Budget talks sidetrack to museum and police SUVs

After Chief Financial Officer Aileen Staples provided a PowerPoint Tuesday night about the budget Town Manager Kip Padgett presented to the Wake Forest Town Board last month, the only discussion was whether the town should provide more funding to the Wake Forest Historical Museum.

Commissioner and Mayor Pro Tem Greg Harrington, presiding in the absence of Mayor Vivian Jones because of the death of her brother-in-law, said he was proposing as he had the last couple years that “I would like to see us give more money to the [Wake Forest Historical] museum.”

He suggested the town match the amount it gives annually to the Wake Forest Boys & Girls Club, $7,500. The amount for the museum (given to the Wake Forest College Birthplace Society, which owns the museum) is $4,000, the same as in several prior years. Harrington called the museum “a hidden jewel.” He also said the museum is “the history of Wake Forest, showcases the history of Wake Forest.”

Commissioner Bridget Wall-Lennon said at first that she would support Harrington’s suggestion but, as the discussion went on agreed with Commissioner Brian Pate that there are other groups and town facilities such as the Mangum Cemetery, the traditional black cemetery near the Wake Forest Cemetery, that deserve funding.

Commissioner Anne Reeve said the town has given the museum a substantial amount of money over the years. (That included $500,000 paid over five years for the museum’s construction.) “I don’t think we’ve shirked our responsibility.”

Commissioner Liz Simpers asked if the museum needs the funds, and Wall-Lennon said her concern is the process the board uses to decide what groups get money.

Pate said they were talking about the taxpayers’ money. If they open up the process, he said there will be “fifty people here asking for money” at each meeting. He had also suggested the town be a sponsor for the museum.

After that discussion simmered down, Harrington asked Police Chief Jeff Leonard if they needed a special events and off duty coordinator, a civilian, not a sworn officer. He asked if the administrative captain could not handle the special events. Captain Trent Coleman had an answer, “No.” Coleman went on to explain there is an event involving police officers every day with a number of administrative duties attached to each. Leonard asked if the town wants to pay a police captain or a less-well-paid civilian to do the same work.

Harrington then brought up a question he has been asked: Why does the department have so many SUVs as opposed to the smaller patrol cars they had been using?

Leonard said that when they load all the required equipment into the cars and then add an officer, “the cars are now technically overweight.” The boot in the cars is too small for the broom officers use to sweep broken glass off the road after an accident, so they had to cut down the broom handle. That leads to officers bending over to use a broom. One officer broke his radio antenna every time he climbed into the small car.

The budget will be on the commissioners’ agenda on June 19 meeting.

The other outside agencies the town funds are Resources for Seniors, a token $4,000 for the programming and staffing at the Northern Wake Senior Center; the Fourth of July Committee, $2,500 for the costs of the children’s parade and activities in Holding Park afterward; and the Wake Forest Area Chamber of Commerce, $11,000 for their participation in economic development.