Between 15 and 20 Wellington Mobile Home Park residents and friends were in the front rows as the December Wake Forest Town Board meeting got underway Tuesday evening with the prospect of saying good-by to two commissioners and welcoming two new commissioners at the end of business. Before that, the residents and friends had their say.
Maria Magana, speaking through a translator, said she appreciates the town’s help and has found a new lot but it not yet approved to move to it. She is still struggling with the move and all it entails.
Sophia Miro said her family and her mother have both had to move an hour away, and the money to move was not available until the end of October.
Bill Moran, a U.S. Air Force veteran, said he will be living in a hotel in Louisburg while his house is built. “Will funds be available after January 15?” he asked. He pays everything in cash. Triangle Family Services will not mail checks to the affected people. “Do I have to meet them back at Wellington Mobile Home Park? We need to know.”
Ronnie Jackson thanked the town, the commissioners and the mayor but went on to say delays of about six weeks “put some families in danger.” He also said it is the law in some states that the owners have to offer the mobile home park to the residents before they can sell to someone else.
Kenille Baumgartner, a friend of the residents, said she is having nightmares about the situation with some residents still not able to move and had five questions about the details. “What contingency or understanding is there for people still needing more time to move or having no place to which to move?” She can envision “Wake County deputies pulling up to Wellington Park on one of the two dates (Jan. 15 and 19 are both in the agreement) mentioned. I see them placing locks on all mobile homes and imagine some families loading up their cars with what possessions they can salvage and driving away to some unknown destination.” (See full statement at end of this article.)
Joy Shillingsburg with Wake Forest Community Meals said, “There are policies which could have protected Wellington Mobile Home Park.” Also, “As it has been said several times in this chamber over the past few months by our planning board, several elected officials and the owner of Wellington Park, it is a landowner’s right to sell his or her land. However, it is not a landowner’s right to have that land rezoned.” (See full statement at the end of this article.)
Jonne Allyson Boone said the medical nonprofit she is associated with was able to purchase a mobile home and place it in Wellington for a woman with some disabilities. “It was to be her permanent home” and gave her some financial security. The woman “works as many hours as she can” but she does not make enough to qualify for housing programs. Boone and the woman have spent hours searching for a place to move. “We’re in the middle of a housing crisis. She has no family and nowhere to go. You have to understand the impact of this decision” to rezone the mobile home park.
Kim Marsh from St. John’s Episcopal Church thanked the Wake Forest community and all the churches that have helped the residents. He called it a difficult situation and said affordable housing is a critical need.
Two men also spoke about the new NC Department of Transportation Plan for Capital Boulevard. Dan Caster focused on frontage road issues and Star Road while attorney Michael Frazier focused on Star Road and the two car dealerships where it meets South Main Street. “There are tremendous safety issues,” Frazier said because large vehicles like the tractor trailers and the car carriers will not have room to maneuver. The plan also leaves three adjoining properties landlocked. Both have sent their concerns to NCDOT.
The board had already heard from the auditor about the annual audit and seen the financial report, which was rosy. The 2020-2021 fiscal year ended with the town having $20,144,018 in the general fund. The property base was $6.8 billion and the town collected 99.73 percent of the property tax. (See more at the end of this article.)
In the consent agenda, the commissioners agreed to updates to its record retention policy, its rules of procedure (moving the start time of meetings from 7 to 6 p.m.) and the code of ethics for advisory board members.
A proposed ordinance encouraging minority business participation in projects involving reimbursement agreements hit a snag when Commissioner Bridget Wall-Lennon questioned it. After some discussion it was tabled for later action.
The board voted unanimously to reject the Star Road PUD as the planning board had done earlier despite its developer’s request for a second public hearing.
Wall-Lennon had requested a presentation about Wellington Park two weeks ago during the board’s work session and was upset Tuesday night because Planning Director Courtney Tanner was out of town and provided an email with some answers. Of the $375,000 available for payments to the residents, about $126,000 has been spent and six families are still seeking housing.
Next up was the question of the DuBois School Digital Workforce Hub planned by the Wireless Research Center and the $1.2 million the town has pledged in a grant to start the hub. The money will come from the $13.3 million the town is scheduled to receive from the American Recovery Plan, half of which has been received with the second half due at the end of December. Of the $1.2 million, $200,000 will go to the DuBois Alumni Association to make improvements in the remaining buildings on the campus.
Wake County will not make a decision about funding the hub in Wake Forest and one at Shaw University until late February.
Lisa Hayes, the Strategic Performance Manager, and Chief Finance Officer Aileen Staples wanted to make changes in the agreement between the town and the Wireless Center to conform with the ARP, which has strict auditing but the compliance requirements appear to change constantly.
Gerard Hayes, the creator and president of the Wireless Center, said they are anxious to get working and are also looking at other money, including grants, for the hubs. But, he said, “We will start programming (teaching students) in February and March.”
Wall-Lennon said, “There are other organizations that want funding from the town from the ARP money.” When it came to a vote, she said, “I’m going to support this. On principle I don’t support this on the way it was handled.” The board voted earlier this year to make the $1.2 million grant to the Wireless Center before the full amount had been received and before the commissioners had decided how to spend it.
“I think that is a legitimate concern,” Mayor Vivian Jones said, and the vote was five to zero.
Next, Jones read the resolutions of appreciation for outgoing commissioners Liz Simpers and Wall-Lennon, who both gave short speeches.
Then state Rep. Joe Johns swore in Jones for her sixth term in office and new commissioners Keith Shackleford and Nick Sliwinski were sworn in.
After they took their seats with new name plates in front of them, the only action was to name a mayor pro tem. Commissioner Chad Sary nominated Commissioner Jim Dyer and he was elected.
At 8:30 the new and old commissioners, friends and family left the meeting room for a reception downstairs.
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Results of the audit
April Adams, who Staples called “our audit partner from Cherry Bekaert,” explained the auditor’s role and the audit standards and said Wake Forest received the highest opinion possible with no findings of problems in the three areas examined as well as a high standard of internal controls.
As of June 30, 2021 the town’s general fund had $20,144,018 while other funds had $8,353,464 and proprietary funds had $4,212,913 for a total of $32,710,395 compared to the 2020 total of $17,318,561.
The town’s tax base is now $6.8 billion, a 20 percent increase in a revaluation year, and the town collected $33.7 million in property taxes, a $4.3 million increase over the prior year. The town’s collection rate was 99.73 percent; statewide, governments with electric systems average a collection rate of 98.93 percent and all governments in the state average 98.96 percent collections.
Wake Forest’s policy now is to have between 20 and 25 percent of general fund expenditures in the unassigned fund balance (savings) and the total fund balance must be at least 35 percent of general fund spending. This is to have a cushion against disasters or other unanticipated events. The total fund balance at the end of June was 41.24 percent of total spending.
Total revenues for last year were $55.9 million and expenditures were $45.7 million – both were increases over the previous year – for $5,726,000 financing sources over spending.
The town has purchase agreements (loans) for fiber construction, vehicles and equipment, and a ladder truck totaling $5,190,117. Each of the loans has a different year for payment and a different interest rate.
There are also two general obligation bonds for public improvements. The town has refinanced one $1.8 million installment note and saved $65,000 and it assumed two loans during the fire department merger. One was fully retired in 2021 and the second, for Station #3 has a balance of $350,000 at 2.99 percent interest.
The town’s policy is to keep the percentage of debt to property valuation at no more than 2 percent – the state statute says 8 percent – and it is currently at 0.6494 percent.
Baumgardner’s statement
Madam Mayor and Town commissioners,
After the terrible storm in Kentucky a couple of weeks ago, Governor Andy Beshear said, “We’re not going to let any of our families go homeless.” In a few weeks will Wake Forest be able to say the same thing about the residents of Wellington Park?
Rereading Wellington Park Relocation Assistance Project from Triangle Family Services and Section 17, an agreement between Middleburg Developers and the town, I was left woefully in the dark as I thought ahead to January 15 or January 19th. (There seems to be a discrepancy of dates.) The only wording of any specificity in either document as to what exactly is to happen on one of those two dates in January is in Section 17 stating that “once all residents have been relocated” (no date given) the town will waive the recreation fee.
So, the following are the questions that wake me up in the middle of the night.
- January 15/19 seems to be the date of eviction by George Mackie for the residents but what actually is supposed to have been accomplished by that time?
- Is there something in writing, a type of checklist, to show that certain things promised will have been accomplished by the due date and by whom?
- On January 15/19 who owns this property and is responsible for any people or mobile homes still to be moved?
- What contingency or understanding is there for people still needing more time to move or having no place to which to move?
- Is there any criteria that the Town Wake Forest, Middleburg, and the Wellington Home Park residents agreed upon to show the completion of this initiative?
I have nightmares of Wake County Deputies pulling up to Wellington Park on one of the two dates mentioned. I see them placing locks on all mobile homes and imagine some families loading up their cars with what possessions they can salvage and driving away to some unknown destination.
With the ambiguity of the statement “once all residents have been relocated”, will the town of Wake Forest be able to say like the Governor of Kentucky, “we’re not going to let any of our families at Wellington go homeless?”
Shillingsburg statement
My name is Joy Shillingsburg, I am the director of the Wake Forest Community Meal program and a citizen who is deeply concerned about our neighbors at Wellington Park.
As it has been said several times in this chamber over the past few months by our planning board, several elected officials and the owner of Wellington Park, it is a landowner’s right to sell his or her land. However, it is not a landowner’s right to have that land rezoned.
Policy could have protected the residents of Wellington Park. Rezoning one of the last areas of affordable housing in our town has removed a part of the scaffolding that makes this town a excellent place to live and it will have generational repercussions on the residents who are being dislocated by this decision.
A comprehensive policy on affordable housing that considers the needs of the working class with the same weight as the rights of landowners and multi-billion dollar developers could have protected the residents of Wellington Park. Nonprofits, churches, good-hearted handymen, generous community members and the residents of Wellington Park themselves have worked tirelessly over the past 6 months to cobble together a path try to vacate the park by January, but a clear and thoughtful POLICY on preserving affordable housing in this increasingly prosperous town would have done more for these residents than all of this time and energy combined.
There are creative and effective policies in place across America that protect people living in mobile homes- I urge all of you be curious, study, speak up for and do the work required to implement policies in this town to protect our neighbors.
Any such policy is of course too late for the families who live at Wellington Park. Most have already put in motion relocating to Louisburg, Franklinton, Youngsville, Vance County, and very few to homes in Wake Forest. A lack of policy, research, will, and creativity have already forced students to tell their teachers that they will not return to our public schools in the new semester and caused more tears and anxiety than we can know.
What I do know is that this rezoning and the lack of a clear plan to implement section 17 has left folks who work third-shift jobs in our local factories and stores or people who clean nursing homes, care for our children and build our homes are spending most of their waking hours trying to get answers from TFS, looking for homes they can afford close to their workplace, and paying rent on their current lot and their new lot while they wait for movers and permits. What I do know is that this rezoning has left a number of veterans feeling unsafe, uncertain and worried to the point of tears about how they will find another community to live in.
A month passed before residents even knew a clear total on how much they would be allotted for their relocation so that they could begin planning their move. Few details were known on how Middleburg and TFS would be held accountable to the residents- these failures and oversights should all be tutorials for future rezoning.
As you have/will heard tonight from the residents this lack of clarity and the month that passed before TFS was fully engaging with the residents is now catching up to many of them. Again, I hope these stories and these oversights will inform future policy here in Wake Forest.
It has been a transformative experience working with my neighbors at Wellington Park and the folks at the Town who have gone above and beyond to work with the Wellington residents. I hope that thoughtful policy that values the working class and fixed-income residents of this Town will be implemented in the near future so that no one else in Wake Forest has to go through what the families at Wellington Park have experienced. Thank you.
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