HomeMy Public PortalAbout01-22-2007 Workshop Meeting
January 22,2007 Monthly Workshop
Approved: February 12, 2007
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MINUTES
Board of Commissioners Monthly Workshop
Monday, January 22, 2007 -7:30 P.M.
Town Barn
PRESENT: Mayor Tom Stevens, Commissioners Evelyn Lloyd, Frances Dancy, Brian Lowen,
L. Eric Hallman, and Mike Gering.
STAFF: Town Manager Eric Peterson, Assistant Town Manager/Public Works Director
Demetric Potts, Town Clerk/Personnel Officer Donna F. Armbrister, Finance Director Greg
Siler, Planning Director Margaret Hauth, Town Attorney Bob Hornik.
1. Open the Workshop
7:33:26 PM Mayor Stevens called to order.
2. Agenda Changes & Agenda Approval
7:33:35 PM Mr. Hornik added an update by the Town Attorney regarding the Walters
Litigation to the Closed Session.
7:33:59 PM Upon a motion by Commissioner Hallman, seconded by Commissioner Gering,
the Board moved to adopt the agenda as amended by a vote of 4-0. The motion was declared
passed.
3. Meeting with State Representative Bill Faison to Discuss 2007 Legislative Interests
7:34:33 PM Representative Faison said he wanted to meet with the Board and identify any
issues that he could help with. He said he had received a letter from the Board several months
ago regarding the Bi-Partisan Bill to repay municipalities, noting he had signed onto that as a co-
sponsor. Representative Faison stated that it had been referred to the Appropriations Committee
and had gone no further.
7:34:47 PM Commissioner Lloyd arrived at the meeting.
Representative Faison said this year the budget would be overseen by the House, noting that
education and health care issues had to be serviced, as well as some operational issues. He said
there may be a shortfall this coming year, but it was not expected to be large. Representative
Faison said there were municipalities seeking enabling legislation to permit the use of golf carts
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on municipal streets, and the legislation would authorize town boards to set standards within
their limits. He said that would cut down on pollution by fossil fuels as well as noise pollution.
Regarding funding, Representative Faison said every county had $50,000 earmarked for it within
the DOT budget, and many times those funds were not used, especially if the legislative district
was one that was hostile in some way to the Speaker of the House, who controlled part of those
funds. He said if the Town had a project, such as a planned sidewalk going to a school to make
it safer for the students, there was $50,000 earmarked for Orange County that he could lobby for.
7:43:36 PM Mr. Peterson said they had several schools that sidewalks were planned for, on at
Cameron Park and two others in West Hillsborough that were in desperate need of sidewalks.
Representative Faison asked that the Town provide him with a budget for those projects and he
would approach DOT to see if there was an option to get some money to get those projects done.
7:45: 14 PM Commissioner Lloyd said she believed funds had been provided to get air packs
for the Fire Department. She asked if the Police Department could get funding for bullet-proof
vests. Representative Faison said he was not sure about Police Departments, but knew that the
Department of Insurance had funding it allocated to fire departments for equipment. He said he
could pursue that on behalf of the Town.
7:4 7:21 PM Commissioner Lloyd asked the Manager if there was anything in particular that
we might request as far as equipment for the Police Department or Fire Department. She said
she would be meeting with the Fire Department soon, and could ask at that time what might be
needed. Mr. Peterson said he would be glad to do so.
7:48: 12 PM Representative Faison said he would be glad to look into funding for both of those
organizations.
7:48:27 PM Commissioner Gering said that Town staff had done a lot of good research on
mechanisms for crime control and nuisance abatement. He said one of the hurdles they had not
figured out how to overcome was caused by an oddity in State statutes dealing with nuisance
abatements, and asked Mr. Hornik to elaborate.
7:49:01 PM Mr. Hornik said one of the things they had discovered was that while the Town
had general authority to adopt ordinances to abate nuisances, Chapter 19 of the General Statutes
indicated that the State had adopted all sorts of rules regarding nuisance abatement. He said the
ultimate penalty for nuisance abatement was the forfeiture of property, and what they were trying
to do was discover if they could get authorization to the extent needed to adopt their own set of
ordinances that could impose penalties short of forfeiture. Mr. Hornik said one thing that had
occurred to him was that the State had pre-emptied municipalities by adopting Chapter 19. He
said they were therefore interested in finding a way to get authorization for Hillsborough or other
municipalities to have a more active nuisance abatement program which stopped short of
forfeiture of property by allowed for the imposition of significant penalties.
7: 51:24 PM Representative Faison said he would be glad to pursue that. He asked that the
Town come up with a description of precisely what they wanted to have the authority to do,
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identify the statutes that they believed were an obstacle, and then prepare a resolution from the
Town Board asking that he introduce legislation giving Hillsborough that authority. He said he
would then take that to the Bill drafting department to draft the bill, he would send it back to the
Town Board to make sure that it satisfied what they were trying to accomplish, and then he
would likely ask Joe Hackney and Verla Insko to support it. Representative Faison said he
would then introduce it and present it as a local bill affecting only the Town of Hills borough. He
said such bills were many times successful.
Representative Faison said he would also like to have a commitment from someone on the Town
Board to speak to the local government committee to which this would be referred and likely to
the Finance Committee as well. He said he would set up a private meeting with the Chair of the
committee as well as several of the committee members so that the Town representative could
explain in detail what the Town wanted and why. Representative Faison said when this came
before one of the committees the Town representative would likely be given a minute or two to
explain in a concise fashion why the local authority was being requested and how it would be of
benefit to the Town.
7:55:50 PM Commissioner Hallman said regarding the DOT equity formula, we were cursed
and blessed by having two interstates running through the County. He said since preferential
treatment went to maintenance and expansion of those interstates, what was left over the Town
received very little of and their Town road projects get pushed off to later years. Commissioner
Hallman said they had once project that had been on the list for years and had now been pushed
to 2012, and another that had yet to be funded. He said the Town was looking at a population
increase of at least 25% in the next five years and already had tremendous traffic problems, yet
could see no foreseeable help from the State except for the project that had been funded.
Commissioner Hallman said he would like to have that equitable formula re-examined, since the
two interstates served the entire State yet the County carried all the cost of maintenance in the
equity formula. He said the formula hurt small towns such as Hillsborough.
7:57: 11 PM Representative Faison asked who from Orange County sat on the DOT board.
Commissioner Hallman said their representative from Division 7 was Ken Spaulding.
Representative Faison said the problem may not be the formula even though it may be seen as
prejudicial, since it appeared it was prejudicial to all counties equally.
7:58:39 PM Commissioner Hallman said the formula had recently been changed, and since
that time it had made it more difficult for them. Representative Faison said it had not been a
legislative change but an administrative change. He asked Commissioner Hallman to get him
some additional information and he would make some inquiries and see how he could be of help.
Representative Faison said there were just so many projects that could be targeted.
Commissioner Hallman said he would do so.
8:00:18 PM Representative Faison said if the Town Board wanted him to tackle the bigger
issue of the formula, he would be happy to take a look at that. He said it might be more effective
to try to get special funding for Churton Street than to try to tackle the formula. Representative
Faison said it may also be more effective to try to move up the Bill date from 2012 to 2010 or
2009 than to try to change the formula.
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8:00:55 PM Commissioner Dancy said she represented this Board on the regional TJCOG and
also represented Orange and Wake Counties and the entire region, and said on Monday they
would be holding a regional breakfast at the Sheraton at RTP. She asked if Representative
Faison would be attending that breakfast. Representative Faison said he would be attending that
breakfast. Commissioner Dancy said information would be shared at that meeting about a lot of
the issues that the government boards dealt with every year.
8:03:11 PM Commissioner Lowen asked if there was anything that Representative Faison
might help with regarding economic development, and trying to encourage businesses to relocate
in Hillsborough. He said they were trying to redevelop and revitalize the Highway 70 corridor in
the northern part of the Town, and he would very much like to explore the possibility of putting
together a pamphlet or something like that on the State level to encourage that.
8:04:10 PM Representative Faison said that the Bill Lee Act was designed to promote
economic development across the State, and in doing that had looked at modifications to the Act
which made it more friendly to smaller business entrepreneurs. He said it was common
knowledge that most jobs came from small entrepreneurs and therefore most of the tax base.
Therefore, he said, they had adopted changes to make the Act friendlier for people in our
legislative district.
Representative Faison said if the County did not have an economic developer appointed by the
State then it certainly should, and he would go to that person and ask him to look at that
legislation and how it was modified with the new approach to be more friendly to small
entrepreneurs, and find out how he was going to translate that into jobs on the ground in
Hillsborough and rural Orange County.
8:07:05 PM Commissioner Hallman asked Representative Faison if he knew what committees
he would be serving on in the next legislative session. Representative Faison said he did not yet
know, but this last session he was on Finance, Commerce, Insurance, Agriculture, Wildlife, and
Judiciary. He said he expected service in a similar fashion for the next session. Representative
Faison said he had not asked specifically for service on local government committees.
Commissioner Hallman asked if committee appointments would be readily available once they
were made. Representative Faison said yes, to go to www.ncleg.net. and there was a section for
the House of Representatives where that information would be listed.
8:10:37 PM Mayor Stevens extended an invitation to Representative Faison to attend the State
of the Town Address scheduled for one week from tonight, January 29, at 7:30 pm.
Representative Faison said he appreciated the invitation, and appreciated the opportunity to
speak to the Board tonight. He then spent a few minutes explaining how a piece of legislation
was introduced and considered by the House.
8: 14: 3 8 PM Commissioner Lloyd thanked Representative Faison for his work on the bill
regarding strokes, noting how important it was to work to save people's lives and allow them to
live without disabilities.
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4. Discussion with Planning Board and Board of Adjustment members about potential
changes to the site plan review process.
8:15:40 PM Mayor Stevens invited Eric Oliver, Kate Faherty, and Tommy Sikes to join the
Board at the table for a roundtable discussion.
8: 17: 14 PM Mr. Hornik distributed two sections of the Zoning Ordinance that were proposed
to be amended to address the site plan issue. He said they had considered several ways to
improve the site plan review process, and after much research and looking at what other towns
were doing, they were proposing several alternatives. Mr. Hornik said one was an administrative
decision made by a Technical Review Committee, proposed as Section 21.8, to be made up of
the Planning Director, the Town Engineer, and the Public Works Director. Second, he said, was
the proposed amendment of Section 5.28.2 to approve a process for site plan review using a
Technical Review Committee.
8:24:27 PM Mr. Sikes said the practical purpose of this was to expedite smaller site plan
applications. Mr. Hornik said that was correct.
8:25:01 PM Mr. Oliver said before they got to that, there was a decision that had to be made as
to whether a proposed project was a minor site plan review or a site plan review. He said a
minor site plan review had six conditions, and if met then it did not have to go through the same
process. Mr. Oliver said that had to be determined before getting to this point. Then, he said, if
a project was not a minor site plan review, then it would have to go through the full process.
Mr. Oliver said he liked the three-tiered approach, with the Planning Director having first
consideration, then the Technical Review Committee having the next level of responsibility. He
said he both of those instances there was no leeway, in that the site plan had to be specific and
exact to meet each tier in the process. Mr. Oliver said once it went to the Board of Adjustment,
they did have some flexibility, but not much.
Mr. Oliver said he wanted to be sure of the public hearing process, noting his concern about that
process was why he had suggested taking the 25,000 square foot requirement down to 15,000
square feet as noted in Section 5.28.2. He said his concern was at what point did you want to
advertise a public hearing, and when did you want to open it up to allow people to speak and
present evidence. Mr. Oliver with the Technical Review Committee there was no public hearing,
so how would someone put forward evidence.
Mr. Oliver said he understood wanting to speed up the site plan review process, and did not want
to slow down the process of gathering evidence or input from the public on those site plans. He
said it was a balancing act, and that was why he wanted the square footage brought down to
15,000 square feet so that anything over that would require public input in a public hearing
8:28:45 PM Mr. Hornik said the 25,000 square feet was a suggested starting point, so 15,000
square feet was also a possibility and was acceptable.
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8:29:02 PM Commissioner Gering said he believed this process was a good proposal based on
the limitations they faced. He said the point made regarding public input was a good one, and
wondered if meetings of the Technical Review Committee could be advertised and perhaps
include a protest petition process for citizens.
8:29:40 PM Mayor Stevens said if a site review went to the Board of Adjustment, he public
could appeal an approval as well as a disapproval.
8:30:05 PM Mr. Sikes asked if abutting neighbors would be notified a minor site plans. Ms.
Hauth said for a minor site plan the notice was for 100 feet, whereas notification for a regular
site plan was 500 feet.
8:30:18 PM Mr. Oliver said then under all three conditions being discussed here, the
notification would be 500 feet.
8:30:30 PM Commissioner Hallman asked if protest petitions would raise a site plan to Board
of Adjustment or CUP status no matter what the size. Mr. Hornik said that could possibly be
built into the process, noting the protest petition model or some variation of it could be used.
8: 31: 19 PM Commissioner Hallman said at this scale, it could be a single property owner that
was affected. Mr. Hornik agreed. He said questions of how that would work needed to be
answered, such as would we want it to be a percentage of the number of property owners, or a
percentage of linear feet of boundary. Commissioner Hallman said he was trying to think of
unintended consequences of this.
8:31:49 PM Ms. Hauth said the Board could also set adjacency standards, in that if it was
within "x" number of feet of residential use or residentially zoned property it would
automatically be a conditional use. She said rarely did one business complain about another
business development near them, although it sometimes happened. Mr. Oliver said he would not
want to "shut the door" on people being able to protest.
8:32:52 PM Commissioner Gering said expediency was a good attribute, but he was not sure if
that would put more of a burden or less on the staff. Ms. Hauth said regarding the 5,000 square
foot area that was likely more than 50% of the site plans their saw. She said the vast majority
were for small construction or small additions. Ms. Hauth said in that way it was less staff time
because less agenda packets had to be prepared. She said it was possible that such a process may
add more time on the developer's end, due to public hearing schedules.
8:34:05 PM Mayor Stevens said that was what was occurring now. Ms. Hauth said no,
because everything was subject to a public hearing and developers knew that their process time
was at least 27 days. Mayor Stevens said there was a possibility that these changes might
shorten that, but not necessarily. Ms. Hauth said there would be the occasionally person who
might have an additional month added to their process. She said starting with an undeveloped
piece of property was easier because all rules applied, but additions to existing buildings
presented different issues, because we had to determine how many of the standards came into
play.
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8:36: 11 PM Mr. Hornik said looking at other municipalities and how they dealt with site
plans, one of the tools used was allowing the Planning Director or a technical review committee
to defer making a decision on a project by kicking it up to the next level. He said if the Planning
Director received a project that met the threshold requirements but was determined to be
controversial or more technical, then they were authorized to defer a decision and require that the
decision be made by the next level in the review process. Mr. Hornik said that may be one way
of addressing a situation where the Planning Director might have such a situation, and would
build in some flexibility that would allow a more detailed level of review for something that
might have otherwise met the lower threshold.
8:38:03 PM Commissioner Lowen asked if he was suggesting having that option built in so
that it was always available. Mr. Hornik said yes, noting that if notices were sent out and many
objections were received, then that project might be one that the Planning Director would
determine to be controversial and would want to bump up to the next review level.
8:38:54 PM Ms. Faherty asked what the next level of review would be. Mr. Hornik replied
that after the Planning Director it would go to the Technical Review Committee, and after that it
would be considered as a conditional use.
8:39:36 PM Mr. Oliver said he did not see the Technical Review Committee being the next
level above the Planning Director. Mr. Hornik said that was the hierarchy established by the
proposed amendments. Mr. Oliver said he would be more comfortable if the Planning Director
decided to bump a project to the next level that it would then go to the Board of Adjustment. He
said if a project was something worth bumping to the next level, what would give the Technical
Review Committee the ability to make that decision better than just the Planning Director. Mr.
Oliver said the conditions that the Planning Director identified as sensitive enough to warrant the
next level of review, you would think it would go directly to the Board of Adjustment.
8:40: 15 PM Mayor Stevens said he believed if the Planning Director identified sensitive
issues, she would then ask for a courtesy review by the Engineering Director and Public Works
Director, and use that input to decide whether the project should go to a higher level of review.
He asked if Mr. Hornik saw the Technical Review Committee as requiring a consensus. Mr.
Hornik said he had envisioned that a 2-1 vote of that Committee would be approval.
Mr. Hornik said instead of bumping a project to the Technical Review Committee, the Planning
Director could bump it to a conditional use and send it straight to the Board of Adjustment. He
was what had instigated this was having site plans subject to review by the Board of Adjustment
requiring a majority vote, in that a 3-2 vote in favor of a site plan was actually a denial of that
site plan. Mr. Hornik said part of what they were proposing was to avoid such a scenario.
8:41: 3 9 PM Commissioner Hallman said if the Planning Director wanted to bump the review
up to the next level and the only option was to bump to a conditional use permit, then the
Planning Director might have second thoughts because that put into place another whole set of
procedures with much higher barriers. He said it would be helpful to give the Planning Director
the option of having her colleagues on the Technical Review Committee look at that project.
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8:42: 13 PM Ms. Faherty said it seemed to her that the Technical Review Committee was
different than the Board of Adjustment in that a 2-1 vote would approve a project. She said that
that Committee was the experts, and it seemed like something they approved would require all
three of them to agree rather than having a 2-1 vote result in approval. She said if one of the
three essential people on that Committee were against a project then it should go to the next
level, so she would prefer that unanimous approval by the Committee be required.
8:43:13 PM Mr. Sikes said we could add in the ordinance that a 2-1 vote by the Technical
Review Committee would automatically send the project to the next level of review. Mr. Hornik
said he would worry about one of the members of the Technical Review Committee essentially
having veto power. Ms. Faherty said that was a good point.
8:43 :58 PM Mr. Oliver said the purpose of the first two levels of review was that the project
should be black or white, that is it should meet all conditions or not and therefore would be
approved or not. He said there should not be any disagreement among the members of the
Technical Review Committee as to whether or not a project met all conditions.
8:46:09 PM Commissioner Gering said with the Conditional Use Permit process that would be
heard by the Board of Adjustment or the Town Board. Ms. Hauth responded our process called
for that to be heard by the Board of Adjustment. Commissioner Gering said approval would then
require a super majority, and anyone wanting to appeal that would have to appeal it back to the
same people. Mr. Hornik said anyone appealing a decision by the Planning Director or the
Technical Review Committee would have to go before the Board of Adjustment
8:4 7: 10 PM Ms. Hauth said a four tier could be added to set up a process for the largest
projects to be Special Use Permits. She said then the Planning Board and the Town Board would
consider it, and the Board of Adjustment would never be involved. Ms. Hauth said some of the
largest projects the Town had approved in the last ten years had been industrial projects in
industrial zones, so there was really no impact. But, she said, at times a 4,000 square foot
convenience store would have more impact than a 40,000 square foot industrial project.
8:49:07 PM Commissioner Lloyd asked had there been any projects in the recent past other
than the Gateway Center that had not received a super majority. Mr. Oliver said the County
school's trailers had received a 3-2 vote in favor ofletting them remain.
Commissioner Lloyd asked Mr. Hornik to provide a detailed description of what the new
sections a, b, and c meant under Section 5.28.2. Mr. Hornik reiterated his earlier remarks, noting
that the new section "a" was the most important because the 5,000 square foot threshold would
free up the Board of Adjustment's time to spend on larger projects.
8:52:56 PM Mayor Stevens said that took care of a lot of issues but it did not address the super
majority issue. Mr. Hornik said the Board of Adjustment was a quasi-judicial board rather than
an administrative site plan approval board, so in that context the super majority made him less
concern in that context.
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8:53:16 PM Ms. Hauth said if they could move the larger projects in the CUP standard rather
than site plan review that would be helpful, since there was not a lot of discretion if a project did
not meet the standards of the ordinance.
8:53:56 PM Commissioner Hallman asked if that opened the Town up to more litigation. Mr.
Hornik said it was a matter of making sure a project met the standard findings of a Conditional
Use Permit. He said he did not believe it would open us up any more than we already were, and
perhaps it would be less when it was a site plan standard with a CUP. Mr. Hornik said things
should mostly be black or white, but with large developments there may be gray areas such as
the impact on a neighborhood. He said by having a conditional use standard it gave the Board
the opportunity to say that a project met the strict standards of a site plan approval but that it was
not appropriate to have a 60,000 square foot building next to single-family residences because it
was not harmonious.
8:56:08 PM Mayor Stevens commented that he perceived general agreement among the Board
members.
8:56: 14 PM Commissioner Hallman asked if the Board had generally agreed with Mr. Oliver's
suggestion to revive "b" to 15,000 square feet rather than 25,000 square feet. There was general
agreement among the Board.
8:56:58 PM Mr. Hornik asked if the Board wanted to add that a unanimous vote was required
by the Technical Review Committee or else the project would be raised to the next level of
review. Mayor Stevens said he believed a consensus would be required.
8:57:26 PM Commissioner Gering said he believed the point was not to allow one person to
defer a project. Mr. Hornik said that veto power was troublesome to him
8:57:40 PM Commissioner Hallman said the applicant could still appeal the decision. Mr.
Hornik said that was correct.
8:57:50 PM Mayor Stevens if a project did not pass the Technical Review Committee, then
there would have to be some documentation of the reasoning. And, he said, that could always be
appealed.
8:58:22 PM Mr. Faherty said if she had a project that passed the Technical Review Committee
2-1, she would not appeal that because she had won. But as a citizen, she believed it was not
right that the three experts did not agree.
8:58:56 PM Mr. Hornik asked if the Board wanted to include that there had to be unanimous
vote by the Technical Review Committee or the project was sent to the next level of review.
There was general consensus among the Board.
8:59:03 PM Ms. Sikes asked if the deliberations of the Technical Review Board would be
submitted as evidence in the case of an appeal. Mr. Hornik said he would treat it as more of an
application where there was a presentation to the Board of Adjustment.
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8:59:39 PM Mayor Stevens asked for a comment from staff. Ms. Hauth responded that the
decisions of the Technical Review Committee would have to be documented and reasons
provided for the vote.
8:59:53 PM Commissioner Gering asked what the legal requirements would be for a public
record of such documentation. Ms. Hauth said the documentation would be provided to the
applicant, so it would be a public document and could be used in an appeal.
9:00:26 PM Mr. Hornik asked in the case of a deferral, did they want to allow for the
Technical Review Committee to defer to the Board of Adjustment. There was general consensus
among the Board.
9:02:01 PM Mr. Hornik asked if the Board wanted to add something using the protest petition
model as discussed earlier. Mayor Stevens said he believed so, because it was all about due
process and trusting the process. Mr. Hornik said he would work on language to address that.
9:04:20 PM Ms. Hauth said there were a number of non-residential uses that were permitted
by right in residential districts, which were churches and schools. She said they could be
problematic in terms of processing them properly and fairly. Ms. Hauth said many times they
rose above the square footage limits, and she had therefore suggested that they become
conditional uses so that there would be the chance for good neighborhood discussion and clarity
of the setbacks and buffers and other issues could be discussed. She said that did not necessarily
happen under the current ordinance and it could be an issue as they continue to see unique school
settings. Mayor Stevens commented that was a good point.
9:07:45 PM Short Recess
9: 12:24 PM Reconvened
5. Preparation for the January 27th Retreat
9: 12:37 PM Mr. Peterson said in order to help the retreat to go smoother, he had prepared a
handout regarding the balanced scorecard. He took the Board through each page of the
information, providing some detail about how the scorecard worked. Mr. Peterson explained the
rationale and benefits of a balanced scorecard, and how initiatives or action items were
connected to performance measures that drove the performance of the organization.
Mr. Peterson said Bill Rivenbark from the UNC School of Government would help the Board
develop its performance measures. He said at the retreat he would provide a strategy map so that
the Board could fill in the blanks. Mr. Peterson said because of prior good work by the Board
some of the blanks were already filled in, such as the core values that were identified last year as
well as strategic priorities. He said there would be an opportunity to modify those if necessary.
Mr. Peterson noted that strategic priorities were the main thing that needed to get done.
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Mr. Peterson said once the retreat was concluded, then the next step would be to start developing
measures that would correlate with the identified objectives. He then explained how the staff
would take the identified objectives and begin to work on them. Mr. Peterson said the financial
aspects of the objectives would be tested as well, so that the costs could be determined to be
acceptable or not. He said at the end of March the staff should be able to come back with the
strategy map and scorecard items and provide a description of how they planned to achieve or
otherwise address the objectives.
Mr. Peterson a rough point by point process on the balanced scorecard was provided, noting that
items 10 and 11 would be helpful for the staff. He said there would be two reports provided each
year to the Board, a mid-year and an end-of-the-year report, which would benefit the staff and
the Board, as well as communicate to the citizens what they were doing and allow them to
provide input. He said at this time next year and in preparation for the next retreat, we would
have departments provide a mid-year update and a new balanced scorecard for discussion.
9:34:01 PM Commissioner Gering asked what kind of feedback Mr. Peterson had received
from the staff, such as any special concerns. Mr. Peterson said this had been an autocratic
process to this point, although the staff had been given information about the balanced scorecard
and how it worked. He said he was mindful that it would mean more work for the staff, and he
would be working on ways to address that.
9:37:32 PM Mayor Stevens said he appreciated Mr. Peterson's attention to the balanced
scorecard and education the Board about it. He said he believed the Board would want to focus
on the Town-wide objectives noted on page 8, and how they would take them and translate them
into a different kind of reporting format. Mayor Stevens said they needed to pay attention when
they started to differentiate between how something looked to the community and how it related
to internal operations. He said if they wanted to community to feel that there was a strong plan
in place and the financial resources to do that, and well as to understand the underpinnings.
Mayor Stevens said he challenged the Board to identify the top priorities that they wanted to
focus on strategically, which would be the real things that made a difference from the
community's perspective.
9:39:47 PM Commissioner Hallman asked if it was realistic to include a low water pressure
discussion at the retreat. Mr. Peterson said they would have to see how the day went. Mayor
Stevens said they would have to see if time allowed them to get into that at depth. Mr. Peterson
said he believed that Mr. Keel needed a short time to go over that issue, about 15 minutes, and
perhaps provide some recommendations.
6. Committee Updates and Reports
9:41:07 PM Commissioner Dancy said she had attended the Chapel Hill-Orange County
Tourism Board meeting and they had chosen a local marketing firm, the Jennings Group, and
were looking forward to seeing what they could do with the budget available.
9:43 :34 PM Commissioner Hallman said he had attended a meeting with Doug Gallion with
NCDOT, at which they laid out new plans where some projects had been postponed, so not much
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success was made in discussions about getting additional funding. He said he had stressed that a
lot of what Hillsborough was doing was waiting for NCDOT to determine rights-of-way, and had
made it clear that we wanted to know what they were doing with Elizabeth Brady Road.
Commissioner Hallman said they had talked about the right-of-way acquisition for the overpass
and exit ramps for the widening ofNC 85, and they had promised to send to him tomorrow some
preliminary drawings of what the potential expansion of those intersections would look like so
that we would have some document that we could refer to. Commissioner Hallman said with
federal highway funds not being discontinued but being renegotiated we were now down from 88
cents on the dollar to 86 cents on the dollar for highway funding.
Commissioner Hallman said there was a joint committee between our MPO and the Raleigh
MPO to look at joint issues, primarily along the 1-40 corridor, and that committee had proposed
putting together a work group to look at transportation issues for mass transit and public
transportation. He said they were looking for input from neighborhood, community,
environmental, business, university, government and at-large members. Commissioner Hallman
said they had recommended excluding elected officials from the committee, but he believed it
would be a good idea to identify someone from the Walkable Hillsborough group to participate.
He said with the Board's permission, he would forward that to Walkable Hillsborough to see if
someone was interested in volunteering to sit on the committee to look at mass transit issues.
There was no objection from the Board.
9:47:34 PM Commissioner Gering said the Cornelius Street Task Force met and reviewed a
preliminary outline of the report. He said they had decided to adjust the schedule so that a public
review of the draft would happen after the February meeting with the expectation that the Town
Board could consider adopting that plan in March. Commissioner Gering said the Work Group
had done a phenomenal job, with much of the success attributable to the staff.
9:48:58 PM Commissioner Lloyd said she would be attending the Fire Department meeting on
January 30th, so she would provide a report after that meeting.
9:49: 12 PM Ms. Hauth said the Strategic Planning Committee had endorsed a resolution and a
map that addressed concerns including those that had come out of the public hearings. She said
the Planning Board had recommended both of those, and they had been placed on the Town
Board's agenda for February. Ms. Hauth said the more the staff had discussed the rural buffer,
the more they had realized that the proposed rural buffer was less of a rural buffer from the
standpoint of regulating density and much more a boundary to indicate where Hillsborough's
interests were, and that there would be courtesy review within that boundary. She said that
information had not yet been successful relayed to the public at large, due mostly because that
phrase carried with it a density implication in nearby communities, so they would have to do a
better job getting the word out.
9:51:43 PM Mayor Stevens reported that he had attended the Upper Neuse River Basin
Authority meeting, noting they continued to work on their watershed management plan and
developing strategies. He said they were planning on using the first half of 2007 to take a look at
all the strategic recommendations and looking at them each on a local area and doing a gap
analysis so they could determine the impact of actually implementing the watershed initiative.
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Mayor Stevens said he was planning on attending a meeting of the Climate Change Committee
on Wednesday, which was the former Greenhouse Gas Emissions Commission. He said as well,
in a couple of months the Assembly of Governments meeting would be held, and he would be
meeting with the Mayors of Chapel Hill and Carrboro and the Chair of the County
Commissioners later this week to discuss shared interests and what might be placed on the
Assembly of Governments meeting agenda. Mayor Stevens said he would be glad to take
comments back from the Board on what issues they would like to have raised.
9:53:49 PM Ms. Hauth it would be helpful to present the 10-year plan to all entities at one
time.
9: 54: 18 PM Mayor Stevens said he and others had met with residents of the Daniel Boone
mobile home park, and what had come out of that meeting other than that people were concerned
about losing their homes was wanting to know to what degree the Town could help them find out
what was happening and when it would happen. He said that clarity would be helpful for the
residents, even if it were bad news. Mayor Stevens said the residents were very interested in
resources, and our next step would be to bring together the various resources to help these
residents. He said they would be engaging a group of MP A students who would help in pulling
that together.
9:56: 13 PM Commissioner Gering brought up the Presbyterian Church and museum and the
concerns about the Tryon Street construction. Mayor Stevens said he had received a letter but
had not yet had a chance to review it.
7. Closed Session to Discuss Property Acquisition and Personnel Matters
9:57:01 PM Upon a motion by Commissioner Dancy, seconded by Commissioner Lloyd, the
Board moved to go into Closed Session by a vote of 5-0. The motion was declared passed.
8. Other
Upon returning to Open Session, and upon a motion by Commissioner Hallman, seconded by
Commissioner Gering, the Town Board authorized the Town's Representative to negotiate for
the purchase of property for the Riverwalk Project as discussed in Closed Session by a vote of
5-0.
9. Adjourn
Upon a motion by Commissioner Dancy, seconded by Commissioner Gering, the Board moved
to adjourn the meeting at 10: 25 PM by a vote of 5-0. The motion was declared passed.
Respectfully submitted,
Donna F. Armbrister, MMC
Town Clerk
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