Cleveland NC Town Board Nov 2022 - Town Hall Hours Change for 2023

 

Cleveland, NC town board met tonight Mon 11-14-2022. All members of the board were present except for John Bradford. Three town employees were in attendance. Three town residents were at the meeting.

Hours of town hall will be 8-5 Mon-Fri starting Jan 1, 2023. The current hours are 8:30 to 4:30. Also, there will not be a lunch hour closure in the middle of the day. This will increase town clerk/finance officers’ hours by 5 per week each.

Water/Sewer

Water tower rehab (discussed in previous meetings) will start soon with a cost of $242,000 which includes also having the town logo on the sides of the tank. The initial cost of the water tank was $275,000 which gives some insight into inflation.

Commissioner Gerald Osborne said that there was a sewer blockage on east Main this month. Equipment purchased by the town recently was used to clear and clean. Osborne said the money had been well spent and checking and taking care of any sewer issues would be ongoing.

Per Osborne, the Brevard St Station (wastewater treatment plant) work is in progress. Auto notifications are not currently available, but employees will look at some kind of manual system until auto upgrades go in next April.

Bands/Dancing on Depot

Bands for next year for Dancing on Depot are already selected/contracted. Two bands required deposits tonight which were approved by the board.

The bands were:

Dirty Grass Soul - $2500 deposit  (total $5000)

On the Border - $3250 (total $6500)

Mayor Pat Phifer and board members discussed sponsorship of Dancing on Depot by community businesses. Members of the board will draft a list of buy in amounts, and businesses in the area can opt to pitch in on the street dances which have increased in popularity.

Other Town Bills

The town of Cleveland will be paying Benchmark $24,500 for a land use survey. This is required by the state and is not really negotiable. Benchmark did the initial work on the project, so the update due in July will not be as expensive as the initial investment in the project.  

Board members approved a payment of $3200 to outfit the new town police car with necessary equipment as voted on previously.

McGill invoice for work at the WWTP lift station was approved.

Board members voted to spend $3400 for a John Deere auger to set town road signs. A stump grinder was put on hold for a later date for board members to determine if that is needed. The cost for the grinder is currently around $1000.

Phifer presented an estimate for sound equipment by Sweetwater. He said that he was just getting a general idea of the cost for the town to do sound at concerts and community days/events. A ballpark estimate would be $14,000. Board members were invited to consider the idea and the costs.

Police Report

Police Chief Jon Jessop provided the following numbers for Oct:

50 calls for service

41 traffic stops

38 traffic citations

14 traffic warnings

1 warrant

2 arrests

2 traffic accidents

1 check point

Some residents voiced concern about young people skating on town streets. Jessop said that an officer visited the parents and that the problem was handled.

Narcan

Commissioner Danny Gabriel said that he became aware of the serious problem with drug overdoses at a municipality meeting recently. He said that community members could get Narcan to keep on hand with no questions asked. He said to contact him if he could help facilitate getting Narcan for personal/family use.

Per the meeting attended by Gabriel, Cleveland had seven overdoses requiring Narcan, but that is by zip code. So, the area is much larger than just the town.

Other Business

Phifer said that the old gas station property in town was now up for rent. He said that the town might want to look at zoning that for central business instead of the current general business. He sent that issue to zoning for examination.

Town employees need to switch to .gov emails instead of using personal emails. Finance officer Rebekah Brown is looking into that and at registering the town logo.

A company approached town hall about adding a combo water/ice machine. Town board members decided to research and then talk about maybe getting a full size ice machine, since town employees use ice for a number of purposes including to pack samples at the wastewater treatment plant. The fire department will let town hall get ice at the fire station, but town hall employees do not have a key currently.

The town Christmas parade  will be Dec 3. The parade is sponsored by the Cleveland Lions Club. The town does plan to establish some guidelines and registration for vendors. Also, Phifer said that the town needs to look into the fire ant problem and to check the route to make sure any fire ant hills are treated.