Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
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Martinsville, Virginia 24115
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| Of city schools |
Carolyn McCraw |
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
By KIM BARTO - Bulletin Staff Writer
Martinsville City Council on Tuesday appointed a retiring teacher to a three-year term on the city school board.
Longtime Martinsville High School English teacher Carolyn McCraw was named to her first term on the school board. Current board member Robert Williams was reappointed to a three-year term. Both terms expire in 2012.
Current board member Sandra Haley also expressed interest in reappointment, but a motion to reappoint her died for lack of a second during the council meeting. The council met in closed session Tuesday night before reconvening to vote. There was no discussion of the appointments in open session.
Haley and Williams’ current terms expire June 30.
Neither McCraw nor Haley were present at the council meeting.
Also on Tuesday, the council completed another step in moving Henry-Martinsville Social Services to the Athena building.
The council set a public hearing July 14 to consider amending the zoning ordinance and approval of a special-use permit to allow the department to occupy the building at 20 Progress Drive in Clearview Business Park. This decision came after unanimous endorsement by the Martinsville Planning Commission at a meeting in May.
The city signed a memorandum of understanding with the Henry County Board of Supervisors and the Social Services Board agreeing to these measures.
The public hearing was approved in a 4-1 vote, with Councilman Danny Turner dissenting. He did not explain his vote, but he has opposed the social services department’s move to the Athena building.
The council also approved an ordinance on second reading establishing the city’s budget and tax rates for fiscal 2010, which begins July 1. A public hearing was held May 26 with no public comments.
There are no tax increases in the budget, but it increases monthly residential refuse rates from $12.50 to $16.25 and business rates from $22.50 to $24.50. This is expected to add $300,000 in revenue for the city.
Real estate tax rates were set at $1.018 per $100 of assessed value in response to recent property assessments. For a home assessed at $100,000, the tax bill will be $1,018.
Also during the meeting, the council:
• Granted a letter of support to Community Storehouse for the organization to use when seeking grants. The Henry County Board of Supervisors also has given a letter of support.
Travis Adkins of Community Storehouse gave a presentation to the council on the Food for Kids: School Backpack Program, which provides backpacks of nutritious, kid-friendly food to qualifying students over weekends and school breaks.
In less than a year since the program started, more than 8,000 bags of food have been distributed, Adkins said. Students are referred by school staff.
Numbers fluctuated, but the program served about 320 children at any given point during the school year. There were between 72 and 120 served in the city schools.
“We heard stories from every school, from children who were going through the trash can after lunch,” Adkins said, to “a call about a little girl who was sick but didn’t want to go home before lunch, because that was the only food she would get all weekend.”
Next school year, more than 700 students in the city and county are projected to qualify for the program.
Community members and organizations can sponsor a child for $20 a month through the Backpack Buddies program, Adkins said. More information is available by calling Community Storehouse at 632-9002 or visiting communitystorehouseofmhc.org.
• Heard an update from Mark Heath, president and CEO of the Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp., who discussed the EDC’s annual report from May 2008 to April.
In the past year, a total of 133 new jobs in the city were announced at Solid Stone Fabrics, American of Martinsville and Sparta, Heath said.
The EDC has a goal of increasing local jobs by 1,100 over three years, through 2010, with a mix of new industry, existing industry and small businesses.
There was a net loss of 1,897 jobs in 2008 through the third quarter, according to labor market statistics in the annual report. There were net job gains in 2006 for first time in almost 10 years, Heath said, with 466 jobs gained. In 2007, there were 99 net jobs gained.
Other than these two years of gain, there were more than 12,000 jobs lost in the area from 1998 to 2008, figures show.
More than 5,100 people are unemployed in city and county, Heath said. He added that “unemployment is counted based on where you live, not where you work,” so people who live in Martinsville but were laid off from jobs in Eden, N.C., or Danville are counted in Martinsville’s unemployment numbers.
For every dollar invested in the EDC over the past five years, there has been a $22.40 return on investment, Heath said. There has been $8.5 million invested in the EDC since 2004 from The Harvest Foundation, Henry County, Martinsville and C-PEG (the Chamber’s Partner for Economic Growth), and the EDC has assisted with a total capital investment in the community of $190.9 million, he said.
The EDC has announced $108.4 million in area investments in 2008 and $6.6 million in 2009. These investments were from a mix of new and existing businesses, figures show.
• Heard an update from Community Development Director Wayne Knox on the Cherry Street Neighborhood Improvement Project.
Since the project started in November 2007, 11 houses have been rehabilitated, and seven new houses are awaiting construction. The process may be completed by December, except for selling the seven homes, Knox said.
One former renter has become a first-time homebuyer through the project, he said. Water lines are being replaced, and 2,500 linear feet of street work has been completed in the area.
Milling and paving of Cherry Street is expected to be finished by the end of June. Some electrical poles must be removed before the street work can be completed.
While homes are renovated, residents stay with family, or else grant funds will pay for them to stay in a motel. Houses are stick-built using local contractors, Knox said.
The project also includes a homebuyer’s club run by the city to counsel people interested in buying a house. The cost is $20 for a credit report, and potential homebuyers receive a one-on-one, confidential consultation to review the report and get help talking to creditors.
• Heard a report from David Hughes of Robinson, Farmer & Cox on the recent turnover audit of the treasurer’s office.
The audit is standard procedure when a new person takes office, officials have said. It was conducted after former Treasurer Pat Conrad retired at the end of January and reflects transactions from July 1, 2008 through Jan. 31.
• Heard an update from city Community Planner Susan McCulloch on the Makeover Martinsville-Henry County event held May 9.
Mayor Kathy Lawson had asked the Community Development Department to put together an event similar to one held in Roanoke for residents interested in preserving historic buildings and houses.
About 55 people attended the event, which featured four talks on different topics dealing with historic rehabilitation as well as tours of two historic uptown buildings. There were 18 exhibitors, who said they had a lot of networking time but wished participants had more time to look at their displays.
Also, the event planning committee said it would like to target more people in a broader age range for next year’s event. Participants ranged in age from 50 to 75. Ideas are offering more money-saving ideas, expanding the number of speakers and exhibitors, and providing more information on green building, McCulloch said.
The committee that formed to plan the event included the Architectural Review Board, a restoration artist, president of the Martinsville-Henry County Historial Society, Martinsville Uptown Revitalization Association and an uptown resident. They will start meeting again in August or September to plan the 2010 event.
• Approved changes to Transportation Safety Commission bylaws.
The commission has had difficulty filling board vacancies, so it requested a reduction from 11 to nine members and a reduction in the quorum from six to four members.
• Heard the monthly finance report.
Revenues were $313,666 greater than anticipated through the end of April, and expenditures were $963,038 less than anticipated for this period, according to budget analyst Linda Conover. The overall fund balance has decreased by $1,018,590 from the beginning of the fiscal year through the end of April, bringing the total to $14,698,478.
Business license payments, which are due in May, and real estate taxes due in June are expected to improve the city’s cash flow and fund balance in the coming months, according to the report.
• Approved routine budget adjustments in the consent agenda.
• Heard comments from the city manager and council members.
Turner said the city should put together a package of incentives to attract businesses uptown. Lawson noted the city already offers telephone and Internet incentives to prospective businesses.
Turner also said he had received calls about water conditions on Lanier Road.
City Manager Clarence Monday said there have been several failures of the Lanier water line, which, he said, needs to be replaced. He said he would get a cost estimate and apologized to city customers for the inconvenience.
• Approved the May 13 meeting minutes.
• Appointed Lance Heater to the Blue Ridge Regional Library Board for a four-year term ending June 30, 2013, and made two appointments to terms on the Transportation Safety Commission ending Dec. 31, 2010: Robert Vogler and Ralph Lawson. |
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