This week was a relatively light week marked by an offer for a park and the kickoff of the 7^th School of Government class.

On Monday afternoon I met with the town manager, director of parks, director of planning, director of engineering along with Ms. Goodnight and SAS Chief Legal Officer about the Veterans Freedom Park. They are interested in donating the eleven acres to the town as a park. As part of their offer they want to erect a 120 foot spiral monument for the veterans. The cost of this spiral structure is around $1.9 million which they are offering to pay for. As a result of this meeting I made a proposal to council to put an item on the next available agenda to direct staff to look at town costs associated with this proposal. It was seconded by council member Frantz and will be on our February 11th agenda. The potential costs to the town include maintenance of the grounds, parking, and traffic improvements. It will be interesting to see if the town can have the first phase of this park without parking. That is, connect it to nearby trails and have the spiral monument viewed from the road as cars pass by. Engineering will have to look into ordinances to make sure they are met. Personally, I am excited about this proposal and think this monument and property will eventually be beautiful landmark for the town.

Tuesday I met with the town manager and Mayor Pro-Tem Robison for an hour. Our conversation centered on CIRC (Citizen Issue Review Commission). Our last changes to the CIRC process made the town manager the initial reviewer for applications. I think this is a mistake and should be changed. In addition, I think the current process restricts CIRC and needs to be changed to give them more flexibility.

The CIRC and citizens advisory groups were conceived by me and conversations with Mayor Pro-Tem Robison shortly after I was elected. I envisioned a mechanism where citizen advisory groups could be formed to investigate new ideas for the town. I did not intend it to be used as a lobbying tool. The idea of a review committee (CIRC) was from the task force we formed to create a process. I thought it was an excellent idea. But I think the CIRC group should be able to look at an application for a citizen advisory group and be able to decide that criteria have or have not been met. And if the criteria have not been met then offer other options. Maybe the idea should be a proposal to an existing board. Maybe the idea should be a written report to the council. Maybe the idea should be presented as part of the Public Speaks Out portion of council meetings. Whatever the idea, citizens should be presented with options from this review committee called CIRC. Anyway, the conversation with the town manager and Mayor Pro-Tem spilled over to Wednesday afternoon. At this point I fear there is barely enough interest on council to keep this idea afloat. The CIRC committee is a very smart group of citizens that need the chance to use their talents. I hope to be able to come up with revisions to the policy that will help the CIRC, the process, and citizens have more of a voice.

Wednesday night was the first class of the 7th school of government. It was well attended by staff and council. I, along with 5 other council members, welcomed the students and wished them success. Most of us challenged them to take what they learn from the class and become leaders in their neighborhoods and communities.

Emails this week included complaints about the location of the Western Wake Wastewater Facility, the rescheduling of the Winter Wonderland event, the Chatham County/ Cary joint land use plan, snow and ice removal, and our new automated meter reading system called Aquastar.

We also received several emails thanking the town for a wonderful job of snow removal. I totally agree with these emails. The town staff had all Cary major thoroughfares cleared by Sunday evening. They then focused on secondary roads based on the trash pickup schedule to eliminate any potential collection delays. By early to midweek there was little need to continue snow removal. Keep in mind that snow removal is a cost that needs careful management. I thought the crews did a fantastic job and we were way ahead of Raleigh and Durham in clearing major thoroughfares. Once again Cary employees proved that they are the best in the state.

Other emails included the 4^th quarter report for 2009. Here are some interesting tidbits from the report that you may not have heard before:

• The town grew by 35 acres this quarter bringing the size to over 55 square miles.
• There were 2 fatal crashes in the fourth quarter of 2009. The year ended with a total of 9 fatal crashes in 2009. These crashes consisted of one involving a MOPED driver, six involving passenger vehicles, one child hit in the roadway, and a motorcycle collision.
• Cary and 11 other Triangle-region water suppliers formed the Jordan Lake Partnership (JLP) in March 2009. The City of Durham is the lead agency for the JLP. In November, the JLP submitted a request to the NCDENR Division of Water Resources (DWR) to begin the process needed to evaluate additional allocations from Jordan Lake. While Jordan Lake is managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the water supply pool is owned by the state, and the Environmental Management Committee (EMC) is responsible for making the allocations. On January 14, 2010, the EMC approved the DWR staff recommendation to begin Round 4 of the Jordan Lake allocation process. DWR will now begin the process by holding stakeholder meetings, updating the Cape Fear River Hydrologic Model, and updating their Cape Fear River Basin Water Supply Plan. It will likely take at least two years before DWR makes recommendation regarding allocations to the EMC. The JLP members are already working on a water supply planning task to assess future needs. Cary’s Integrated Water Resources Management Plan (2007) recommends we obtain an additional 4% allocation (which will nominally supply 4 mgd of average annual demand); the Town currently has a joint 32% allocation with Apex and the Cary portion is 23.5%.
• Economic impact from Cary’s three major sports venues: Cary Tennis Park was about $1.3 million, Wake Med Soccer Park was a little over $2 million, and USA Baseball Park was almost $1.3 million.
• Turnover for the Town of Cary during 2009 was 4.3%, the lowest turnover that the Town has had in at least twenty years. We had an average of 1106.50 employees and 48 terminations (”terminations” includes all separations from employment, regardless of reason).

Well that is all for this week. I plan to next post on Sunday, February 14^th. Please feel free to leave a comment on my post.