If you have been wondering when Wake Forest Power customers will hear about any change (hopefully a reduction) in power rates, be advised the town is moving forward. Finance Director Aileen Staples reported in the monthly update for commissioners that, after reviewing six proposals, her staff has selected Booth and Associates to perform a rate study and make recommendations for changes. “Staff is working with them to finalize the contract.”
At the end of July all the pieces were in place and Wake Forest and 31 other municipalities which own their own power systems sold their power generation assets to Duke Progress Energy. The towns also had to agree to continue paying off a much smaller amount of debt and to continue to purchase power from Duke for 30 years. Wake Forest’s debt was reduced by 66 percent to $640,000 from $1.89 million. It will be paid off by bonds over 10 years at 2.9 percent interest.
The town’s wholesale power cost fell by 9 percent at the beginning of July. The rate study will take all of those factors into account as well as the customer base for Wake Forest Power. The town operates the electric fund as a business, meaning it has to have the income to support its operations. It has 6,035 commercial and residential customers. Wake Electric and Duke Progress Energy also supply power to town residents.
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The Wake Forest High School Class of 1955 will hold its gathering on Friday, Aug 21, at 12 noon at The Forks Cafeteria, Carl B. Pearce informed us.
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When the Wake Forest Planning Department’s Technical Review Committee met on July 16 it looked at a site construction plan for general commercial use, in this case a 36,170-square-foot grocery store on 5.3 acres in the southwest quadrant of South Main Street and the N.C. 98 Bypass (Dr. Calvin Jones Highway). The land is zoned conditional use neighborhood business, and the applicant is Little Diversified Architectural Consulting.
Several years ago there was interest by a national drug store chain in that location, but nothing ever materialized.
The committee also looked at two rezoning requests by Harris Engineering for tracts in the Stonegate subdivision. One request would rezone 4.49 acres off Coach Lantern Avenue for t42 townhouse lots, and it has apparently prompted some Stonegate residents to consider a protest petition. The other request is for 4.83 acres at the end of Fairstone Road where 11 lots for single-family houses are planned.
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Wake Forest’s new town manager, Kip Padgett, has moved into his second month in town, and along with telling us he has been meeting with department heads, the mayor and commissioners, and attending several advisory board and chamber of commerce board meetings, a note in the monthly update for the commissioners says he has been accepted in the UNC School of Government Municipal and County Government Administration Program. “This allows new managers in the state to receive a general overview of the laws governing N.C. local government and an update on any recently passed laws. The program in Chapel Hill is for three and a half days each month from September through April.”
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Three-fourths of North Carolina is either exceptionally dry – Wake County’s condition – or experiencing moderate and severe drought. The severe drought is to the south near Charlotte with moderate drought conditions wrapped around it.
See the situation for yourself at http://www.ncwater.org/Drought_Monitoring which is updated every Tuesday.
