The week was a busy week filled with meetings, events, and a work session.

I was joined by the Governor on Monday afternoon to welcome Deutsche Bank to Cary. The town provided $75,000 in incentives to bring over 300 high paying jobs here. The payback period is three years. The state provided roughly $9.6 million in incentives. The jobs are IT jobs with the average pay over $88,000 a year. In talking with the executives, about 80% of their hires will be college hires. From my talks it also appears those college hires will be graduate degrees. At Deutsche Bank’s last location in Jacksonville they had three years to hire 400 people. They hired those in two years and now employ nearly 1000 at that location. My hope is that they will have that same success at this location.

Tuesday was a work session on the capital projects. The council reviewed all appropriated capital projects with the intention to postpone enough so that taxes will not have to be raised for at least two years. We agreed with the recommendations from staff and postponed over $24 million in capital projects. We used cash earmarked for those postponed projects and applied it towards the debt of higher priority projects. In addition to postponing projects we delayed indefinitely over $68 million in projects. The top three projects being delayed were the downtown streetscape, the aquatic center, and Walnut Street corridor improvements. Top projects moving forward include several road widenings, sidewalk improvements, radio improvements, greenway improvements, and storm drainage improvements.

Wednesday started with a holiday luncheon with the administrative staff and directors. It was great to have this time of fellowship together since we spent most of our time together in a professional capacity.

Wednesday evening I taped the January version of Cary Matters. The main topic for January will be the automated meter reading system. The question portion of the taping will be focused on online job applications and funding non-profits. So be sure to watch and send us your ideas of what we should be talking about in the future.

Wednesday night I attended a holiday dinner with a number of my campaign team members from two years ago. It is a fantastic group of people dedicated to making Cary a better place to live for all. We had a great time and dinner at Biaggi’s.

Thursday I attended the Economic Development Board meeting. Third quarter information was presented that showed our unemployment rate at 6.2% as of October compared with 6.9% in July. In addition, we went over several opportunities to bring jobs to Cary. We continue to be a strong contender in getting good jobs as was evident in Deutsche Bank locating here. Based on the information presented and what I have heard it appears the local economy should start making a positive move in the 2^nd quarter of 2010.

Emails this week included a lot of complaints about our holiday tree. It is a shame that two of our council members decided to make a media event out of this issue which divides the community at a time when we should all be coming together. The council will vote on their proposal in January.

Other emails this week included complaints about the proposed changes at High House and Cary Parkway, and complaints about solicitors attaching material to mailboxes.

Next week promises to be a short week with Christmas. The only event is the Mayors Association Dinner. At this dinner we will recognize elected officials and I will take over as President.

Well that is all for this week. I plan to next post on Sunday, December 27^th. Please feel free to leave a comment on my post.