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The
Wake Forest Cultural Arts Association
and the Wake Forest College Birthplace
Society plan to ask the town
commissioners to reverse Town Manager
Mark Williams’ decisions and approve
their funding requests in the proposed
budget.
The Cultural Arts
Association asked for $7,392 to pay for
a part-time director to assist the
all-volunteer board. If funded the first
year, the association would ask for
continued, increased funding in
subsequent years. WFCAA sponsors several
events – Six Sundays in Spring, the
DuBois Jazz Festival, the Autumn Arts
Festival, the Area Artists Studio Tour,
the garden tour and the Historic Homes
Christmas Tour.
Kathryn Spiegel, the acting
secretary for Cultural Arts, said they
plan to have two people speak at the
public hearing next Tuesday night and
members are also calling and speaking to
the commissioners. “We’re not taking no
for an answer,” Spiegel said, adding
that the board wants to drum up
community support to demonstrate the
importance of Cultural Arts in the life
of the community.
The Birthplace Society asked
for a whopping amount – $550,000 –
spread over three years toward the $2
million cost of the proposed annex at
the museum in the Calvin Jones House on
North Main Street and for paving Walnut
and Juniper streets on either side of
the museum property.
Although planned for several
years, the construction of the annex has
been held up by a lawsuit filed by some
neighbors and a change in the paid
director’s position. Gene Capps resigned
and has been replaced by Edward Morris.
Board members and supporters
hope for generous contributions from
Wake Forest University and the alumni
who studied on the Wake Forest campus. A
recent effort has been to widen the
scope of the museum’s collection and
focus by adding memorabilia from the
town’s history. Suzanne Mills Erskine
and Stella Forrest Daniska head up
Project Preserve Our Past, which is
collecting articles.
“We feel good about the
budget process and just hope the
commissioners can envision the future.
We are very excited about the
opportunity to go before the town
fathers,” Susan Brinkley, president of
the Birthplace Society, said.
Williams proposed funding 11
of the 17 requests received this year, a
record number. He said there were
difficult decisions in this budget,
including whether and how to fund the
requests by the outside agencies.
The Wake Forest Fire
Department, a separate entity that
contracts with the town and county to
provide fire protection, will get 10
cents of the 54-cent property tax levy.
That amounts to an estimated $1,683,825,
which will be adjusted at the end of the
fiscal year to reflect the actual
property valuation.
Williams also recommended
that
- Resources for Seniors
receive $2,500 of the $3,000 requested.
- Southlight receive $15,000
of the $40,463 requested.
- the Wake Forest Chamber of
Commerce receive all of the $32,000
requested.
- the Fourth of July
Committee receive the $3,000 it
requested.
- the Downtown
Revitalization Corporation receive all
it requested: $87,650 for the
streetscape improvements on South White
Street, $13,360 for signs leading people
to downtown and $5,000 for a façade
improvement grant program.
- Kids Voting receive $1,000
of the $1,500 requested.
- the Boys and Girls Club of
Wake Forest receive none of the $7,500
requested.
- the Center for Volunteer
CareGiving receive none of the $1,000
requested.
- the Child Care Services
Association receive none of the $1,400
requested.
- the Wake County TRACS
(transportation) program receive all of
the $3,000 requested.
- the United Arts Council of
Raleigh and Wake County receive all of
the $14,605 requested.
Property taxes, rates remain the same
Williams’ budget for 2006-07
keeps the property tax rate at 54 cents
per $100 valuation and also keeps
electric and garbage rates at the same
level. His budget message does indicate
the garbage contractor, Republic, may
ask for a CPI adjustment in September.
A Republic manager had to
apologize last month for the number of
missed pickups in recent months, but
Public Works Director Mike Barton
reported late last week that the number
of misses has returned to a more normal
number.
The town’s water and sewer
rates were frozen when it entered the
merger agreement with Raleigh, and they
will be frozen until the merger cost, an
estimated $19 million, is recovered by
the difference between Wake Forest’s and
Raleigh’s rates. After another six years
or so, Wake Forest customers will pay
Raleigh water and sewer rates.
The Cemetery Advisory Board
has urged the town purchase some
adjacent land, and Williams has set
aside $189,000 from the Capital
Improvement Plan to buy three small
tracts to the north of the cemetery on
North White Street. The wooded area to
the south, another area in which the
cemetery could expand, is split between
four owners, three of them a list of
heirs. When a list of heirs owns
property, it is usually very difficult
to reach all of them and to get all to
agree to a sale.
Along with five new police
officers and a new three-man power line
crew dedicated to line maintenance,
Williams is recommending the town have a
new position, that of a minimum housing
inspector, and that his/her truck be a
hybrid. Last week Williams said that if
they cannot purchase hybrid trucks (he
is recommending the town purchase three
for various departments) at a reasonable
price ($28,500 budgeted per truck) they
will purchase ones fueled by diesel. It
is the same price as gasoline but
provides greater mileage. |
