SILER CITY — In its first meeting of the new year, Siler City’s board of commissioners entertained five presentations on project proposals and town policy amendments.
Community Development Block Grant for Infrastructure
Town Manager Roy Lynch opened the meeting with a public hearing “to close out the (Community Development Block Grant for Infrastructure) for the Lincoln Heights project.”
The grant project began in May 2017 when $2 million was awarded to the town by the N.C. Dept. of Environmental Quality Division of Water Infrastructure to replace and rehabilitate approximately 13,000 linear feet of existing sewer.
Amanda Whitaker, the grants and funding specialist at Asheville’s WR-Martin — a government consulting agency which facilitated the project — attended Monday’s meeting to “inform the public of the activities and accomplishments of the grant,” she said.
In total, 3,707 feet of PVC sewer pipe and 3,244 feet of DIP sewer pipe were installed in the Lincoln Heights area north of U.S. Hwy. 64 and in locations on East 9th Street, North 5th Avenue, Dogwood Avenue and West 7th Street, Whitaker reported. In addition, 38 concrete manholes were installed and 107 sewer service connections replaced.
The project — which cost almost $3.65 million — addressed sewer infrastructure which had been installed in 1958, according to town records.
“(It) benefited approximately 6,190 low to moderate income people,” Whitaker said, “which totals 81.29% low to moderate income in this area.”
Satisfied with its scope and improvement to Siler City, the board voted to officially close the project effective Wednesday.
Loves Creek Watershed Stewards
The Loves Creek Watershed Stewards — a group of town-sponsored environmental specialists working to address the ecological function of a 400-acre water system beneath Siler City — has sponsored projects around the town since 2014.
In its short existence, the group has acquired “grant dollars totaling $863,000 and change,” said Town Planner Jack Meadows, “(with) in-kind match at $531,000 for just under $1.4 million.”
On Monday, representatives from LCWS approached the board to request authorization for a new project to begin this month: Loves Creek tributary 2 stormwater control implementation.
“We are looking to install 10 residential rain gardens …” said LCWS member Sarah Waickowski, a researcher from N.C. State’s department of biological and agricultural engineering, “as well as to construct 1,800 linear feet of drainage channel improvements located only in town right-of-way areas, as well as plants and vegetative buffers along the streams to help with erosion.”
The project would also include an education and outreach program to help Siler City residents understand stormwater management and the role they play in sustaining the town’s watershed.
In preparation for the project, Waickowski and her associates scouted Siler City in June for streets where the group could install drainage channel improvements.
“And so, we found a total of 13,” Waickowski said, “… and of these 13 sites we found three that didn’t have any conflicts with cable, internet, water and sewer.”
The three locations amenable to LCWS’ proposal are on Elk Street, Colchester Avenue and 3rd Street.
“So, what we’re asking for tonight,” Waickowski said, “is, do we have the board’s permission to begin to start designing these drainage improvements?”
If the process goes according to schedule, the group hopes to have complete designs and a more robust proposal by end of summer, at which point the board could elect to authorize construction.
The board voted unanimously to grant LCWS’ request.
Auxiliary police officer policy
Siler City Police Chief Mike Wagner and the town’s human resource director, Nancy Darden, presented a revised auxiliary police officer policy to the board for final approval.
“This is going to be a town of Siler City policy,” Darden said, “that is also part of (the police department’s) standard operating procedure manual, because this policy talks about the eligibility, the qualifications, the hiring processes and procedures and personnel information required of an auxiliary police officer.”
The authority to hire auxiliary police officers will fall to Lynch, the town manager, who will make his decisions following recommendations from the police department. The candidate pool typically consists of retired law enforcement officers and others with similar backgrounds.
Wagner and Darden hope the updated policy will help the town restaff its depleted auxiliary police force.
“We’ve had some auxiliary (police),” Darden said, “but a lot of them for various reasons had dropped off. We were in the position where we didn’t have a true policy that was being implemented.”
While the positions are voluntary and only require eight hours of work per month, auxiliary police are equipped the same as full-time police officers. But their responsibilities and authority differ considerably.
“It shouldn’t be a substitute for the staffing shortages we’re currently facing,” Wagner said.
Auxiliary police don’t work often enough to adequately shoulder the regular duties of full-time police staff, he said. Instead, their value is typically evident at “pre-planned” events where their numbers can add to overall police presence.
Following Wagner and Darden’s presentation, the board voted unanimously to approve the revised policy.
Downtown Advisory Committee 2021 priority list
The nine-person Downtown Advisory Committee was assembled in 2018 to help the board of commissioners develop a viable framework to enhance revitalization and development of Siler City’s downtown.
The committee’s chairman, Richard Szary, a downtown business owner and the former director of Wilson Library at UNC-Chapel Hill, presented to the board the group’s prioritized list of recommendations for the coming year.
Many of the items, he said, should have been familiar to the commissioners — they had been recommended at the beginning of 2020, but were discounted from the town’s annual budget.
“So, we’re presenting them here again,” Szary said.
His presentation offered 16 recommendations, some requiring funding and others just administrative approval. The highest-priority items included:
• The creation of a Planner 1 position to assist Town Planner Jack Meadows.
The planner would devote at least 50% of his or her time to matters involving Siler City’s downtown.
“The reason the committee made this our number one priority,” Szary said, “is that there’s a lot of work to be done.”
So far, volunteers, such as the committee’s members, have addressed several of downtown’s needs. But “I think it’s much more effective if there’s town staff to do that,” Szary said.
• Development of a streetscape plan for North Chatham Avenue.
“There have been a number of vision documents for what downtown should look like, what the possibilities are,” Szary said. “But there hasn’t been anything concrete.”
A streetscape plan would fix that,and it would qualify the town to apply for grant money of up to $50,000 from the USDA.
• Funding of façade grants
“Our next recommendation is to go back and fund the façade grants,” Szary said. “These have been very successful. Previously, they have been funded annually, but last year was an exception.”
The program calls for business owners in downtown to match granted funds and use them to improve the exteriors of their buildings as seen from the street. Szary requested the board contribute $15,000 in funding for 2021.
The presentation was strictly informational; it did not call for the board to take immediate action. Instead, the commissioners will vote on which programs to fund in future budget meetings.
A complete list of the Downtown Advisory Committee’s prioritized recommendations is available on the town of Siler City’s website.
Emergency paid sick leave
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Dept. of Labor enacted the Families First Response Act “to provide certain employees with paid sick leave or expanded family and medical leave for reasons related to COVID-19,” according to the DOL’s website.
Town of Siler City employees were eligible under the program to receive two weeks of paid sick leave in addition to their regular sick time. But the program expired on Dec. 31.
“So, (town) staff feels that we should extend this to the effected employees through June 30, 2021,” Lynch said. “… Many local governments are continuing the availability under their own temporary policies.”
The measure would permit town leaders to send employees home when they have been exposed to the virus without forcing them to draw from regular sick time.
“So, when we’re saying, ‘You need to go,’” Darden, the human resources director, said, “we’re not saying, ‘Oh, and by the way, use your own sick leave.’ We are giving them this leave.”
The board of commissioners voted unanimously to extend the program as per town staff’s request.
Reporter D. Lars Dolder can be reached at dldolder@chathamnr.com and on Twitter @dldolder.