West Rowan News, Events, and Fun

  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, NC town commissioners covered a lot of ground Monday 11-9-2020 at the monthly meeting. Several items on the agenda involved wrapping up items for the year and/or shifting funds around due to some incoming coronavirus grant money previously.  Some items will become projects for the new year - 2021. Downtown Lights Project - Expand and Hurry   The decorative lights project which was approved during the last monthly meeting will be moving forward, since the board voted to invest in lighting at the last meeting. Commissioner Gerald Osborne said that he thought the town should commit to the entire project and not just with lights down to the bridge. His reasoning was that with changes over time and with different board members coming and going, the full project could never come together.  "If we're spending that much money, we need to do the whole thing," said Osborne.  Mayer Pat Phifer said that he agreed with Osborne but that the project had to b...

Last night the Cleveland, NC zoning/planning board met at the Cleveland town hall. The meeting was scheduled for last week, but the meeting room was needed for voting 2020. Zoning included no business; planning focused on alcohol sales for area restaurants and details for food truck guidelines. The planning board finalized some of the wordings on the rules/guidelines for alcohol sales in town limits. The information will go on to the town board and to an open meeting for residents to respond.  Food trucks took more time. Fees, rules, and bad behavior were the main concerns.  The town clerk had gathered some data about fees charged by local towns that allow food trucks. A board member asked about a "happy medium." The clerk said the $50 for an annual permit and/or $25 for a single event were common amounts.  Board member Jim Brown said that the fee should be at least $250 and that "fifty dollars is chump change."  Bryan Little (town board and zoning/planning) said: ...