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Do you live on a dirt street? There are
several in town, but residents cannot
expect to see a paving truck any time
soon.
“There’s no money out there
to pave the streets. It has to come from
the town,” Mayor Vivian Jones said
during Friday’s town board retreat. Her
suggestion is that the town follow the
county’s lead if it adopts a
recommendation by the Blue Ribbon
Committee. That would be to keep the tax
rate the same after changing to a
four-year rather than the present
eight-year revaluation schedule. The
town could then use some of the money
for paving.
Jones said the town will
also need more property tax money
“because we are going to have to pay
more for roads, parks, schools and open
space.”
Commissioner Frank Drake
would like to see all the construction
debris from new homes and the materials
when old houses are torn down be reused
in some way. However, “The idea is
premature for the East Cost although it
exists on the West Coast.”
It would be popular,
Commissioner David Camacho, a developer,
said. “If you can dispose of sheetrock
for free rather than paying a fee, they
will do it.”
Camacho said such a disposal
site was proposed for Franklin County
but never built.
“Why don’t we take this to
the chamber’s economic development
committee and ask them to research it?”
Mayor Vivian Jones said. If there is
such a company, let the chamber “see if
we can recruit them to come to Wake
Forest and set up a facility.”
Recycling construction
material naturally led to recycling in
town, with Commissioner Margaret
Stinnett complaining the town does not
require residents to recycle.
True, Public Works Director
Mike Barton said, but Republic, the
waste contractor, tells him 80 percent
of residents do recycle. And, since the
town bought its own roll-out carts for
garbage and recycling, the amount has
grown from 64 to 120 tons of goods
recycled each month.
Barton explained how the
town was caught short of carts. He had
to wait until July 1 to order new carts
for budget reasons. “Then the first week
of July and the end of June there was a
huge influx of new customers.” Republic
loaned the town 35 carts Thursday, and
on Friday there were 12 new customers,
he said. Barton reminded them the
building boom “just exploded at the end
of last year” with 1,008 residential
building permits issued in 2005.
There is room at the
operations center on Friendship Chapel
Road to store 500 of each kind of cart,
Barton said.
There are two problems.
People frequently take the carts when
they move out of town and some people in
subdivisions such as Heritage and
Richland Hills where Wake Electric or
Progress Energy provide the power do not
pay their garbage/recycling bills.
Raleigh bills them for water and sewer,
the power companies bill for
electricity, and the only town bill they
receive is $14.60 for garbage and
recycling.
“You’d be surprised how many
are cut off,” Barton said. “It’s a big
issue.”
“It’s a sanitation and
health service,” Town Manager Mark
Williams said. “That’s why we require
people to take our service. It’s not
like a menu.”
Mayor Jones had been
investigating transportation for senior
citizens and said TTA (Triangle
Transportation Authority) may provide a
bus in Wake Forest. First TTA has to do
a study to see who would use it and how.
“There was a study done for
the senior center [that showed] there
was a huge waiting list for rides to the
senior center,” Stinnett said.
“The TTA is kind of
scrambling about its future right now
with the light rail option a little
further down the road. A bus might be
something they would consider,” Planning
Director Chip Russell said.
The board will invite
someone from TTA to speak to them about
transportation possibilities. |
