The Wake Forest Town Board had a crowded agenda Tuesday for its work session with items ranging from a new directive for Wake County’s foster care program, parking of commercial vehicles, the new right-of-way encroachment policy, a new award (The Commissioners Cup) recognizing the rivalry between intown high schools Wake Forest and Heritage, a update on the new emergency operations plan and a discussion about a carbon tax dividend.
The happy news was that despite a record 36 rain days in 2018 – 13 rain days is the yearly average – the Northern Wake Senior Center could be complete on June 19 and handed over to the town on July 1. FocusDesign is the contractor undertaking the complete renovation and substantial additions to the building on East Holding Avenue. It was built in 1994 because a group of older residents recognized the need and raised money to build it helped by a $25,000 donation by retired schoolteacher Bertha Harris. There have been additions, alterations and renovations, but the current project is the most ambitious, with a new exercise room, roof replacement for the existing building and a multi-purpose room addition as well as a new entrance and lobby.
Architect Matt Hale updated the commissioners and mayor, saying 56 percent of the $4.031 million has been spent and construction is 60 percent complete. The contract was for $3,983,039 but change orders have increased the original amount.
Victor McBride, a FocusDesign manager, said of the rain, “It’s a mess.” But he also said they will “make that flip,” closing the East Holding entrance to allow for some needed construction and opening the new entrance – or part of it – on the new extension of Brooks Street.
“Everything has been tightly controlled except the weather,” Hale said.
The senior center construction is financed through the 2014 bond referendum.
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Melissa Mayeu with Wake County Human Services, said there is a crisis in the foster care program in that about 200 of the approximately 600 children in foster care have to be place outside Wake County. Usually without advance warning, the children are removed from their homes and taken to a completely strange environment with strangers as foster parents. They are torn from their familiar school and church; the distance makes it difficult for parents to keep in touch.
The county has 848 foster homes but 44 homes are specific to a family. In Wake Forest, there are only five foster homes.
We are reaching out to our faith partners, local churches, Mayeu said, and will be asking each church to engage with one foster family to provide support. Many of the children in foster care are African-American, she said, and older children, 12 to 20. She asked for the town’s support in finding new foster homes and supporting those who care for children.
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Allison Snyder, the assistant public works director, filled in for engineer Scott Miles who could not be at Tuesday’s meeting, to go over all the changes in the proposed commercial motor vehicles ordinance. The reason for the ordinance, she said, “Is to protect our infrastructure from vehicles left parked for a period of time. The heavy trailers are causing damage to our roads.”
The proposed ordinance has been tweaked by the police department, public works, planning and the town attorney and will require some existing ordinances to be changed or deleted.
The reference to recreational vehicles has been removed because it was too vague, she said. “What we’re seeing in town,” Snyder said, “is abandoned trailers not attached to anything and tractor trailers” who are parked beside roads, leaving mud when they are moved, damaging the roadway, curbs and shoulder. Sometimes they are parked in the roadway, blocking part of it.
The proposed ordinance will be on the Feb. 19 town board agenda.
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Brendie Vega, the assistant planning director, said her office is getting a lot of pushback from home builders about the town’s new push to remove signs at subdivisions that have been built all or in part in the public right-of-way. “They have said we are enforcing something that has never been enforced.”
Vega said letters are going out this week to subdivisions and other instances where signs have encroached on the right-of-way.
The minor encroachments are often irrigation systems that extend beyond the owners’ properties, sidewalk signs (often downtown) and temporary structures. Major encroachments are retaining walls, permanent subdivision signs, decorative walkways and brick pavers, and entrance medians.
The public works department, working with planning, engineering and the police department as needed, will identify the encroachment. The property owners are notified and required to complete an application. If the owner does not apply or if the application is denied, the encroachment will be removed. Owners can appeal the decision to remove the encroachment to the board of adjustment. If the board of adjustment finds for the applicant, the town has 30 days to appeal that decision.
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Ruben Wall and Edward Austin from the Wake Forest Parks, Recreation & Cultural Resources Department presented the idea of a Commissioners Cup which would recognize the friendly competition between the two public high schools in town, Wake Forest and Heritage.
It will be a permanent cup presented to the school with the most points based on performances 23 sports – 14 sports but nine have both men’s and women’s teams. The cup will be engraved annually with the name of the school, and each school will have a permanent banner with years it was the winner.
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Candace Davis, the assistant to Town Manager Kip Padgett, outlined the work of a committee that began meeting in early 2018 to organize an emergency operations plan which would go into operation immediately after a disaster and continue working for at least 72 hours until state and federal assistance would be available. One of the conference rooms in town hall will be outfitted as an operations center where the group can do tabletop exercises to work out the mechanics of each type of emergency.
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Last month a group representing the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act called on the town to enact that legislation and urge the U.S. Congress to do the same. “I felt we had to respond,” Mayor Vivian Jones said.
After the commissioners expressed concern about how the act would work, Jones said,
“We will let them know we are not inclined to pass this resolution.”
