Monday night’s City Council Meeting agenda included one public hearing, one old business item and five new business items and a scheduled closed session. The public hearing was for the Council to hear the public’s opinion on the proposed budget for fiscal year 2014 – 2015. The public who took their time to speak only disapproved of one item in the budget.
Public Hearing
Before the mayor opened the public hearing Mr. Griffin summarized the big ticket changes since the proposed budget was first introduced on May 19th. During the council’s budget work session council members reduced the recommended increase in the regional water rate to a 4% increase. Vance County is a customer of the regional water system. The County Commissioners will soon have the opportunity to pass along the 4% increase to their water customers or to the county property owners, inside and outside city’s boundaries. This is similar to Newton’s third law of motion as applied to government: a change in the regional water system will have an equal affect on the county government. Remember this the next time you hear about the plan to transfer responsibility for the recreation department from the city to the county.
The mayor sounded pleasantly supportive of those attending the evening’s meeting to speak their mind about the budget. No one attending the meeting spoke in favor of the proposed budget. When the mayor asked for those opposed to the budget to speak Phil Hart, the intrepid editor of HiH and chairman of the Downtown Development Commission (DDC), was first to the podium. Mr. Hart was joined in opposition to the budget by Stuart Litvin, Director Vance County Economic Development Committee (EDC), Tom Church, a member of the EDC, and Andrea Harris, a member of EDC. All are opposed to the elimination of the Main Street Manager position from the city budget. Elimination of the Main Street Manager’s position shaved $53,000 out of a $37,000,000 budget. In Mr. Hart’s remarks he said “[t]he Main Street Manager is sole staff member for the Downtown Trick or Treat and Christmas parade.” Basically the Main Street Manager is a city employee whose job is to be the sole staff member of non-profit commission. This impartial observer did not hear justification for retaining the manager based the revenue generated by the Downtown Trick or Treat or the Christmas parade. Instead the justification was an emotional appeal based on an unspoken concern that private funding is unavailable for the DDC’s sole staff member. The $53,000 salary was sufficient to derail an otherwise flawless budget review process.
The City Council will hold another budget work session on Wednesday evening starting at 6pm to review the need to retain the Main Street Manager. Elimination of the position from the city’s payroll does not preclude the DDC from funding the position with private funds; funds from the businesses that benefit from their own activities.
Old Business
The Council swiftly voted to reject Prestigious Housing, Inc., offer to buy a city owned surplus building formally known as Old First National Bank Building. The root cause for the rejection is that “Kenneth G. Stevenson, the owner of Prestigious Housing, Inc., is the owner of at least six (6) other businesses that owes a significant amount in back taxes.” The city now requires buyers of surplus property to have paid their ad valorem property taxes in full include any business entity the buyer may have ownership interest. One can only wonder if the county will apply the same standards for the auction sale of the armory.
Public comment period on non-agenda items
The City Council has two public comments periods one for agenda items and one for non-agenda items. Generally no one takes the time to address the Council on either agenda or non-agenda items. Monday night’s meeting was an exception. Andrea Harris addressed the Council asking that they request a study for Brownfield funds to address an old and abandoned city dump site. Ms. Harris said the area is near her home and is advertised as available for commercial development. I suspect the aspect of commercial development maybe a factor in her request for the Brownfield study. Earlier this year an attorney representing an engineering firm made a public cold call seeking a contract with the city to look around for Brownfield sites. The engineering firm is unqualified to fix any Brownfield sites it might discover; they can only get paid for finding one. I think the Council should encourage the Northern Vance STEM school teacher to make a preliminary study of potential Brownfield sites in Henderson a class project.
Closed Session
What a teasing announcement made by Mr. Zollicoffer during the Adjustments To and/or Approval of the Agenda segment of the Council meeting. If you have attended many City Council meetings you know that from time to time they hold a closed door session for a legal matter, or a property matter or a personnel matter. Sometimes the mayor will inform the audience to expect an announcement summarizing the closed door session. This time there would be no announcement, not unusual occurrence. What was unusual was the clarity and detail of Mr. Zollicoffer’s announcement “… the lawsuit Oxford v Henderson, Granville County and Warren County.” case number 13cvs840. Inquiring minds of HiH readership want to know more. Wonder no more, here is the link all the court documents filed in the matter of Oxford v Henderson, Granville County and Warren County 13CVS840.
http://www.ncbusinesscourt.net/TCDDotNetPublic/default.aspx?CID=3&caseNumber=13CVS840
The original complaint was filed last August by the City of Oxford against the City of Henderson for “ agreeing to sell drinking water to Granville County, knowing that Granville County intended to re-sell that water to future tenants of the Triangle North Industrial Park (“Triangle North”).” … “a clear breach of [Henderson’s] obligations to Plaintiff (City of Oxford) under the KLRV/S Agreement.”
As if Henderson doesn’t have enough problems it had to go and start a big, long, protracted legal fight with its neighbor by selling water to Granville County behind Oxford’s back.