Tonight will be a night for the public to speak before the City Council.
The one period for anyone to speak will be the public hearing on the proposed 2005-06 budget. The City Council has not applied time limits to speakers during public hearings, so people should have time to say what they want about the spending plan for 2005-06.
City Manager Eric Williams’ proposal calls for a 5-cent increase in the property tax rate, a 10 percent rise in water rates, a 15 percent jump in sewer rates, the elimination of curbside recycling, a shift from twice-a-week backdoor garbage collection to once-a-week curbside pickup and $47,000 less than the county proposes to spend for the library, among many other elements in a $25 million budget.
The public hearing should start between 7:45 and 8 p.m.
Three guest presentations also are on the agenda:
* Bernice Yancey of 623 Rowland St. is appealing Code Compliance Director Corey Williams’ order that she correct two public-nuisance violations of the city code — overgrown weeds or grass and an accumulation of trash or debris.
“Items declared to be junk and debris are not junk and debris, more over this allegation by a party or parties unknown is both arbitrary and arrogant,” Yancey wrote in a letter May 20. “You made an entirely subjective declaration and expected capitulation on the part of the accused.”
Williams reported that he reinspected the property and found that the grass had been cut but other problems had not been addressed.
* Lucille Quinitchette Williams has a request on behalf of Holy Faith Temple Church for All People to use the city’s Operations & Service Center on Saturday, June 18, from 2 to 6 p.m. for a gospel program and dinner. The event will be a benefit for the Food Pantry in Vance County. No alcohol would be served.
* Bob Fleming, the former chairman of the Vance County Board of Education who is set to become the chairman of the private, nonprofit Henderson-Vance Economic Partnership, will present the Economic Partnership’s proposed bylaws. Sam Watkins, the chairman of the county Economic Development Commission, is making a similar presentation to the county Board of Commissioners tonight. The group wants the City Council to endorse the bylaws and the appointment of Mayor Clem Seifert and council members Bernard Alston and John Wester to the partnership. All three men have been involved in organizing the group and creating the bylaws.
Those public-speaker elements of the agenda make it impossible for Williams to present a meaningful estimate for the length of tonight’s meeting, but the items he can predict total only 46 minutes.
Among those items:
* Seifert will update the council on the work of the city’s homelessness committee. The group is planning focus groups June 24 at the Vance County Senior Center.
* The council will be asked to schedule a public hearing for June 27 on a rezoning request from Charles Bowman for 3 acres on St. Andrews Church Road in the Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction (assuming that the Planning Board forwards the request at its meeting this afternoon).
* Wester and the Public Utilities Committee again will ask the council for a vote supporting the expansion of the Kerr Lake Regional Water System plant to a capacity of 20 million gallons per day. Wester and former plant director Mike Hicks, who is working on the project, want the city to endorse seeking bids before the next meeting of the water system’s advisory board, set for June 15. The expansion is expected to cost $21 million and take three years.
* The Public Safety Committee is asked to schedule a meeting in response to the school system’s request for traffic safety measures in front of E.M. Rollins Elementary School. The school system’s maintenance director, Claiborne Woods, brought a proposal for Jersey barriers before the City Council on May 23. The school system is not asking for any city money for the project, but Seifert and council members expressed aesthetic concerns.
* The Public Works Committee is asked to set up a meeting to discuss the Embassy streetscape project, which is far from completion despite a scheduled finish at the end of March, and a request for streetlights on Lynn Haven Avenue.
* Williams and Fire Chief Danny Wilkerson will present a proposed ordinance for summary abatement of buildings seriously damaged by fire. The ordinance would cut the condemnation time from about six months to one month.
* Council member Elissa Yount will discuss her request for an office in a city building, not necessarily the Municipal Building, for use by anyone on the City Council. Yount asks that the office have a file cabinet and a computer and allow space for council members to meet with the public.
The meeting starts at 7:30 at the Municipal Building on Beckford Drive.