July 23, 2003: Mackie did not make deal for water with Raleigh
“Our former mayor did not cut a deal with Raleigh,” Wake Forest Town Manager Mark Williams said at Friday’s mini-retreat for the town board and top staff members.
Williams was referring to a July 3 editorial in The Wake Weekly in which Publisher and Editor Greg Allen said then-Mayor George Mackie reached a deal in 2000 with Raleigh’s then-Mayor Paul Coble. That deal, Allen said, was undercut by Commissioner Thomas Walters, who went to Raleigh shortly afterward and obtained an agreement for a temporary water contract which has since been extended to August of 2007.
Allen said Mackie and Coble agreed that Raleigh would sell Wake Forest all the water it needed through 2027 and in return the town would abandon its plan to draw water from the former Burlington Mills intake on the Neuse River.
Since 1999, more than a year before the Mackie-Coble meeting, Raleigh has been following a utility policy under which it will not sell water at wholesale rates. Instead, county towns which want Raleigh water must agree to merge their water and sewer systems with Raleigh’s.
“Our former mayor did tell Raleigh – this is what they’re going to do for us,” Williams said. The city officials listened politely to Mackie and called Williams immediately afterward, asking what was going on, Williams said. “There was no deal cut despite what some people think.”
The editorial also said that, with merger, Raleigh would control Wake Forest’s growth by limiting the amount of water the town would receive.
Not true, Williams said. “The growth rates we have talked about, 3 percent or 4 percent in future years, have nothing to do with merger.
“The staff has reached the conclusion our infrastructure cannot handle 8 percent (growth) for the next 20 years,” Williams said. “Once we get to 6 million gallons a day at the wastewater treatment plant, there’s nothing more there. Once we get there, we have to look at reused water.
“Our traffic infrastructure cannot handle that kind of growth; our school system can’t, even though we don’t control that,” Williams said.
“We just cannot continue to grow at the pace we’ve done in the last five or six years.”
The town has seen tremendous jumps in population, beginning with 1993 when there was a 10 percent increase. Growth in 1994, 1995 and 1996 was between 7 and 8 percent. There was another tremendous jump in 1997, a 21.2 percent increase from 8,480 to 10,284 residents. In 1998, the growth was 14.2 percent, 12.1 percent in 1999 and 8.4 percent in 2000. The U.S. Census that year counted 12,588 residents, and the estimate for 2002 is 16,205 residents.
In fact, Williams said, “We’ve got to mitigate our growth rate very soon, in the next two or three years. That’s going to be a really tough issue because it will start affecting people’s pocketbooks, but it’s got nothing to do with merger. It’s what we will face as a community regardless of where we get our water.”
Williams said he thought about writing a letter to the editor but decided not to. “They control the ink.”
July 23, 2003: WF commissioners uneasy with town’s water options
“The longer we wait, the more we find ourselves in a funnel going toward merger,” Commissioner Chris Malone said Friday during the town board’s mini-retreat.
“Personally, I don’t like giving up autonomy, but I don’t like raising rates either,” Malone said.
Water – whether to agree to have Raleigh take over the water and sewer systems or whether to pursue an independent course with an intake on the Neuse River – was the sole topic for the board all morning. The commissioners all appeared reluctant to approach the decision.
By noon, the commissioners had agreed to continue negotiations with Raleigh based on a number of goals they had set, to hold a public hearing in September and to vote in October. In the meantime, they wanted to pursue other options. The target date for Raleigh’s take-over is July 1 of 2004.
“The ball is in our court,” Town Manager Mark Williams said. “Raleigh is ready to begin implementation of merger.” Williams said one of his goals in negotiations is to make sure Wake Forest residents do not have to pay for “the significant improvements at the (Raleigh) sewer plant and the water plant. That’s basically stuff they’ve neglected to do.”
Raleigh wants to finalize the Wake Forest merger first, Williams said, and then merge the Knightdale systems. “Wendell and Zebulon are a little farther out, but they, too, are both looking at merger. In two years you could see a fully functional eastern Wake County group with Raleigh in operational control.” Later in the meeting, Mayor Vivian Jones said there have been discussions about an independent county-wide water and sewer authority after Raleigh takes over all of the eastern part and Cary the western part.
Williams said he is continuing to have discussions with Franklin County, Henderson, Oxford and others about tapping Kerr Lake in the Roanoke River basin as a long-range water source, but he said it was a “very, very long shot” because it would involve jumping from the Roanoke River basin, over the Tar River basin and bringing water into the Neuse River basin. If there is an eastern Wake County utility group, Williams said, it would have much more leverage to access Kerr or Lake Gaston water.
This fall the town board must either agree to the Raleigh take-over in concept with details still left unsettled or approve $300,000 for engineers to begin a detailed design for the Neuse River intake structure.
Part of the commissioners’ reluctance was the details of the merger agreement. Echoing Malone’s concerns, Commissioner David Camacho said, “We want to make sure we have the terms negotiated upfront before we vote.”
But, Deputy Town Manager Roe O’Donnell said, “Full negotiations are going to take several months, which will be several months after we should have begun” work on the intake structure.
The arguments for the take-over are lower water and sewer rates, the same as Raleigh’s, after six years and economy of scale for future capital improvements. Williams also said Raleigh had indicated to him that annexation and development decisions in Wake Forest would be left to the town. “Based on the current administration, I don’t think they want to control us.”
The arguments against the take-over were referred to by the commissioners, including the quality of the water, the quality of service for customers, the strong reluctance of the Wake Forest water and sewer employees to be a part of the Raleigh system and the loss of control over water and sewer decisions, including annexation and other land-use questions.
“The vast majority of the employees do not want to work for the city of Raleigh,” Williams said. “We have some very skilled and educated treatment operators, more skilled than those in Raleigh.
“This is probably the most emotional decision you face, the employees,” Williams said.
Williams outlined the obstacles the board would face if it decides to pursue independence. The first would be the $20 million to purchase and renovate the intake structure, build a water line to the water plant and expand the plant to process 6 million gallons a day.
“The main issue is the Local Government Commission and whether they would grant us the ability to borrow the money,” Williams said. “The thing that hurts us is our water and sewer rates are already very high” and water improvement bonds must be repaid with water rates.
There are no federal or state grants to assist the town, Williams said.
In addition, Williams said, the legislative act to establish a watershed for the Neuse River intake will go into effect next summer when the General Assembly adjourns. “If we don’t merge, they’re going to fight us in the legislature to have that permit overturned.” The development rules that watershed would impose would apply to all of Wake Forest west of the railroad tracks as well as Raleigh-controlled land along Capital Boulevard and between Capital and Falls of the Neuse Road.
“Raleigh is not interested in the intake,” Williams said, “because they feel they can go back to the Corps for additional withdrawal from the lake (Falls Lake) for an equal amount.”
The commissioners and staff members seemed to agree that a progressive rate structure, rather than the present one, would benefit elderly and other single people who use little water. The more water used, the higher the cost. Commissioner Thomas Walters said he wanted to put that in place before merger, if that is they do. A rate study is underway.
Williams said he and the staff would pursue either course once the board decides. He also said that corporations and companies are merging all the time to become more efficient and make products at less cost.
July 21, 2004: Commission OKs addition plans at Wake Forest Birthplace
In a surprising vote at midnight Wednesday, July 14, the Wake Forest Historic Preservation Commission unanimously granted a certificate of appropriateness to the Wake Forest College Birthplace Society for its proposed 10,000-square-foot museum annex and two outbuildings on North Main Street.
The surprise was that Donald Bates and Hal Miller voted for the certificate. Bates with his wife, Nancy, and North Main Street neighbor Virginia Nelson filed a successful appeal to last year’s certificate and its confirmation by the Wake Forest Board of Adjustment. Miller had signed letters objecting to the annex. Bates and Miller Wednesday were in the 6 to 2 minority when the board considered two findings of fact during the five-hour meeting.
“It was obvious to me that the other members were not going to recognize that there were some questions as far as guidelines were concerned,” Bates said later in the week. “I did want to show that I was positive, that I would support the Birthplace.”
Bates said the other commission members had made concessions about a picket fence, lighting and trees at the rear of the parking lot next to the railroad tracks. “I felt that I could make concessions.”
Bates said he was still concerned about the size of the building and whether the society would have the revenue to pay for the utilities.
The annex will be behind and separate from the Calvin Jones House. The outbuildings will be a storage shed and a building housing public bathrooms for events on the lawn at the 4.5-acre site, such as Six Sundays in Spring sponsored by the Wake Forest Cultural Arts Association. The Town of Wake Forest donated money to build the bathrooms.
“I am very pleased,” Susan Brinkley, president of the birthplace society, said this week. “I’m just sorry it’s taken so long.”
Brinkley said the society will delay fund-raising plans until the 30 days has elapsed during which any North Main Street neighbor could appeal the decision to the Wake Forest Board of Adjustment.
If there is no appeal this year, the society will go ahead with plans to raise $3 million, $1 million for the museum’s endowment and $2 million for the additions. Brinkley said Wake Forest College alum Abe Elmore will lead the national fund-raising effort and Jill Bright will probably head up local efforts.
Wake County Superior Court Judge Robert Hobgood’s decision upheld the Bates’ appeal, finding there was incomplete notification and other procedural errors in April of 2003 when the commission approved the society’s plan.
Therefore, there was overlapping and redundant notification and record-keeping Wednesday night, including a complete tape made by Town Clerk Joyce Wilson and word-for-word transcription by a court reporter hired by the society.
All eight commission members – the ninth, Michael Huffman, was absent – denied having any bias or conflict of interest.
The society’s lawyer, Eric Braun with Womble Carlyle in Raleigh, read a letter from the museum’s director, Gene Capps, asking that Bates and Miller excuse themselves from discussing and voting on the matter.
Bates asked that Beverly Whisnant, who is a former society board member, and Durward Matheny, the society’s vice president, be excused.
Former Mayor George Mackie then spoke and characterized all the commission members as honest, saying “Let’s get on with the business.” Steve Grissom, who lives next to the Calvin Jones House, said there would be no neighborhood representation if Bates and Miller were excused. Grissom was overlooking commission member Carol Smith, who said, “Frankly, I do not have any doubts that anyone would vote other than following the guidelines.”
The vote to excuse Bates was 2 to 6 with Amy Dowdle and chairman Cameron Whitley voting yes, and no one voted in favor of excusing Miller.
Speaking for the application, Brinkley recalled that the North Main site held a chain link fence, some Army barracks that had been used for married student housing, some asphalt from the much earlier tennis courts, weeds and weed trees when the house was moved there in 1956.
In describing the plan, Winston-Salem architect Edwin Bouldin said the plan has been changed since the town reduced its parking requirements, making the parking lot at the rear smaller. Also, more trees will be retained.
When Eric Kerauvuori, the town’s director of engineering, spoke about the traffic the museum would generate, Miller asked about the impact of events like Six Sundays in Spring, and Kerauvuori said he was asked to look at the museum’s impact.
When Miller said he understood similar events were planned by the birthplace, Capps said, “We do not plan similar events. Six Sundays is sponsored by Wake Forest Cultural Arts.”
Bates cited a letter from Capps to the seminary, offering to let students use the future parking spaces.
“That was done before the text change in the (town parking) ordinance,” Capps said, but now that the number of spaces has been reduced, “We will not allow it.”
Former Mayor John Lyon, who is now a real estate appraiser, said that it has been his experience that properties near changes like the proposed addition “are not adversely affected. Their values are preserved or even enhanced.”
Nancy Bates, saying she spoke for the neighbors who will be adversely affected, introduced Dr. Crystal Weaver, a dean at the Savannah College of Art and Design and a leader in historic preservation.
“We are learning from our mistakes,” Weaver said, mistakes made in historic preservation. She cited problems with the society’s plan, including removal of significant trees, issues of height and form, massing, scale and proportion. The addition, she said, would visually overpower and minimize the existing Calvin Jones House.
When plans “are clearly in violation of the intent and spirit of the guidelines set down by the (federal) secretary of the interior, historic designation will be placed in jeopardy,” Weaver said. Mentioning the three Wake Forest areas on the National Register of Historic Places, Weaver said, “The inability or refusal by this commission to follow its own guidelines and policies will place this designation in jeopardy.” Later, she said, “Do residents understand they will lose the tax credits?”
Weaver also mentioned the various federal and state historic preservation organizations with whom she is in constant touch.
“Are you saying that if we approve this, you will call up and report us?” Dowdle asked.
“No, I’m not threatening,” Weaver said, “I’m not here to be the preservation police. I’m offering resources that I have available.”
“It did sound kind of threatening,” Whisnant said.
Juliana Hoekstra, who is employed at the state Historic Preservation Office, came forward to say there seemed to be some confusion. The issue before the commission, she said, has nothing to do with the National Register for the other three districts. The commission has to follow the locally adopted guidelines for a locally designated historic commission.
“In order to have that registry, you have to adhere to these guidelines,” Bates said.
“The National Registry does not require homeowners to apply for a certificate of appropriateness,” Hoekstra said.
At the end of the public hearing, about 11 p.m., T.C. Morphis, an attorney with the Braugh Law Firm in Chapel Hill representing Don Bates, said the addition plan misses the point. The plan would resemble various outbuildings on a plantation, but Morphis said the neighborhood is really faculty houses built during the 18th and early 19th centuries. “It would be a barn in the middle of a residential neighborhood.”
During the discussion, after the commission voted to continue, Whisnant led the discussion of the findings.
The plan, she said, “does not change the streetscape,” and she cited the barn behind Mrs. Dodd’s old house.
“I disagree,” Don Bates said. “I don’t think it meets the standards as its scale to man.”
“How would you judge that? In what way would this not be scaled properly to man, to people?” Whisnant asked.
Later, Whisnant said the commission had earlier set a precedent in allowing additions behind houses, citing the Mackie, Patterson and Higgins houses.
Bates said all the examples cited talked about a plantation house, “but that massive building (the proposed addition) does not look anything like a plantation.”
The meeting was well-attended, with most staying for the entire five hours. Several people wore orange tags that said they backed the society’s plan. The new television equipment was not in use, so no one could watch the meeting at home.
July 20, 2005: Board approves garbage/recycling rate and cart purchase
It is now official. Wake Forest homeowners will pay $14.60 a month beginning Sept. 1 for weekly garbage and recycling collection with roll-out carts for both.
Currently Waste Management picks up garbage from roll-out carts once a week and picks up newspapers, bottles, cans and paper from tote-out bins every other week. Customers pay $14.67 a month.
On Sept. 1 the contractor will be Republic Waste Service, who will pick up garbage and recycling curbside every week for the $14.60 monthly fee. It includes the $12 for the contractor, $1.36 for the carts the town is purchasing and $1.24 for administrative costs.
Last week Town Manager Mark Williams said the town will now assume the cost of yard waste pickup, which is $3.01 of the current $14.67 charge.
Along with approving the new rate, the town board Tuesday night agreed to piggyback the purchase of the garbage and recycling carts on one made by Fort Wayne, Ind. State law allows the piggyback procedure if the vendor agrees.
The town is buying 6,500 96-gallon carts for garbage at $46.50 each and 6,500 48-gallon carts for recycling at $37.70 each for a total of $547,300.
The town will have a choice of color and can have the town name or seal as well as a serial number stamped on the cart body. They have a 10-year warranty.
July 20, 2005: Town to purchase, maintain 4 generators for restaurants
Just as they did to assure the Wal-Mart Super Center, Lowe’s Home Improvement and SuperTarget would purchase power from the town, the town commissioners Tuesday night agreed to buy four load control/backup generators and manage them for five new commercial customers. The customers are in a customer-choice zone and could be served by Progress Energy.
The new businesses are Arby’s and Bennigans, which are being built on the right (north) side of the South Main Street entrance to Wal-Mart in Wake Pointe commercial subdivision.
The others – Babymoon Café, Manhattan Café and Remington Grill – are on the southeast side of South Main just south of Carter Street in a building called the Wake Forest Eatery.
Power Secure, a Wake Forest firm which provided the earlier generators, will be paid $291,443 for the hardware and $852 a month to provide maintenance for them.
Load control or management helps the town by shaving peak loads from its bill from the power agency.
In other business during a short meeting Tuesday night – just over an hour – the commissioners
- heard Jonnie Anderson, the outgoing chairman of the Downtown Revitalization Corporation thank them for their commitment and financial support during the past two years. Anderson mentioned the town’s support of the Renaissance Plan and commitment to proceed with it, the updates to the appearance standards and a new urban code, support for the Streetscape Enhancement Plan and the police department’s assistance with parking issues at the Farmers Market.
- heard Bob Polanco, president of Prominence Homes which is building Avondale townhouses on Franklin Street, ask their indulgence for temporary roadside signs. “Eight-five percent of our traffic is brought in by those signs,” Polanco said. Small builders like he cannot hope to complete with the large national builders and their advertising budgets. Rules banning the signs play into the hands of the large builders, who see those local ordinances as suppressing competition from small builders. “Their [national builders’] plan is to consolidate the market under their control,” Polanco said, adding he learned this during the 12 years he headed Beazer Homes locally. “It’s the small builder who brings the quality of life, the niche building. That signage is our life blood.” Later it was noted the town does have a strict sign ordinance but not enough staff to enforce it. Town Manager Mark Williams is researching enforcement possibilities.
- agreed to annex 74 acres in three parcels off Oak Grove Church Road and Jeanne Street owned by Blue Sky Technology.
- agreed to sell the town’s oldest K-9, Chico, through private sale and offer a 1990 dump truck and 1989 leaf truck for sale on GovDeals, an on-line auction service similar to e-Bay.
- agreed to close some downtown streets for the second Autumn Arts Festival on Sept. 10. The Farmers Market will operate that day, but its location is being discussed.
- appointed Michelle Morgan, a downtown resident; David Williams with Wake Electric; Rich Williams with Connect 2Communications; Christiana Walkley with Appletree; and town planner Agnes Wanman to the DRC board of directors for this fiscal year.
- did not take action on a request for annexation by Frank and Beth Bowman for property at 1149 North Main Street. The well there has failed, and the City of Raleigh has extended water service to it. Although a request for annexation is required in such cases, the town usually does not annex the properties because doing so would entail providing sewer service, police protection, garbage and trash pickup and other municipal services.
July 19, 2006: Birthplace request sidetracked by South Brick House
Despite a lengthy presentation about the benefits of town participation in the planned museum annex at the Calvin Jones House, action on the request for $550,000 was delayed a month Tuesday night after Mayor Vivian Jones questioned the fate of the South Brick House.
A number of people and groups, including Capital Area Preservation and the state Historic Preservation Office, are trying to preserve that house, built in 1838 as one of the three original buildings constructed for the new Wake Forest College, and now the second oldest building in town after the Calvin Jones House. It has been for sale for $700,000 for several months.
“It’s a very important building in this town,” Jones said. She asked the board to “defer making a decision on giving the birthplace money until we can figure out what we can do to help preserve the South Brick House. Two or three months is not going to make a lot of difference in the birthplace plans, but it might make a world of difference for the South Brick House.”
The house has been offered to both Wake Forest University and the Wake Forest College Birthplace Society. The university declined because of the cost of renovation, at least $250,000, and maintenance. The society, as President Susan Brinkley said, does not see it as useful for a museum or as part of its vision. “We are happy to try to partner with you,” she told the commissioners. “Our interest is in the building we have and the history of the town.”
Commissioner Frank Drake asked if the South Brick House is under threat, and Jones said, “People are looking at it {who are saying} they would tear down the buildings in the back and sell off the back lot for another house. So the people who are looking at it are not particularly interested in preserving it.”
Commissioners Stephen Barrington and David Camacho both said the museum annex and the South Brick House are two different issues, and Commissioner Velma Boyd-Lawson asked what would happen “if other people have historic properties they want to preserve?”
Camacho said he would like the town “to see to it that house is preserved” without using any taxpayer money.
It would ideally be continued to be used as a residence, Drake said.
In the birthplace presentation, Executive Director Ed Morris said, “A museum in a community is a key piece in economic development. As I told you the last time I stood before you, tourism is the fastest growing industry in our state and heritage tourism is the largest part of that industry.” In June, museum visitors came from within the state, from five other states and from two foreign countries. They were attracted by the museum, Morris said, but “they eat, shop and otherwise spend their money in our town.
The society wants to raise about $3 million for construction of the museum annex at the North Main Street site and its endowment. The building, now at just under 7,000 square feet, will cost about $2 million.
The campaign to raise the $3 million will be kicked off next week with the help of the staff and resources at the university’s development office.
“We are asking for a commitment” from the town that will be within the means of the town, Morris said. They can then take that commitment – and the promise from the university – to the bank for a construction loan. The society hopes for one-third of the construction cost from the town, one-third from the university, and one-third from alumni and other contributors.
The university already has committed what amounts to the interest from a $1 million endowment for the maintenance of the Calvin Jones House and Morris’ salary and benefits.
Morris said the annex will allow the society to change the house into a true house museum with perhaps a doctor’s office in one room, the first president’s office, the first college dining hall, and even the first Wake Forest post office. “It is not just a house that holds a museum. It is the beginnings of the college and town,” he said. As the museum it now is, the Calvin Jones House is both too small for all the artifacts the society has and inaccessible for handicapped people and many elderly because of the steep stairways and high entrance porch.
“How ironic it is that the town of Wake Forest even exists,” Sherrill Brinkley, Susan Brinkley’s husband and a long-time supporter of the society, said. It was just a stroke of fate that, when the leaders of the new Baptist State Convention decided to build a school to educate young people, they found Calvin Jones, who sold his 600 acres and plantation buildings for less than $3,000.
What if the site had been in Bladen County, Brinkley said. Instead, it is in the fastest growing area in North Carolina. “Our town has problems but believe me, dozens of towns would trade for our growth problems. It is indeed a unique town and we need to celebrate that town. Our identity is always going to be locked in the past. We need to preserve that, we need to advertise that, we need to educate people about that.”
Brinkley said the town board had done what is right in purchasing the Joyner farm for a park. “The museum is of the same caliber of Joyner Park. You will be remembered for it. It’s time to be courageous. Let’s do it.”
A sidelight was a short discussion about the deed for the four acres and house on North Main Street. If the property is no longer used as a museum, it would revert back to the university, Morris said. The university would likely not want to continue to maintain the property and could offer it for sale.
Susan Brinkley said attorney Murray Greason, one of the university’s trustees and a Wake Forest native, had told her the university is interested in what the society is doing and does not plan to take back the property as long as it remains a museum.
July 18, 2007: Fire department has two sites for stations
The Wake Forest Fire Department now has sites for two of the three stations it wants to build in the near future.
Tuesday night the Wake Forest Town Board rezoned the four acres at 1412 Forestville Road the department is buying from Joel Keith to conditional use neighborhood business for one station, and Commissioner Frank Drake, the liaison to the independent fire department, announced the fire department directors had accepted developer Jim Adams’ offer of two acres on Wake Union Church Road near the Sleep Inn and Kearney Road for a second station.
The third station will be somewhere along Wait Avenue (N.C. 98 east of town), but no site has been identified.
Stanley Denton, the chairman of the fire board, said he was unclear about the exact location of the two acres Adams has offered. After a committee of the board members met with Adams and he asked if they were still interested in a site, the full board voted to accept it in a closed session during the regular June board meeting. Denton said they did not announce the decision because “we had not officially accepted his offer.” An official acceptance letter has now been sent.
“It’s not often somebody wants to donate something like that,” Denton said.
Adams made the offer about two years ago but it has been in limbo while his company, St. Ives 220 Commercial LLC, worked to purchase the Parker-Hannifin (formerly Schrader) property. The purchase is complete, and Adams and a national company, Weingarten Realty Investors, are planning a regional shopping center, Wake Forest Towne Center. Plans and tenants for that have not been announced, but the large brick plant has been almost completely demolished.
Denton said, “We know eventually they’re going to dead-end that road (Wake Union Church Road) and take out that curve” where Wake Union meets Capital Boulevard in front of the Parker-Hannifin, now Adams, property. The curve was built when Capital was four-laned and sections of Wake Union Church Road north of there were abandoned.
The plan is to build a new section of road behind the old plant and connect it to Jenkins Road.
Denton also said the fire department board does not know now which station will be ready first. “It depends on our income. We’re hoping to use that [brick] house on Forestville Road.” The board has to determine how much work, how much money it will take to convert the house to sleeping quarters for the staff and erect a building to house a truck.
The Wake Forest Fire Department is a nonprofit corporation which contracts with the town and Wake County for fire protection.
July 16, 2008: New fire chief to be introduced tomorrow
Wake Forest’s new fire chief will be introduced to the members of the Wake Forest Fire Department Thursday, July 17, at 7 p.m. at Station #1 on East Elm Avenue. It will also be the public’s first glimpse of the new chief. (He was Alfred E. Lynn – “Call me Freddy” – a retired captain with the Raleigh Fire Department, and he was part of a package deal with current Chief Ron Early. The department directors wanted to hire both and did.)
Commissioner Frank Drake, the nonvoting liaison to the independent fire department, made the first public announcement about the decision at the close of Tuesday night’s town board meeting.
“The fire department board has found a chief,” Drake said. “I was informed this afternoon that last night they extended an offer to an individual who has accepted.
“They’ve done a fine job and done an excellent choice,” Drake said. “It has been extremely lengthy process.”
Wake Forest Police Chief Greg Harrington, along with Human Resources Director Tammy Moody, volunteered to help the fire department’s board of directors interview the candidates. The police chief, Drake said, “is an accomplished interrogator.”
The candidate pool was reduced to two people before the final choice was made.
The new chief will take up his duties at a time of unprecedented growth and change for the department which contracts with both the Town of Wake Forest and Wake County to provide fire protection to an area from the Neuse River to the Franklin County line.
The department is about to build its third fire station and hopes to soon have access to the promised property for the fourth station. Station #1 was built on East Elm Avenue in 1984 a year after the independent department was formed from the former Wake Forest Rural Fire Department. Station #2 on Ligon Mill Road was built in 2001. The third station will be built on Forestville Road on land the department purchased last year, and the fourth station is planned along a new road on what was the Parker-Hannifin (Schrader) plant property.
The department has had two chiefs since Jimmy Keith, the first fulltime paid chief, died in the summer of 2004 and both of his replacements have agreed with the directors that they should resign. David Williams Jr. was named interim chief shortly after Keith’s death and named chief a year later. A local building contractor, he worked rather irregular hours as chief and resigned in December of 2005. Jerry Swift was chosen after a six-month search and took over the department at the beginning of July 2006. He resigned in April of this year.
The department’s budget has grown – Swift’s budget for this year was $4 million – as it tries to provide specialized staff for the new ladder truck and additional personnel for the new stations.
The department now has 77 people on staff, 40 paid and 37 volunteer. It is unusual in successfully blending paid and volunteer firefighters and there have been additions to the volunteer staff in the last four years.
Swift brought a new perspective to the department. He calculated response times to all occupied buildings in town from the two existing stations and proposed new stations based on providing a five-minute response time. He stressed physical fitness for all personnel, began a recruit training program, trained some firefighters in swift-water rescue, bought new boots and helmets, devised new emergency plans and reorganized the department.
Since Swift’s resignation, Deputy Chief David Davis, who is paid, has been the interim chief assisted by Deputy Chief Clifton Keith, a volunteer.
The department’s directors are Chairman Stanley Denton, Bob Bridges, James Holding, Don Griesedieck, Randy Bright, Ken Capps, Scott Spangler, Dean Tryon and Thomas Walters.
July 16, 2008: Riders crowd into Wake Forest buses
The ridership figures for the Wake Forest buses were higher the first week of operation than it was predicted they would be after several months.
In fact, Commissioner Peter Thibodeau, who now uses one of the express commuter buses, said he had a hard time finding a seat the other night.
On the very first day of operation, Monday, July 7, there were 70 riders on the loop bus through town and into Wakefield and 96 riders on the three express buses.
For the rest of the week, the loop bus rider numbers were 141 on Tuesday, 137 on Wednesday, 148 on Thursday and 114 on Friday. This week, the numbers are 75 riders on Monday and 78 on Tuesday.
The express bus figures were also spectacular for a new bus route. Last week on Tuesday there were 139 riders, 163 on Wednesday, 105 on Thursday and 163 on Friday. Monday of this week saw 108 riders.
“That’s a tremendous response,” Mayor Vivian Jones said about the first week’s figures.
