Council will rediscuss grant
By Ty Johnson
Published in News on February 19, 2012 1:50 AM
Monday will be a busy day in City Hall as the Goldsboro City Council will hold an extra session along with its regularly scheduled council meeting and work session to discuss, again, the city's preapplication for a grant.
The Council voted Tuesday during its retreat not to vie for the latest round of Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grants, a grant program the city has applied for in the past.
The proposed project would seek to perform the rest of the Streetscape project, connect Center Street to Union Station by way of Walnut Street and provide extensive renovations to Union Station. The proposed cost for the project would be $13 million, meaning the city would be on the hook for $2.6 million, or a 20 percent match.
Despite supporters describing the grant application as a "no-brainer," the council voted down a measure to submit a preapplication, 4-3.
City Manager Scott Stevens said Friday afternoon that council members Chuck Allen and Michael Headen had asked for the item to be discussed again. Allen made the motion to approve the application while Headen voted against the proposal.
The grant preapplication, which is due Feb. 20, will be considered again Monday during a specially called 3 p.m. session in the large conference room of the City Hall annex. The full application would be due sometime in April.
The council will reconvene at the same location at 5 p.m. for its regular work session where three presentations highlight the meeting, most of which continue discussions from the city's retreat last week.
Human Resources Director Faye Reeves will speak about staffing vacancies on the city's roster.
Parks and Recreation Director Scott Barnard is expected to request an advance on the city's match for the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund grant to begin work on the bathrooms mapped out in the grant application, while Stevens will review the council's decisions during the retreat.
Three public hearings are scheduled for the regular meeting as the council is considering two conditional use permits.
One permit, for the south side of New Hope Road between Pinemont Circle and North Berkeley Boulevard, is for an Internet gaming facility while another seeks to allow the building of a convenience store within an area zoned for neighborhood business. The proposed site of the convenience store is the southeast corner of West New Hope Road and Cuyler Best Road.
The final hearing of the night will detail the traffic separation study of railroad crossings, which will result in the closing of the crossing on west Mulberry Street among other safety changes.
The council's consent agenda contains four items of federal property forfeiture program deposits into the Police Department's special coffer. The four items alone will pump $31,778.31 into the department's line item, which must be used for new purchases to improve the department's crime-fighting abilities.
An ordinance permitting the Downtown Goldsboro Development Corp. to contract out work creating renderings showing how the facade grant could benefit properties downtown and departmental reports round out the consent agenda.
Mayor Al King will also proclaim February both as American Heart Month and Black History Month, while a resolution honoring the retiring Daniel Peters for his 28 years of service with the Goldsboro Police Department will conclude the council's scheduled business.