After a short business meeting Tuesday night the Wake Forest commissioners and mayor went into a closed session to evaluate Town Manager Kip Padgett and town attorney Eric Vernon, and went back in open session to approve a 5 percent raise for Padgett’s excellent evaluation, making his salary $162,225.
There was no report about Vernon’s evaluation, but the board will make comments about Padgett’s at their next meeting.
During the business meeting, the board heard Planning Director Chip Russell give an update on the Wake County Transit Plan – he heads the transit authority board – and found himself defending the plan’s rollout, which begins with enhanced bus service in all areas, rural and towns and cities. “We don’t have good bus service in Wake County,” he said. The plan is to add buses with more frequent and reliable routes around the county, in towns and between towns and cities.
After Commissioner Margaret Stinnett asked what funding Wake Forest will get, Russell said, “It was understood that Wake Forest would be made whole,” or its past and current investment in the local bus loop would count as its match for future funds. “It gives us the opportunity to expand our service without additional [local] funding.”
Commissioner Jim Thompson said he would exchange that bus service for commuter rail between Wake Forest and Raleigh. “That’s down the road,” Russell said. “We’ve got to grow that bus service.”
When Thompson said traffic is “pretty congested out here,” Russell answered by reminding him of the Capital Boulevard plan to turn it into a six-lane restricted access highway with dedicated bus lanes. Thompson insisted he would rather have the commuter rail and then he and Russell disagreed about the number of commuters north-south (Wake Forest and Raleigh) compared to east-west (Garner and Raleigh).
“We aren’t going to see any of this money for years. Everything is for Cary and Raleigh,” Stinnett said. “We’re getting connections,” Russell said with more frequent trips to Triangle Town Center which will have better connections within Raleigh.
“A lot of people go to RTP,” Thompson said, and added that he believes the transit authority’s plan is based on assumptions. “It’s based on studies,” Russell said.
The board agreed to place an anti-bullying poster made by Scout Riley Smith as part of his Eagle Scout efforts in town hall for a year.
No one spoke at the public hearing about the budget, but Meredith McCook, who lives on Jones Wynd told the board about the traffic problems at the N.C. 98 Bypass and Durham Road where 298 apartments are under construction along with the commercial subdivision Crenshaw Corners.
The board approved a request for an 8,000-square-foot commercial building at 1704 South Main Street with Commissioner Brian Pate voting no. He explained his office is on the second floor of a building across from that address near the Rogers Road intersection and he watches the traffic every morning. “I do not agree that there is sufficient infrastructure for the traffic” at that intersection.
Padgett recognized a new hire in the planning department, Senior Planner Tim Clarke whom many may remember from his years with the Wake County Planning Department.
