Town supports both DRC and chamber.
Tuesday night Angela DeMattos, a teacher for children with special needs, asked the Wake Forest commissioners to add equipment in an existing park so that children with special needs can enjoy swinging and other activities.
DeMattos was flanked by parents and children with special needs and she had a stack of material and a board filled with photographs to show the commissioners.
The only playground for children with special needs is in Cary, she said. “There are classes here for children that could benefit.”
“My one regret is that we didn’t know about this earlier to put it in the capital program,” Commissioner Peter Thibodeau said. He urged the other commissioners to find a way to add funds for the playground.
The other three speakers at the public hearing about the 2009-2010 budget either are receiving or have received town money.
Although the group received $1,600 last year, Town Manager Mark Williams did not include any funds for Kids Voting in this budget.
Lynn Pearce said 36 percent of the children in local schools voted in the program and there were 102 adult volunteers in the precincts to assist.
The Downtown Revitalization Corporation is slated to receive $102,725, the same amount as last year, to provide rent and office expenses along with a full-time director and two part-time staff members. Maggie O’Neill, the executive director, said the DRC will unveil a new website this summer and is working on a number of initiatives to entice new businesses to downtown while assisting existing businesses.
O’Neill did not mention the long-awaited wayfinding signs the DRC has designed and struggled to have approved by the state Department of Transportation. Wednesday she said she had just done the final proof for the signs, they are being printed now and should be ready to be installed late next month.
Jonathan Hand, the chairman-elect for the board of directors at the Wake Forest Chamber of Commerce, spoke about the economic development program being developed with the help of ElectriCities and the Sanford Holshouser economic advisers. They are working to have one or more certified industrial sites soon, and Hand said the chamber would host a bus tours of all the available industrial and commercial sites this fall.
The chamber receives $95,640 each year to act as the town’s economic developer.
The biggest outside agency receiving town money is the independent Wake Forest Fire Department. The town has assured the department will receive 10 cents of the 51-cent property tax, and this year it amounts to $3,341,285 with a true-up at the end of the fiscal year to take into account the growth in the tax base during the year.
The fire department also fire impact fee on new construction for its capital costs.
The other agencies which are slated to receive town funds are:
-- $3,000 to Resources for Seniors, the agency which provides the programs at the town-owned Northern Wake Senior Center.
-- $4,000 to the Fourth of July Committee.
-- $10,000 to TRACS, the Wake County transportation service, to help fund the town’s bus service.
-- $110,000 to the Wake Forest College Birthplace Society if it can show it raised at least an equal amount during the year. This was a commitment agreed to in 2006, $110,000 a year for five years to help with the construction of the exhibit annex behind the Calvin Jones House.
-- $14,605 to the United Arts Council which provides plays for children and outdoor concerts for all ages.