City moving ahead with sports complex
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on October 21, 2014 1:46 PM
esmith@newsargus.com
The Goldsboro City Council approved a contract with a design firm for a multi-sports complex off Oak Forest Road at its meeting Monday night.
During a work session prior to the council's regular meeting, city Finance Director Kaye Scott recommended council members enter into an agreement with Site Solutions to design the complex.
The total cost of the design work will be $179,250.
Some residents of the area oppose the construction of the complex. But City Manager Scott Stevens said much of the opposition is due to misinformation.
"If you're in a community where there's an open field across from you and something is coming, you get worried about the change," Stevens said. "I've talked to about 10 or 15 people, some of them are still very much against it, but quite frankly, the others have gone from being concerned to feeling okay about it.
"It's not a football stadium bringing in 10,000 people at a time, but it will bring in a few hundred at a time. My goal is not to convince everybody, as it's still going forward, but to make sure the information they have is what we're actually doing."
In other business, at the work session, Public Works Director Jose Martinez answered a question posed to him by Councilman Chuck Allen last month about whether or not the city should be involved in the commercial sanitation business, such as dumpster services.
After analyzing costs and comparing it to private business competitors, Martinez said the answer is an overwhelming yes.
When weighed against the city's top four competitors -- Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, Waste Industries, Waste Management and Kemp's -- the city's base cost for sanitation rates were lower than all other competitors, he said.
"If Goldsboro were to start renting dumpsters, the city would be at a lower cost than private companies," Martinez said.
Martinez said there is also an overall positive effect on the city's general fund that comes from the commercial sanitation business.
The city adds about $328,000 to the fund through it's revenues collected from 109 accounts serviced by the Dumpmaster Sanitation Truck, and saves $72,000 per year by servicing its dumpsters in house, creating an overall plus of about $400,000.
Were the city to get out of the commercial sanitation business, it would lose that $328,000, and have to pay a private company $72,000 per year to service the city, creating a loss of $400,000, Martinez said.
"If we start renting dumpsters, each dumpster costs about $800-$900," he said. "We could then rent them out for $20-$40 and recoup the costs in one and a half to three and a half years."
Councilman Allen said it would be important to remain competitive, not cheap.
With that question answered, the council moved into a closed session to discuss property acquisition. No action was taken following the closed session.
During the meeting, only one public hearing drew comments.
A hearing was held about the proposed location for an Internet cafe adjacent to Delmus' Hardware in the Berkeley Junction Shopping Center.
Regulations state that an Internet cafe must be at least 200 feet from church and not be open during church hours, and the proposed location would put the cafe within 140 feet of a church.
"I just wanted to say that after listening to the proposed hours for the cafe I think it would interfere with church hours, since technically church is 24/7," said Barbara Bozeman.
A previous applicant for the same location was denied a conditional use permit for an Internet cafe in June 2012. Action will be taken on the matter at the next council meeting.