Board says no to relaxed flood areas

In a somewhat confused vote series Tuesday night, the Wake Forest mayor and commissioners decided not to relax the town’s definitions of flood hazard areas as proposed by the town’s planning department.

At issue was text amendments to the Unified Development Ordinance which would have allowed building in some that are now off-limits to development, areas with the potential for flooding in some cases.

“I think we have to be very careful about flood hazard areas,” Mayor Vivian Jones said, adding that she knows the relaxed rules will be approved by the Environmental Protection Agency at some future time. The reason for changing the town’s rules about flood protection is that it “takes too long for the EPA.”

With Commissioner Brian Pate absent because of illness, the first vote to approve the changes was 2 to 2 with Commissioners Greg Harrington and Bridget Wall-Lennon voting no, Liz Simpers and Anne Reeve voting yes.

Jones voted no to break the tie. The board then needed to vote on a motion to deny the request, and this time the vote was 4 to 0 to deny.

The short meeting – about an hour – was largely taken up by voting on candidates for several advisory boards though the commissioners did agree to leave the filing fees for mayor and commissioners in the 2019 election at $50 for mayor candidates and $15 for commissioner candidates. Jones said she knows the fees have not changed for 19 years and perhaps even longer than that. Those fees return to the town but do not cover the election costs — $20,000 to $25,000 paid to Wake and Franklin counties. Other Wake towns do charge higher fees, Jones said.

The board approved a resolution accepting a $100,000 grant from the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources that will be used for the ongoing rehabilitation of the Ailey Young house on North White Street near the town cemetery. “We need to say thank you to Representative Chris Malone who was instrumental in getting this grant for us,” Jones said.

Mandy Duguid, a member of the Purple Heart Foundation board who helped bring The Wall That Heals to Wake Forest, presented a plaque to the board members and volunteers from the town thanking them for all the help the town gave to make that event possible.

Two area teams and a coach were recognized. The Franklin Academy girls cross country team took state 1A honors for the third year in a row. The Franklin Academy boys cross country team was the state 1A runner-up, its best achievement in school history. And Beth Martin, the coach for 12 years, was recognized.

Before voting on the advisory board appointments, the commissioners agreed to waive the two-term limits for Jonathan Bivens on the board of adjustment, Sandy Smart on the historic preservation commission and Elizabeth Hayes on the public art commission. The board also relaxed the rules to all four rather than three out-of-town members on the public art board. Finally the board waived the requirement for a non-senior on the senior center board because there was no non-senior applicant.

There is a need for candidates living in the town’s ETJ to apply for the board of adjustment and the planning board. These appointments were made last night:

Board of Adjustment – Jonathan Bivens and Brian Lange (2 vacant seats, must live in ETJ)

Design Review Board – Paul Eitel and Marsha Wyly

Planning Board – Karin Karopas and Colleen Sharpe (1 vacant seat, must live in ETJ)

Greenways Advisory Board – Gary Hartong, Anil Makhija, Erin Quinlan and Alexis Quintela

Historic Preservation Commission – David Bennett, Andrea Radford and Sandy Smart

Human Relations Council – Sheila Brown, Maria Judith De La Cruz, Melvin Hempstead and Steven Schlossberg

Public Art Commission – Elizabeth Hayes, Delphine Pellar, Sharon Pullen and June Sadoski

Recreation Advisory Board – Erica Bing, Ian Foley, Steward Sill and Christine Stanczak

Senior Center Advisory Board – Salina Gary, Virginia Gruendal, Frances Sandoval and Brenda Thorne

Technology Advisory Board – Michael Faas, Kelly Fritz and Steven Strong

Urban Forestry Board – Mason Rizzo and Sandra Watson (1 vacant seat)

Three other boards – cemetery, cultural resources and urban forestry – will meet with candidates at their meetings in January to fill three vacancies on the cemetery board, three vacancies on the cultural resources board and one vacancy on the urban forestry board.