County wants more joint ventures with city
By Steve Herring
Published in News on January 22, 2017 12:30 AM
Wayne County commissioners Wednesday morning said they would like to expand the number of joint ventures the county shares with the city of Goldsboro.
During their daylong planning retreat Wednesday at the Goldsboro Event Center, commissioners included three such projects as possible goals for 2017.
They are animal control, a shelter at the city's proposed new Herman Park Center and vehicle fuel.
"We have recently been approached by the city, within the last two weeks, a feeler at this point -- would we be interested in looking at taking over animal control enforcement in the city," County Manager George Wood said. "Currently they have their own people, but they bring their animals to our shelter.
"It is kind of like the jail. They have their own police department, but they bring them to our jail. They have their animal enforcement, but they bring them to our shelter and then they are turned over to us."
Commissioner Wayne Aycock asked if the city's animal control officer was an 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. job.
"So at nights and weekends we are doing it anyway," he said.
"So what we are really saying is do we want to work out a cost-sharing thing where they give us so much money and we provide it," Wood said. "I have some experience with this. I have done it in three different jurisdictions. I will get a copy of an agreement of a city I was in.
"We actually had the reverse. The city had the shelter, and the city contracted to do it citywide. Basically what it means is we would do enforcement 24/7 countywide."
If the county decides to offer the service to Goldsboro, it needs to look at offering it to the county's other municipalities, Wood said.
The county already is doing that, commissioners said.
"Are you comfortable with us exploring this as a goal?" he said.
Board Chairman Bill Pate said he had no problem as long as the city agreed to cost sharing.
"One of the methods that a lot of places use is you look at the call volume," Wood said. "In other words, how many of our calls for service would be animals inside the city, and how many elsewhere? You just split the cost of the enforcement because that is really the demand they are putting on the system."
"Not to get too deep into detail, but are you talking about the pickup of unwanted and stray animals, not enforcement of their ordinance?" Commissioner Joe Gurley said.
Wood said his feeling is that it is "geographic."
"If we pick up a stray dog inside the city limits, that is on the city because if we weren't doing enforcement in the city, they would have to go out and get the dog," Wood said.
Gurley said he was asking about things like barking dogs or however the city ordinance reads.
That remains to be worked out, Wood said.
Gurley said he recalled that there had bee a cost share at one time by the city on the animal shelter, but that had stopped several years ago.
"It was a 60/40 split," he said.
"The state said the county had to provide it (shelter)," County Attorney Borden Parker said.
Wood also talked about the need for an emergency disaster shelter.
The advantage of having a shelter at Herman Park is that it is on high ground that does not flood, Wood said.
"It is also on city water and sewer," he said. "It is also next to our COB (county office building). So between those they should be a pretty high priority for Duke, or whoever has the city. Plus if we designate it as a shelter, that makes it an even higher priority of getting the power back on.
"What we are looking at is the county entertain having it pre-wired with an automatic transfer switch."
The switch is an electrical device that switches an electrical load between two sources. In this case it would allow the generator to provide backup power.
"What (Facilities Director) Kendall (Lee) and I have talked about is having one or two portable generators," Wood said. "I would like for them to be portable because we never know if something is going to be out."
For example, the county set up a shelter at Spring Creek High School during Hurricane Matthew, but the water line washed out, he said.
Having portable generators would allow the county to move to another location if needed, Wood said.
"I think it is worth exploring the possibility of us paying to have an automatic transfer switch and size a generator, and it may not have to power the whole thing," he said. "But it would operate those components that would be a shelter."
The proposed center would house a lot of people, Wood said. Having such a shelter would have "simplified our lives a lot" during Hurricane Matthew, he said.
Also, it would not interfere with county schools where shelters are normally set up, he said.
Wood praised Wayne County Public Schools Superintendent for "going out of his way" to work with the county to set up shelters in schools.
Referring back to the animal control goal, Commissioner Joe Daughtery said he would also like to see the county explore a joint venture with the city in regard to sharing the city's fueling depot.
"The city of Goldsboro already has the infrastructure in place, right there where a lot of our facilities are," he said. "It would be good if our folks had a card where they could go and fuel. All of those taxes that are normally paid are no longer paid. We could save a great deal of money I think by doing that."
Wood said he would add that to the list of goals.