Maybe they didn’t need to discuss water, annexation

If you blinked you might have missed it. The Wake Forest Town Board meeting Tuesday evening, July 19, was one of the shortest seen recently.
They did pad it a bit by standing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States Flag, by approving the minutes of two past meetings and by hearing from David Soper, who had researched ways two other towns, Chapel Hill and Granite City, preserved their tree canopy and gave the results to the town. But when it came to the agenda for Tuesday evening’s meeting of the Wake Forest Town Board, there was only one item: the five item consent agenda, which was approved unanimously. With no discussion.
They then turned to commissioner reports, during which the four men – Commissioner Chad Sary was absent – briefly described what they had done as public officials recently.
Commissioner Nick Sliwinski had participated in a meeting at the Northern Wake Senior Center that same day in which he, Ruben Wall, director of the Parks, Recreation & Cultural Resources Department, and two department employees met with about 45 people who urged Wall to change the location of a planned skate park from land between the senior center and an assisted living facility with an Alzheimer unit.
Commissioner Adam Wright said he had located a number of unused laptops and took them to the senior center and had gone to Friday Night on White. Commissioner Jim Dyer had also attended Friday Night on White. Commissioner Keith Shackleford spoke sideways to Mayor Vivian Jones and the reporter could not decipher what he said.
But what was in the consent agenda?
There were two items which could have required some discussion. The first was the third amendment of the June 6, 2005 Wake Forest/Raleigh Utility Merger Agreement and the second was the agreement with Raleigh that the town would reimburse the city for stormwater and paving improvements the city did while it was replacing and repairing its water mains in town. The town has agreed to pay the city $1,350,000. The town and city had an agreement that the town would pay for the city’s work.
The reworking of the 2003 merger agreement did involve another large sum of money – the $1.2 million the town overpaid for that merger – and more land – a large planned expansion of the town’s extraterritorial jurisdiction. Raleigh is agreeing in the amendment to provide water and sewer service to that ETJ except for the watershed area north and south of Oak Grove Church Road, the watershed for the town’s now unused reservoir. However, it seems there may be ways it could be developed.
Also, the amendment identifies a need for additional water storage in Wake Forest, a need that can be met by the city purchasing 1.55 acres at 234 South College Street between two houses. The purchase price is $365,000, and the city will build an elevated water tank and booster to better serve an area in town.
As for the overpayment, the town will apply that to an additional water and sewer allocation. Those allocations mean that Wake Forest has or will have a maximum daily demand of 5.32 MGD of water and 3.4 MGD per month for wastewater treatment.
Much of the agreement will not be effective until the water tank and booster are built, upgrades are made to the Smith Creek facility on the Neuse River and the town has annexed the extraterritorial land. That land is on patches of acreage that extends east to NC 96 (Zebulon Road) and other land adjacent to current town limits on the east and south. When made part of the ETJ, the land will include the western half of Burlington Mill Road.
But maybe all that did not need to be discussed at a public meeting.
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