West Rowan News, Events, and Fun

Cleveland NC town board met tonight 1-9-2023 for the first meeting of 2023. The mayor, board members (except for Commissioner Danny Gabriel), police chief, and town clerks/finance officer were all in attendance.  Rowan County Tax Assessor Chip Main came to the meeting to let town leaders know that valuations will be higher this year. This, in turn, means that residents and businesses will be paying higher taxes in 2023. In fact, taxes could rise quite a bit this year.  Main gave a very general example of a $300,000 house in the county being valued at $220,000 during the previous valuation cycle. Increases could be similar, higher, or lower in Cleveland.  Reappraisals on properties in Cleveland will put land/houses at market value as of 1-1-2023. A number of things are taken into consideration like actual locations and how the market is doing locally. So, it is not possible right now to say how much values will go up (and taxes). But, it is certain that they will go up in ...

    It was a busy night at the Oct 2022 Cleveland, NC town board meeting. In addition to covering a lot of ground as far as topics, there were fourteen people at the meeting not including the nine who are on the board or work for the town (23 total attendance). Public Comments Cleveland resident Jeanette Rankin addressed the town board at the start of the meeting. She said that she was concerned that the town was talking about investing in the new park on School Street when nothing had been done at the Town Park for years.   “We’ve got all that land. Nothing there,” said Rankin. “All you’ve got is a shelter.” She said that the children in town needed safe playground equipment and a place to play basketball. “I’m talking about adding things,” said Rankin. Commissioner Richard Taylor said that there are problems with getting bids on doing work at the park. Someone did rotary wash the poles on the playground equipment, but they did not want to do any more wor...

  Cleveland town commissioners met tonight 9-12-2022 for the monthly town board meeting. All commissioners were present, The mayor was at the beach.   Brent Parks (who previously worked on audits for the town) and Brandon Rogers were at the town board meeting to discuss investing town funds. They said that there is a "window of opportunity" right now to invest in government bills and notes for higher interest rates. The government has been raising interest rates to stop or slow down inflation, so people (and towns) with extra money can invest now and take advantage of those higher rates per Parks and Rogers.  Parks/Rogers said the current government interest rate is 3.37% with it changing every 90 days. They estimated that Cleveland could greatly increase interest with a ladder strategy with funds rolling over in a staggered manner for a year and get an estimated 2.75% return for staying invested for two years. Investing in this way for only one year would not be as ...

 Cleveland town board met tonight 7-11-2022 for the month of July. All board members and the mayor were in attendance as well as town hall employees and the police chief. A few town residents were in attendance, but no one signed up to address the board. Town May Be Getting Rid of Some Road Easements   Board members discussed eliminating easements in town. The agenda specified the easement on N. Depot St; however, mayor Pat Phifer said that several easements needed to be removed from the town map, because there is not enough land to run roads, and the town is not planning to run any roads in the areas of the easements. He mentioned a couple of other easements including one from Cemetery St to the pump station and behind the Lion's Club. The easement on N. Depot runs through the woods to the next road. There are two houses going in at the end of N. Depot and to the left. If the easement is in place, only one more house can go at the end of the road, but if the easement is elimi...

  Cleveland, NC town board met tonight 4-21-2022 for a special called meeting to discuss budgeting for the coming year. Mayor Pat Phifer, commissioners (Gerald Osborne, Danny Gabriel, Travis Summitt, Richard Taylor, John Bradford), town clerk Kelly Rodgers, finance officer Rebekah Brown, police chief Jon Jessop, and maintenance supervisor Jody Bare were in attendance.  Before discussing budgeting, the board voted to pay a contractor for work in the town park of $2860 or $1680 more than the original estimate for the work. The job was estimated at and approved at $3500 but ran over with a final total of $5180.  Work at the park ended up costing more due to stain needing to be painted on by hand rather than being sprayed on. This increased labor costs.  Since more stain was used, the cost of supplies also increased. The first buckets of stain at Little Shaver's ran $45 per bucket. Prices went up to $75 per bucket on an additional order.  The contractor picked up su...

  Cleveland town commissioners met tonight (Monday 4-11-2022) at 6 pm for the monthly town board meeting. All board members were present as well as both town clerks/officers, the police chief, and four town residents.  The board approved a proclamation to honor Ruth Wood of Cleveland who turns 103 years old on May 13. Wood was born in 1919.  Residents Tommy and Velma Knox were present to see if town commissioners had checked about the light removed from the end of their driveway. They were at the last town board meeting and had not heard back. Mayor Pat Phifer and commissioner Travis Summitt had checked the location. Phifer asked commissioner John Bradford if he had checked the location, but he had not.  When the new decorative lights were installed, the street light at the end of the Knox driveway was removed, leaving the entrance/exit to their property with low visibility. Phifer said that the standard now in Cleveland is that decorative lights will go along all si...

Two public hearings were handled in short order at the Nov 2021 monthly town board meeting of Cleveland, NC. Issues had been discussed previously, and no one attended to ask questions or to bring up concerns, so both items were approved.  They include: 1. The barber shop building across from the post office can be used as a single family dwelling on the second floor. 2. Changes were made to zoning for electronic message boards. Per Commissioner Bryan Little (who is on the zoning board as well as on the town board), sizes for signs were changed to better reflect what is available on the market. The limit on the size for the lighted part of a message board will now be 4x8' (32 square feet) with a monument sign base.  Zoning Fines Kick In with New Zoning Rules No one signed up to speak directly before the meeting, but business owner Coty Speight had signed up for the agenda to request consideration on a $1750 fine (at $50 per day) for not meeting zoning requirements as they perta...

The big item of business of the night at the monthly Cleveland, NC town board meeting 9-13-2021 was money for road work The board approved $238,602 with $93K from general funds to Angel Paving. Roads included for work are in the Hill and Dale subdivision and also Smith Rd. These roads have not been overhauled for 25 plus years according to estimates by town board members. Barn Quilt Cubes - Add Cost of Installation  Mayor Pat Phifer told town board members that the barn quilt cubes which were approved last meeting will cost $3400 more than voted on. The extra money is for the installation at $340 per cube pole. The $8282 was for the actual cubes. The total of the project is now $11,682. "I made that mistake, " said Phifer. The board voted to pay the extra. Decorative Street Lamps in Town - Legal Contract Concerns  The bulk of the meeting was devoted to the contract for the decorative lights. Duke Energy had sent a contract for the town to sign. Commissioner Gerald Osborne had...

  Town board of Cleveland, NC had a special called meeting today 8-27-2021 to vote on a barn quilt trail and for cube barn quilts to mark stops on the trail.  Mayor Pat Phifer said that the meeting was at 3:30 on a Friday, because Commissioner John Bradfrad was only available at that time. This did exclude Commissioner Bryan Little who was at work during the time of the meeting.  Phifer brought a map of the proposed walking trail which included mostly churches and old schools. Here are the locations on the map from 1 to 10 (which are not marked on the map). 1. Cleveland Town Hall 2. Old West Rowan Middle School/Old West Rowan YMCA 3. Old Rosenwald School 4. Third Creek AME Zion Church 5. Allen Temple Presbyterian Church 6. Cleveland Barn Quilt at Cleveland Post Office Bld 7.. Cleveland Presbyterian Church 8. Cleveland First Baptist Church 9. Park on School Street or West Branch Rowan Public Library (Old Cleveland Elementary School) 10. Library/Cleveland Community Fire Dep...