisions’ proposal appears to be less comprehensive than the others’ ideas, based on information compiled by Krulik. The Louis Berger Group of Cary projects a cost of $197,234 over 12 to 14 months. Cadastra of Glen Allen, Va., projects a cost of $136,500 over 12 months. Mapping Resources Group of Wilmington offers several packages ranging in cost from $128,440 to $412,800.
The county would spread the costs over two fiscal years.
The county has been saving since 2000 to pay for a program Tax Administrator Sam Jones is due to discuss tonight: the once-every-eight-years revaluation of property to keep the property tax accurate.
Two appraisal firms have applied for the job of revaluing all of the property in Vance County: Tyler Technologies and Pearson Appraisal Services. Each bid $475,000 for the job.
Jones and Ayscue recommend that the board hire Pearson, which conducted the revaluation that went into effect Jan. 1, 2000. The contract in 2000 paid Pearson $283,500.
The county has put aside money every year to save toward the cost of the revaluation. But because the cost was projected in 2000 to be $386,000, Vance will have to come up with a total of $89,000 the next two fiscal years to cover the gap.
Jones also is one of several appointments the board will consider tonight.
In addition to naming Jones tax collector for two more years, the board will consider reappointing Durwood Turner to the airport authority, Jean Palamar and Marion Perry to the library board, and Larry Aggers to the KARTS board. Also, Lamplight Inn owner Shirley Payne is in line to replace Robert Hutto, who resigned from the Tourism Development Authority, for the remaining year on his term.
A composite board including representatives of the city and the Board of Education is to sit at the start of the county meeting to reappoint Chairwoman Henrietta Clark and Lucy Longmire to the Vance County Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.
And in a final flurry of appointments, the commissioners are being asked to help revitalize the local Adult Care Home Community Advisory Committee and the Nursing Home Community Advisory Committee. The recommendations from regional ombudsman Kimberly Hawkins are to replace Nancy Ingham with Laura Edwards on the adult care board and to replace Barbara Thomas and Kim Abernathy with Carolyn Sumners while keeping Ann Bullock, Donna Hagar and Chairwoman Ruth Jones on the nursing home board.
Also on the agenda for tonight:
* Economic Development Commission Chairman Sam Watkins will request that the county provide unspecified assistance to cleaning supply company ETC for its decision to stay and rebuild in Henderson after a devastating fire in late 2003. Watkins reports that ETC has 29,000 square feet of new space.
* Ayscue recommends filling a vacancy for a social worker in the Department of Social Services. The “intake” job assists people with emergency assistance needs. “Client requests for emergency assistance continue to be at an all-time high due to tight economic times,” Ayscue wrote.
* The county manager recommends allowing the Sheriff’s Office to hire a deputy to replace Sgt. Herman Breedlove, an 18-year veteran of the office who is retiring Aug. 1. To honor the retiring law officer, Sheriff R. Thomas Breedlove is requesting that the commissioners grant the sergeant his service revolver and badge.
* The commissioners will be asked to approve 40 tax refunds totaling $327.36, ranging from $73.38 to 3 cents each; $3,366.64 in ambulance charge-offs for 11 patients who have died; and $1,712 in tax rebates for four people.
The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. at the old courthouse on Young Street.