Dog poop barred woman’s appointment

Residential electric rates to rise in September

“I’m here to publicly apologize for my dog pooping in my neighbor’s yard but I don’t know who to apologize to,” Charlotte Jenkins, who has lived on North Main Street for 12 years, told the Wake Forest Town Board Tuesday night during the public comment period.

Jenkins said she has wanted to know why her name was tabled when the commissioners voted on applicants for the Historic Preservation Commission recently. When she called town staff, they said the tabling was done after one of her neighbors complained about her.

She was walking her dog one day after she applied to the HPC and “he pooped in a yard.” She said she did not know the neighbor “but we have made eye contact.” She decided to take the dog home and come back to pick up the poop. “Why didn’t he talk to me?” she asked. “I am hoping the neighbor will speak to me.”

When the town board turned to the night’s agenda, Commissioner Jim Dyer, who lives in the North Main Historic District, moved that the board approve Jenkins’ application to the HPC and it passed unanimously.

There were two other speakers during the public comment period; usually there are none. Kate Jones briefly asked that the board favorably consider a rezoning for three properties on South Allen Road. There was more about that later.

Richard Ostergard, the chairman of a group called Concerned Citizens for the Preservation of Open Space & Watershed Protection which was formed after E. Carroll Joyner’s plans to develop the former Wake Forest Country Club were made public. Ostergard said, “Why do we keep building?” and had a growth chart showing the housing units that are under development. “What kind of growth do we want? What kind of people are we trying to attract and why?”

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Raise for the town manager At the end of Tuesday night’s agenda, the mayor and commissioners went into closed session to evaluate the town manager’s and the town attorney’s performance in the past year.

When they came out of the closed session, Commissioner Adam Wright said Town Manager Kip Padgett had done an excellent job this year with the pandemic and made a motion to give him a 4 percent raise and a $5,000 bonus because of handling the pandemic so well. Commissioner Chad Sary seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.

Mayor Vivian Jones said that they were very pleased with his performance and he received an excellent review.

Chief Financial Officer Aileen Staples said Wednesday that Padgett’s “current salary is $187,727. With a 4 percent increase, it will be $195,236.

Town attorney Eric Vernon works at the Raleigh law firm of Wyrick Robbins Yates & Ponton and has served as town’s principal attorney for years. This year, though, the town is establishing its own inhouse legal services department with an attorney who will be selected this fall and begin work Oct. 1. There is also funding for a part-time paralegal.

In the budget personnel are budgeted at $168,990, there is $125,000 for outside legal services and operating costs of $16,320 for a total of $310,310.

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Residential electric rates will rise beginning September 1 of this year, and the new rates are included in the 2021-2022 budget which the commissioners approved without change or comment.

Under the current rate structure, each residential customer is charged a basic charge of $15.95. That will increase in September to $25.

In the current rate structure each customer is charged $0.11310 per kWh, and that will be increased to $0.10895 per kWh in September.

For the average household using 909 kWh per monthly billing period, the total monthly bill has been $118.76 and it will be $124.04 after September 1, an increase of $5.28 for the average customer. There are 6,807 residential customers.

A rezoning on South Allen Road was apparently requested by the neighbors in and around the Cardinal Hills subdivision. The properties in question are a hair salon in a fairly new house, the former Wake Forest Branch Hospital which is now owned by The Church Initiative Inc., and the former Wake Forest Rest Home owned by the Life Church PCCF, but which has been empty for more than a year.

Senior Planner Nicolette Womack explained the status of the properties, which are all zoned NMX, Neighborhood Mixed Use. The neighbors apparently fear that an inappropriate business will try to either try to use the old rest home or develop the land, a fear Mayor Vivian Jones expressed: “If we do not rezone this, someone could apply to develop something the board would not want.”

After a discussion about how long before the final new Community Plan can be made public and effective, the board chose to rezone now. Commissioner Chad Sary moved to rezone it to GR10 general residential and after comments changed that to GR5, which passed unanimously. This rezoning will not affect the two businesses.

The commissioners, after two public hearings, voted to annex both the Radford subdivision with 167 single-family homes and 10 townhouses and Holding Village South Lake with 25 single-family houses.

They also approved the Wake Avenue Condos with 40 condos, a rooftop terrace, and underground parking,

Although there was no discussion about the budget for next year, there was a long discussion about the VFW and nonprofits being charged like other organizations or businesses for having a food truck or selling wine and beer at town festivals. The board unanimously approved waiving the town’s restrictions on alcohol sales and consumption during the only Friday Night on White this year on Sept. 10 and the WF Cares Kickoff for the holiday season.

There will be stop signs on all parts of the intersection where South Wingate Street and Sycamore Avenue meet because of a lack of visibility there.

And the board approved removing Jim Stephanadis from the planning board to make it a seven-person board. He was the last person appointed.

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