This week’s main event was the town council meeting which had two items of significant interest. The rest of the week consisted of staff and social meetings, and the taping of Cary Matters.

On Monday I met with the town manager, the mayor pro-tem, and staff directors to review Thursday’s council meeting agenda. Also in attendance at this meeting was an intern from NC Central, Jabari Blackmon, who was introduced and will be “shadowing” Julie Robison. Nothing extraordinary was identified at this meeting as a concern and we adjourned after about 30 minutes.

Monday night I met with a couple of friends who work with me on various technical issues related to my web site and journal postings. It is amazing how many people want to help other people out of the kindness of their hearts. If only the majority of the world could view the world through their eyes we could solve a lot of problems. God bless the people of the world who put others before themselves.

Tuesday I attended an organizational meeting of the Lions Club in Cary. They have asked me to join and I intend to at their next meeting in April. I hope I will be able to contribute and help others through this organization.

Tuesday night I participated in conference call meeting with the town manager and the mayor pro-tem. Now that the new town manager is in place I will resume pursuing a few issues that remain unresolved. This includes: litter, dynamic message signs, and traffic signal timing. I hope to create proposals and gather support on these initiatives soon.

Wednesday was the April taping of Cary Matters with co-host Jack Smith. This episode will focus on roll out recycling carts for the main topic. The Q&A topics include automated meter reading and finances. Jack was a great co-host and we were done within an hour.

Thursday began with a special meeting of the council to work on personnel issues related to our new town manager. While I can’t go into details I can say it was a very positive meeting. I believe Ben Shivar is going to do a fantastic job as our town manager even in the face of one of the most difficult financial times in the town’s history.

Thursday night was the regularly scheduled council meeting. I was on the short end of two votes that were not unanimous. The first was a vote on the Land Development Ordinance Amendments. The biggest issue with this was related to developer incentives on land near Jordan Lake. The current ordinance would allow a 10-1 swap of open space for housing units in this area which I view as ridiculous. The new plan changed this to about 5 to 1. While this was a significant improvement, I don’t think it went far enough. Personally, I would prefer the base zoning with two acre lots.

The second issue that I voted against was the Climate for Student Success forum. My concern was focused mostly on financing and setting precedence. This forum requires a $7,346 mid year appropriation. Currently, we are reviewing finances for next year’s budget which is not looking good. There may be tough choices ahead where we may have to decide to cut services or even consider layoffs. So it is difficult for me to agree to spending money, including a $3,500 speaker fee when finances are so tight. So I suggested private funding. To date, council member Portman and Frantz have agreed to each pay 10% of the cost. I understand that another 10% has also been committed. I think it is essential for this to be 100% private funding and not use taxpayer dollars. Which brings me to the point of precedence, since we decided to have a forum for schools then why not roads or other issues that the county is responsible for? If we are asked then it will be difficult to say no now that the precedence has been set.

My only meeting Friday was my monthly meeting with the mayor pro-tem Julie Robison. This meeting is mostly social in nature but we discussed ways to make sure all the mayoral meetings are covered. I think Julie is doing a wonderful job and covers a great deal of meetings for the town.

There were several interesting things sent via mail this week. Unfortunately, most are confidential. The one not confidential was a notification that the town will receive $122,433 in Community Development Block Grants through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

There were plenty of emails this week including requests to support the Jordan Lake Rules Resolution, concern over the new rollout recycle bins, concerns over dog tethering, problems with Davis Drive Middle School, and requests to make Winfair Drive a residential street.

Well that is about it for this week. I will hopefully post again by Sunday, April 5^th.  Please feel free to leave a comment on my post.

This week was made up mostly of various committee meetings.

Monday was the monthly meeting of the Wake County Mayor’s Association. We had a presentation from a non-profit organization and then minor discussion. After the meal half of the mayors left and the remaining mayors discussed various topics. It is invaluable for me to listen to mayors with years of experience talk about issues related to their towns and councils. I left the meeting reaffirmed that I am blessed to be mayor of Cary and mayor of such a good council.

Tuesday I met with our new town manager (well at least it is a new title) for our weekly briefing. Mr. Shivar let me know that staff is preparing an early presentation of the 2010 budget so council can start contemplating tough decisions. Mr. Shivar and I were discussed philosophies about the budget. It is my belief that in 2010 we can take many small steps but few if any big steps and Mr. Shivar agreed. For example, we may not be able to build a new park but we may be able to connect gaps in greenways.

Later Tuesday I attended the Sister Cities Art Exhibition featuring 2 artists from this area and two from County Meath Ireland. Bill Leslie, of WRAL, provided the entertainment that included songs and stories. The exhibit was well attended and everyone seemed to have a good time. The photographs were outstanding. It was very interesting to see what grabbed the focus of the County Meath photographers. There seemed to be a fixation on pumpkins of all things. It is nice to see a different perspective of things we think are so common.

Wednesday I met with the Wake Transit Leadership team. The focus of this meeting was to figure out lobbying assignments to get legislative support on House and Senate bills to allow a ½ cent sales tax for transportation in Wake County (and other counties). It appears there may be enough votes to keep this moving forward but we will have to wait and see.

Thursday the Economic Development Governing Board met. A summary of economic activity was presented to the board and despite the current economy things are still looking up in this area. The presentation showed that we are strong contenders for several companies that could bring hundreds of high paying jobs. In addition, data was presented that showed we are the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country.

This week an AP news release showed that Cary was one of the fastest growing areas in the country with a rate of 6.5% from January 1^st 2007 to December 31^st 2007. I investigated other information related to this news and found that our permits from 2007 to 2008 dropped 45%. While this shows a significant slowing in growth it doesn’t give a true picture since some folks who get permits do not build. So I looked at the data for COs issued from 2007 to 2008 and found only a drop of 19%. This is still a significant drop but shows we are doing as good as or better than other municipalities regarding growth. It will be interesting to see what our growth rate is for the calendar year 2009.

I had an interesting variety of email this week. These included a requests to support changing a collector road to a residential road, a request to not put a greenway on someone’s property, a second request for an indoor tennis facility, a request for information about a columbarium, a request for an Eagle Scout project, a request to allow construction during town quiet hours, and a request for delivery of mail (a USPS function).

Well that is about it for this week. I will hopefully post again by Sunday, March 29^th.  Please feel free to leave a comment on my post.

This week was highlighted by the appointment of Ben Shivar as Cary’s New Town Manager.

The weekly mayoral duties started on Monday with a few brief meetings and the bi-monthly agenda meeting. The only controversial item on the agenda was the council’s Public Hearing on Instant Runoff Voting and our election method. The council will need to decide its runoff method before the end of April or we will, by default, use the election/runoff method.

Tuesday’s meetings started with a weekly meeting of Mayor Pro-Tem Robison and town manager Ben Shivar. It seems the biggest issue remains the upcoming budget. Staff is scheduling 2 hour meetings with council members to hear their priorities and to explain the difficult decisions that the council will face in this budget cycle.

Tuesday night included three work sessions. The first work session was describing the new roll out cart recycling system that will be implemented starting April 14^th. It will save the town about $600,000 annually and eliminate 10 positions. Fortunately, current workers will be repositioned and not laid off. The roll out recycling will take 5 years to recover costs.

The second work session was on the future automated meter reading system. Currently staff is the process of determining which automated technology to use. They anticipate that we will begin installing the new meters by the end of the year. It will be an 18 month installation process. Once installed it should save the town millions. Currently the town is reading 56,000 meters manually once a month. This automated system will allow the town to read meters as much as every 15 minutes automatically. That data can then be used in programs that allow citizens to view usage data, current charges, etc. The new automated system will pay for itself in about 9 years.

The third work session was on affordable housing. Not much happened at this work session except for the council’s request for more information. That is, the council wanted to know if it spent more on one type of affordable housing what that would do to other types. It is important to note that the town receives federal grants to pay for some of the affordable housing.

Wednesday was an important day in the history of the Town of Cary. The council interviewed the final two candidates for the position of town manager. First a little bit about how we got to this point. The process was a blind process and candidates were assigned numbers. Originally there were over 70 candidates from as far away as Alaska. Those candidates were whittled down to less than a dozen. The dozen or so candidates’ information was then presented to council who whittled them down to 5. One of the candidates dropped out at that point and we had four. Those four candidates went through an assessment process with peers from the southeast region. This process determined how they would act in certain situations and even included a role play. The council then reviewed the assessment results and decided on the final two candidates which performed significantly better than the other two. It should be noted that any of the final four candidates would make a good town manager. The interviews for the final two candidates were held on this night. The first candidate was an existing town manager in North Carolina. The interview and debriefing took us about 2 hours. We determined that he would make an excellent town manager for the town and had very few if any weaknesses. There were no negative comments against this candidate. The second interview was with interim town manager, Ben Shivar. Ben had gotten to the final two interviews by going through the entire process without us knowing which candidate he was. That says a great deal about his abilities. His interview lasted about an hour and we debriefed for about 30 minutes. It was determined that he would also make an excellent town manager. While I am not at liberty to discuss the differences between the two candidates I can tell you that council was unanimous that it wanted to hire Ben. Since no one wanted to sleep on the information we had our HR representative call Ben back where we offered him the job and he accepted. I believe Ben will make an excellent town manager and is the right person at the right time in Cary. He will lead us through these difficult financial times and help us prosper. I am excited about his potential and what he can do for the town. I am also happy with the entire council who worked diligently to find the best possible man for the job.

On Thursday I met with a PTA representative about a roast to be held in the near future. I won’t disclose who it is for but I can tell you that it sounds like a lot of fun and I am looking forward to it. I do have to say that I am a bit weary about roasting someone I will meet on that night. After this meeting I met with division heads to give them the good news that Ben Shivar would be their new boss. They were very happy and Ben received a standing ovation (well deserved).

The council meeting followed and I started the meeting by announcing Ben Shivar would be our next town manager. I was honored by Ben and his family to administer the oath of office. It was interesting being on the other side of the swearing in. The rest of the council meeting was dominated by the election process I mentioned earlier. One other issue was a motion to ask staff to bring back information about reducing impact fees in the downtown area. While I am in favor of providing certain incentives I can’t support reducing impact fees and creating more of a burden on taxpayers. We’ll see where this goes when staff brings back the information.

Today, Sunday March 15^th is the first day of Sunshine week in Cary. It lasts until the 21^st of March. The purpose of Sunshine week is to reinforce the Town’s commitment to open and transparent government as specified in the organization’s Statement of Values. Sunshine Week is a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information.  The first national “Sunshine Week” was held in March 2005. Sunshine week represents a lot of my core beliefs and the reason I write this journal. That is, all government should be open to its citizens. All elected officials should be accountable and completely open about everything they do in their position.

Emails this week were dominated by Instant Runoff Voting. Apparently, a national group thinks they can sway our opinions by filling up our email boxes. Hmmm, that has never determined how I vote. By the way, there were almost equal amounts for and against Instant Runoff Voting. Other emails included a proposal on how the town can save money, problems at Mills Park Elementary School, sales tax increase for transit, problems with Wake County ordinances, and problems with a messy property.

Well that is about it for this week. I will hopefully post again by Sunday, March 22^nd.  Please feel free to leave a comment on my post.

This week was a light week with mostly staff meetings and a meeting of the Western Wake Wastewater Facility partners.

Monday and Tuesday consisted only of staff meetings with the town attorney and town manager. Fortunately, nothing major was introduced at either meeting.

Wednesday I met with the Western Wake Wastewater Facility partners (PAC). Two items approved included the 2010 operating budget and Harris Lake as an alternative site for the future discharge of the plant. The alternative Harris Lake site would save the partners money and eliminate the need to cross portions of Chatham County. We will work with state and federal officials and Progress Energy to see if we can get this discharge site to be the primary discharge location. In case it is  not clear, the partners of this facility are Cary which is the lead partner, Apex, Morrisville, and Holly Springs.

After the PAC meeting I headed over to the police training room to sit in on the CAP meeting. CAP stands for Citizens Assisting Police. The CAP program is made up of a group of citizens who volunteer their time to assist the Cary Police Department in and around the Town of Cary, freeing sworn officers for other duties. The program offers an opportunity for those interested in law enforcement to combine their interests with the personal satisfaction of volunteering. CAP Team members help provide security at public events and assist the Cary Police Department with child safety seat installation, administrative duties, service center staffing, sobriety checkpoints, traffic control, community watch programs and many more duties. CAP members are graduates of Cary’s Citizens Police Academy. To find out more visit the Cary Police Department website.

After visiting the CAP meeting I headed upstairs to visit the 911 call center. This is a very high tech call center and I believe only one of three in the county. At the time I visited they had handled close to 400 calls during the day. These well trained employees appear to me to be much like air traffic controllers. They have to keep track of who, what, when, and where for all fire and police at all times. In addition, they have to understand the psychology involved in handling some of the callers. It is a fascinating job but not one I would want to tackle.

This week emails included complaints about Cary’s tethering law, AT&T’s lack of service in certain areas, and Panther Creek High School traffic. Other Emails included thanks for snow removal, thanks for future recycling rollout carts, and support for Instant Runoff Voting. I also received invitations to participate and speak at several events.

Well that is about it for this week. I will hopefully post again by Sunday, March 15^th.  Please feel free to leave a comment on my post.

This week was a very busy week that included a presentation to the Wake North Carolina legislators, a visit to Washington to talk with NC Senators and congressmen, a council meeting, and a closed session to review information related to town manager candidates.

Monday I presented Cary’s legislative agenda to the Wake delegation of the North Carolina Senate and House. There were 9 items on the agenda. There were two items on enforcing property management, one on the Jordan Lake rules, two on schools, one on a trail grant program, one on using fake guns in crimes, one supporting the agenda from the League of Municipalities, and one asking for general legislative support for Cary. I was asked one question from the legislators regarding schools. The question asked if the council supported all at-large election of school board members. I stated that the council unanimously supports some at-large members on the school board not all at-large. I went on to express that we wanted to make sure we are presenting the problems to the legislators and not the solutions. I expressed a concern that many of our residents were suffering because of current reassignment policies. I also noted that it was my personal belief that most Cary residents were in favor of economic diversity but had a problem with the current diversity policy. Immediately after giving my presentation staff drove me to the airport where I boarded a plane for Washington.

Tuesday in Washington started bright and early with a 8 AM breakfast meeting at the offices of the Ferguson Group.  They are the lobbyists who work on Cary’s behalf. They presented new information that the House approved $1.45 million of our 2009 federal agenda requests and believed that it was probable that it would be approved by the senate. These items include an additional $500,000 for the new Western Wake Regional Wastewater Facility, and additional $950,000 for the Walker Street tunnel project, an additional $300,000 for police video equipment, $199,000 for watershed protection, and projected $115,000 for west Cary stream restoration. After a brief discussion of the 2009 items we went over our 2010 federal agenda and decided what items to emphasize with each elected official. After about an hour we headed over to capital hill.

My first meeting was with Congressman Brad Miller. I was fortunate to be able to spend some time talking with him during Biden’s visit in 2008. It was good to see him again and he was very receptive of our requests. He had very few questions so we were only there about ten minutes. Next we headed over to Senator Burr’s office. Senator Burr was unable to meet with us but we were able to meet with Chris Wall who is the Director for Economic Development. We went over several issues related to the agenda and were assured that they would do what they could to help. At the end of the meeting we asked for passes to the Rotunda and other areas of the capital. They not only provided that but a member of their staff gave a tour. What a wonderful surprise. I learned a lot of unique details about the capital and other areas. After lunch we headed to Senator Hagan’s temporary office in the basement. She expects to be in her permanent office sometime in March. I was fortunate to have been  introduced to her during a campaign event about a year ago. It was great to see her. I quickly went over our federal agenda and she asked a few questions before she headed to the senate floor. My last meeting was with Congressman David Price. He and his staff are very knowledgeable of our requests and for years have fought hard to bring money back to Cary. After discussing the agenda we talked a little about possible ways to get stimulus money directly to Cary since we are unlikely to see stimulus money that was sent to the state. Based on our conversation I believe he will do what he can but I am not optimistic that we will see in stimulus money in Cary. It was a good trip especially knowing that we are likely to get $1.45 million for Cary projects. After this meeting I immediately exited the building to meet a car that was waiting to take me to the airport. I was able to make my plane with a little time to spare. One unexpected interesting moment in my visit to Washington was when I was between the House and Senate and Senator John Kerry brushed by me in a hurry to make the floor for a vote. Once I arrived at RDU I caught a cab to town hall to begin one of two work sessions.

The first work session Tuesday night was on Affordable Housing. A consultant gave a presentation of current needs in Cary and council provided direction as to where we thought we should direct our strategies in the future. My understanding of council’s wishes was that we would like staff and the consultant to focus on low income and medium income strategies. My main focus in this was to make sure housing is available for law enforcement officers, fire fighters, and teachers.

Our second work session on Tuesday night was on the Old Cary Elementary Building’s fly tower. This topic was very controversial since the council rejected the last proposal from the artists and advisory board. This new proposal only had integrated art on the North and South walls (North faces Academy and South faces the new Cary Elementary). The theme was that the art symbolized a curtain at the front and back. I agreed to approve the plan as did five other council members. The only thing that disappointed me is that we will now have a blank wall facing Walnut Street.

After the second work session I headed over to the Herb Young Center for the annual volunteer recognition banquet honoring our Parks volunteers. It was a great crowd with over 300 in attendance. These volunteers are a valuable resource to the town. In addition to youth sports, which are totally staffed with volunteer coaches, every major event offered by the Town of Cary is supported by these volunteers.  I thanked them for their service and then we heard a wonderful speech about touching lives through volunteering from John Blanchard. I was blessed to be able to congratulate the award winners and meet many of the volunteers after the ceremony.

Wednesday’s only mayor event was the taping of Cary Matters. Our main topic for the month of March is Sunshine Week which isn’t about the weather but about open government. Another topic included our Maps online which provides information about what is going on around your neighborhood. In the upcoming events portion of the program we notified everyone that the paving of much of Cary Parkway south of High House Road begins this month and will continue through the fall.

Thursday evening, before the regularly scheduled council meeting, I met with a volunteer for the National MS Society to take a picture and present a proclamation for MS awareness week which is March 2^nd through March 8^th.

Thursday night’s council meeting was for the most part uneventful with no controversial issues. I would like to briefly mention an issue with the Public Hearing on proposed Land Development items which will now go to the Planning and Zoning board for review. A developer representative asked that the town create a focus group of developers for feedback of the proposed changes. I stated that I was not in favor of this because I wanted all input to be equal. That is, don’t give preferential treatment to a special interest and would rather receive all input equally at the same time. Having said that, I think it is important to note that I always welcome feedback from everyone.

Friday the council went into closed session for about four hours to discuss candidates for the town manager job. We received a lot of information and made a lot of progress on the short list of candidates. I am confident we will name a town manager in March or April. Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to say more on this subject at the current time.

Emails this week included the Panther Creek traffic situation, instant runoff voting, a traffic ticket, and litter. I have received numerous form emails from the Panther Creek parents urged by the PTA criticizing the new traffic pattern and asking for traffic lights. We will continue to work on this problem but traffic lights are a remote possibility at best because they don’t meet national standards. I also receiving a few lobbying emails about instant runoff voting. I am not sure there is council support to have instant runoff voting in this year’s election. I received several voice mails about a traffic ticket. I think it is important for me to say that I have no authority when it comes to traffic tickets and couldn’t do anything even if I wanted to. Additionally, I would have to pay a traffic ticket if I got one. I also received several emails about litter which is becoming increasingly problematic. The touchy part is how to do litter control on roads that are not maintained by Cary.

Well that is about it for this week. I will hopefully post again by Sunday, March 8^th.  Please feel free to leave a comment on my post.