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During their mid-year retreat in August,
Wake Forest commissioners asked Town
Manager Mark Williams and town staff to
find a way for the town to stop paying
for the water, sewer and electric used
at the Calvin Jones House (the Wake
Forest College Museum) and the gym at
the DuBois Center.
That subject is on the
agenda for the town board meeting
Tuesday, Sept. 19.
Williams proposes to stop
the direct payments by the town at the
end of November this year, but the town
would provide help through the end of
June next year.
Both DuBois and the Wake
Forest College Birthplace Society, which
owns the Calvin Jones House, have come
to depend on the town, Williams wrote in
a memo. Therefore, “I would also
recommend that we not leave either
agency in financial distress through
this fiscal year and provide monetary
support in a one-time cash payout to
cover those costs until June 30, 2007.”
That payout would be based
on last year’s bills from November first
through the end of June, and the money
for the nine month would go to the two
entities on Nov. 3.
If the commissioners approve
Williams’ plan, a check for $14,599
would be paid to the DuBois Center and
one for $2,129 would be paid to the
Birthplace. Last year the town paid
$7,623 for water and sewer and $6,978
for electric at DuBois, $609 for water
and sewer and $1,520 for electric at the
Birthplace.
The town has been paying the
utilities for the gym at the DuBois
Center since it helped renovate the
building after the National Alumni
Association of DuBois High School bought
the 17-acre campus and seven buildings
in 1998. At that time, the town operated
both the electric and the water and
sewer systems.
Williams said one of the
reasons the bills for the gym are high
is because it has high-intensity lights
on the ceiling and it is difficult to
air condition the building that began
life as a Quonset hut at the Butner army
base during World War II. There are also
a number of activities in the gym,
including the after-school tutoring
program run by the Banks Kerr Family
YMCA.
The town’s parks and
recreation department uses the gym for
basketball games, and that will
continue. Parks and Recreation Director
Susan Simpson said it was part of the
agreement when the town helped with the
renovations that it could use the gym.
She sends a schedule to DuBois before
the season, indicating what days and
times the games will be played.
The change in utility
payments will also not affect the
renovated ag/shop building that has a
meeting room/offices in the center
section, a computer lab in the northern
wing that will be used again this year
for an alternative school for suspended
students, and a police substation in the
southern wing used as an office for
lieutenants.
Williams said that when the
building was renovated the town agreed
to pay $1 a year to the alumni
association and be responsible for the
building’s maintenance.
Williams does not know when
the town board approved a policy to
provide utilities for the Birthplace. It
was in place when he joined the town
staff in 1983. |
