Lake Santeetlah – Town Councilwoman Tina Emerson wears two hats – she’s also the town’s finance officer.
Starting later this week, she will lead town leaders through the annual budgeting process. Prepping for what lies ahead, Emerson started a conversation that – like many conversations in Lake Santeetlah – became a brawl.
Emerson was at the center of the majority of Monday’s Town Council meeting (continued from April 14, because of connectivity issues; the town conducts its meetings strictly via Zoom).
Emerson said she has gone through the town’s current budget line by line identifying “needs, wants, and must-haves” and in the process found a short-term opportunity and a long-term imperative.
The two – both zoning – stirred up more than the usual attendees at the council’s monthly meeting.
The long-term imperative has to do with how the town deals with necessary but expensive repairs to its water system, streets and other assets – tens of thousands of dollars to repair streets, water lines and even the aged-out roof over city hall.
For example, the town is looking at spending $20,000 for repairs on Black Bear Trail alone. It will spend $13,000 – $16,000 for a new town hall roof.
With issues like that looming, Emerson cautioned that council members need to find things to cut — to identify the “needs, wants, and must-haves” — if they want to avoid raising taxes.
Somehow, she fixed her aim on zoning – which has reportedly cost the town $8,000 a year, including $150 per week for a part-time zoning administrator.
But Emerson argued that if the town really wants good zoning, it needs to pay what good zoning costs: up to $72,000-a-year salary for a qualified zoning administrator – not counting benefits, she said, citing job listings for similar positions in North Carolina.
“Do we need zoning?” she asked. “If we need zoning, we need to budget for it.”
It was a hard pill to swallow for all but a few people who made preemptive comments supporting zoning during the meeting’s public comment section.
Several people said things that Zoom is so good at amplifying, like one person who said the mayor was elected by cheating.
The short-term opportunity has to do with the town zoning administrator position recently vacated.
Unlikely to hire someone before the end of the budget year, the town has $3,787 left unspent that can help with water and road maintenance.
But a wary minority of the council, Diana Simon and Jim Hager, suspected this would be a ploy to ditch the town’s whole zoning system, much like how it did away with its tourism authority: it cut its funding and is starving it out. Another 14 people who spoke during public comments agreed.
Still, on consecutive 3-2 votes with Emerson, Ralph Mitchell, and Mayor Connie Gross holding the high ground, the council voted to defund a zoning administrator for the rest of this fiscal year, and to hold a public hearing to discuss whether the town should get out of zoning and zoning enforcement.
There are alternatives Emerson offered, but one – Graham County taking over Town of Lake Santeetlah zoning – is a non-starter, since Graham County doesn’t have zoning of its own.
Another alternative would set and enforce town development standards with ordinances. That would force a whole new process.
The town had just completed a sweeping revision of its zoning ordinance last year after a process of about six years.
Other news, notes
* In-person meetings: The town took a step toward resuming in-person meetings. Mayor Gross wants future in-person meetings to be streamed live, so the town will spend about $385 for a webcam and speakers. Upcoming budget workshops and the May regular meeting are still scheduled to be Zoom meetings, but that could change once the equipment is installed.
* Library funding: Franklin Shook, director of the Nantahala Regional Library (which includes the Graham County Public Library), urged the council to rejoin an interlocal agreement that it withdrew from over a disagreement how the town’s funding contribution should be used. Funding from the town could help keep the Graham County Public Library open on Mondays, he suggested. The council will take it under consideration.
* Front entrance: Work is nearing completion on a complete makeover of the town’s front entrance. Once mainly a guard booth, the entrance now includes stonework, landscaping and a decorative town sign. Coming up: decorative plantings and final paving.
* Public comments: The council approved a new public comment rules for council meetings. There had been talk of allowing public comments at the beginning and end of meetings; that’s gone. Now there will formally be one public comment period allowing speakers up to five minutes to speak on anything they want. The council can add public comment periods to meetings, and public hearings still require their own public comment period.
* Broadband internet: Punctuated by Town Hall’s own problems with Internet (two meetings have been postponed this year because of outages), town officials are exploring ways to bring high-speed internet to the town. BalsamWest – a Sylva-based internet service provider – is more than willing to provide service to the town, if the town installs all the fiber-optic cables itself. But the town doesn’t have its waterlines mapped out, which would complicate installation. The town would need to work with Graham County to be able to apply for grants to fund the installation.
* Black Bear Trail: The town is getting ready to repave/repair Black Bear Trail. The price tag for the job is just shy of $20,000.
* Coming up for bid: Expect to see an advertisement for sealed bids on a 2018 Polaris Ranger 500 with 1,397.6 miles and two sets of tires, one for off-road and one for on-road. For those watching closely, the mayor’s husband Jack Gross won’t be prevented from bidding.