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HomeMy Public PortalAbout03-28-2016 State of Town Address MeetingMarch 28, 2016 Board of Commissioners State of the Town Address Approved: April 11, 2016 Page 1 of 8 -VONNN oF HILLSBOROUGH Hillsborough Board of Commissioners State of the Town Address Minutes 7 p.m., March 28, 2016 Whitted Human Services Center, 300 W. Tryon St. PRESENT: Mayor Tom Stevens and Commissioners Mark Bell, Kathleen Ferguson, Evelyn Lloyd, Brian Lowen, and Jenn Weaver STAFF PRESENT: Town Manager Eric Peterson, Assistant Town Manager/Planning Director Margaret Hauth, Finance Director Heidi Lamay, Public Works Director Ken Hines, Management Analyst/Assistant PIO Jen Della Valle, Human Resources Director/Town Clerk Katherine Cathey, Public Information Officer Catherine Wright, Police Chief Duane Hampton, and Town Attorney Bob Hornik ABSENT: None CALL TO ORDER: 7:01:29 PM Welcome — Kathleen Ferguson, Mayor Pro Tem, offered a warm welcome to the county elected officials and the audience. The Town Board members introduced themselves. Mayor Pro Tem Ferguson introduced several staff members and then Mayor Stevens. STATE OF THE TOWN ADDRESS — the words of Mayor Stevens Wow. This is a good crowd this evening. Thank you. I know some of you are in this building for the very first time. For some of you, this is your tenth State of the Town Address. And most of you know that I'm a fairly informal person. I'm going to build on what I've spoken to before in the years that have gone by. I have talked about this before and I'm going to talk about it again and keep talking about it, and I can sum it all up in one word: love. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of taking an afternoon walk on Riverwalk and saw somebody at the sign and then saw the same gentleman after we'd gone all the way to Gold Park and back and he'd made it as far as the Stickwork sculpture. And he's just looking at it and we had that eye contact that you make. And he's just being really appreciative of this. And I said, "It's a sight to behold," which is the name of it. He said, "Yeah, this is fabulous." I said, "Where are you from?" And he said, "Well, I haven't been here before. I'm visiting from New York." And I said, "Well, I'm the official welcoming committee. I'm the mayor." And we had a nice chat. And he said what people say to me over and over again. (It's one of the best things about being Mayor.) He said, "Hillsborough, I love Hillsborough. I have been here for three or four days now. We have some friends who moved here a year ago and I just came here. It's the first time I've been here. Wow. I love it." It is the "love" word. We have called it "Historic Hillsborough" with very good reason. We've called it "Happening Hillsborough," with very good reason. And it is happening. Just this week, Yep Roc Records and Redeye Worldwide have just announced that they've not only moved the headquarters here like they did three years ago but they're doing their entire world facilities here. We've been a writing community, and we're continuing to be a music community. Everything from new little businesses starting in town whether it's A Little Something, a new gift shop or Carl & Linny or a brand new sandwich shop like Bona Fide. And you want to talk about good community things? I know there are a lot of folks from Fairview here. There is almost nothing better than having that Christmas dinner in the Fairview Community. What a wonderful place to be. And we had the Stickwork sculpture. Most people have seen the Stickwork sculpture. It is on the Riverwalk. If you have not, it is a sight to behold. It's something you want to really visit. And I'll tell you something about our community that just happened spontaneously. When some arts champions who have worked on things like the Handmade Parade decided we're going to March 28, 2016 Board of Commissioners State of the Town Address Approved: April 11, 2016 Page 2 of 8 do a class and maybe we'll do a solstice walk, make some lanterns. If 10 people show up, fine, but maybe we'll have 30 or 40. Some of you were on that walk. Nineteen hundred people showed up for that walk. That is what our community is like. And so what is this about Hillsborough that we love? We'll sum it up in three things: it is a sense of place, there is a feeling of home, and there is an experience of community. That sense of place — to know that we just feel like it's our home — and that there's this experience of community coming together that even strangers and visitors coming here for the first time pick up on it and say, "Yeah, I love Hillsborough." It's in many ways summed up that it's our small town character. And probably the very best asset that we have, the best thing we have going for us, of the many, many wonderful things that we have going for us, is that small town character. I believe that the opposite of love is not hate. It is fear. And I need to acknowledge that there is fear out there that maybe we might lose our small town character. Raise your hand if you have ever had a sense that sometimes you're a little bit worried about what's going to happen to our small town character. Well, rightly so. It is something that is valued and we don't want to leave it. I hear in comments of. "We've got to keep Hillsborough a secret. (whispers) We want to discourage folks from moving here." I've heard some of you say that. (chuckles) And there is that notion Hillsborough was perfect on the day we arrived, and then it's kept growing since then. Whether the day you arrived was a year ago, or two years ago, or five years ago, or whether you were born here, or whether your granddaddy was born here, that's when it was kind of perfect and we're kind of worried about it now. The small town character that we love is not guaranteed but there are things we can do and steps that we can take to help preserve and conserve and keep that small town character that we really enjoy and appreciate about our community. Some of those are official and some are very informal and depends on all of us. That's what I want to talk about tonight — what is it we do to keep our small town character. I also want you to know that I am optimistic. I'm clearly 100 percent optimistic. As they say, failure is not an option but is something that keeps you focused. I am optimistic that 10 years from now and 20 years from now and 30 years from now and 50 years from now, we have the wherewithal so that when people are visiting us and our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, they will be saying the words, "I love Hillsborough." It will have that small town character. The first part of that is just really identifying what it is that we love. What is it? It's small town. It is the sense that people know each other. Again, it is that feeling of place. And we are really gifted with an historic neighborhood, with a river, with a mountain, with an old clock, and a very iconic courthouse that gives us some senses of places. We see it in our neighborhoods that give it a patina of character about it. We get that sense and feeling of home particularly in our neighborhoods, the home that you go to, whether it's Fairview, Cornwallis Hills, the Historic District, or West Hillsborough. The sense that it's my neighborhood, the home where I go to and I know my neighbors. And, it's not just my home but it is our home. And that's that experience of community — that you know your neighbors. It's the gathering places. It's in the coffee shops, the churches, the schools, the pubs. It's on the benches, it's out in the community. My wife, Debbie, was walking down the street to walk to Weaver Street Market about a week ago on a beautiful day and she got invited for wine on a porch about three different times along the way. That's that sense of community that we have. Part of that comes with making sure that we have homes and diversity, we have a town layout that kind of looks like a town, we're connected as a town, and that we have governing places, and that we build relationships. Those are the enduring and endearing things about Hillsborough. So, recognizing what we've got is really a first step. March 28, 2016 Board of Commissioners State of the Town Address Approved: April 11, 2016 Page 3 of 8 Another part is not to fear change. Usually, for the state of the town, I talk a little bit about what happened last year and here's what we're looking forward to in the next year. I'm going to do a little bit less of that this year because I really want to talk in terms of decades. What has changed in the last decade? Where have we been? Ten years ago, you would not be in this room. Ten years ago, this was part of the library. If you're new to town and you're enjoying the new Orange County Library down the street, that's a freestanding library that is new. We did not have Weaver Street Market 10 years ago or a parking deck. We did not have a Farmers Market pavilion. We did not have a senior center, and the Sportsplex was a lot smaller. Down on the southern part of town, the community college was under construction and had not opened up. We certainly did not have a hospital and did not have a plan for a hospital. The Little School, in fact, had not been built, for those of you who have children who go to The Little School down at Waterstone. In Fairview, that whole neighborhood on Tulip Tree Lane was pretty much just an empty road. And now we have a beautiful neighborhood. There was not a community garden out at Fairview. Neighborhoods like Kenion Grove were under construction and are now completely built out and really part of our neighborhood. If you are in the west end, Leland Little Auction did not have their own separate building. Tractor Supply and many of the stores that are along NC 86 were not there. In fact, Leland Little Auctions was out there on a Saturday afternoon, but otherwise, it was pretty quiet in the west end. There was not Hillsborough BBQ or places to go or certainly not Mystery Brewing or The Expedition School in the mill. The beautiful wayfinding signs that you see around town hadn't been put up yet, had barely been planned 10 years ago. Our parks, this is the new Cates Creek Park. This is what it looked like. (referring to photograph) And the Nash Street sidewalk was still just a project waiting to happen. It just stopped at the mill and did not continue all the way to Fairview. That's very new. If you remember the Speedway Trail, the grandstands were completely covered in trees. Volunteers cleaned that up. We didn't have a community radio station or a Handmade Parade. And for those of us who are much more into the infrastructure, we had a wastewater treatment plant on its last legs. We did not have a brand new one or a beautiful water tower that's right on the edge of I-40 where people can see it and see that we're right here. And we did not have parks. The first year that I was mayor, our budget for parks was $350. We probably have a couple of hundred thousand dollars that Orange County is planning for River Park and other park facilities that will help serve our community. We had a little park on Murray Avenue. We did not have Turnip Patch Park or Gold Park, certainly not Riverwalk. The county's Fairview Park had not been built. Eno Mountain Park was half its current size. We were able to double that, thanks to the Lloyd family. In short, the town was a lot different 10 years ago. And it was maybe 5,000 instead of 6,000, so it's not the people. We've not been adding people. What we've added is a lot of vibrancy. I think most of you would agree that those changes are good. All of those things are woven very much into the fabric of our community, day in and day out. And change is not something to fear. It's making sure how we go forward and how we weave those changes into the fabric of our community. I talked about meeting this guy on Riverwalk and 10 years ago, nobody would have said, "I love Hillsborough," when I first met them. That is not something I heard. What I usually heard was, "Oh, Hillsborough. Don't you have an old inn or something?" And in many ways, Hillsborough was one of the best kept secrets in the state. In the last 10 years, the accolades have come in. We say all these things are good for us. Let me tell you what the rest of the world has said. In 2007, "Distinctive Destination" by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Michelle Obama named Hillsborough in 2010 one of 29 "Preserve America Communities." Garden & Gun recognized us in 2011 as "One of the South's Most Creative Towns." "Great Main Street" from the North Carolina Association of Planners. Every two or three months, we get mentioned in Our State Magazine. In November 2014, there's 32 pages dedicated to Hillsborough. Wrightsville Beach Magazine — another place in North Carolina — 16 pages. The Wall Street Journal calls us "America's literary town." The New York Times has features about the writers and the folk art collections we have here and the people who are here. Our Riverwalk has been nominated for March 28, 2016 Board of Commissioners State of the Town Address Approved: April 11, 2016 Page 4 of 8 awards. We have been named "Tree City USA". Budget Travel, last year, "America's Coolest Small Town — Third Place." Isn't that cool? And, my favorite, the amazing write-up we got in Treatment Plant Operator. (chuckles) The world knows that we are here. And I think that this is a very, very good thing because we want people to be engaged in our community and loving our community and we can't do that if it's a secret. If we want to preserve our small town character, we have to make really good decisions going forward. That's one thing we need to do. And I believe, and I think all my colleagues on the Town Board believe, that there's some important principles — I'll name three — about making decisions going forward. When we make decisions about our town, they need to be based in reality. We have to look at what's real, what's out there. We need to make our decisions informed. We have to have our facts straight. We need to look at our plans and make decisions against our plans. We need to look at our values and what it is that we're making decisions about. And we need to make decisions based on the long term view, not just what's going to happen in the next year or two. The reality that we're dealing with is that in the Triangle area, we have an enormous number of people who are coming to live. We're looking at another Durham - Raleigh -Chapel Hill combined. The last statistic I heard was something like 60 -some people every single day are moving into the Triangle. People will be moving here regardless of what we do. We don't have a lot of control over that. And something else. Size matters. We can laugh about that. There is a concern as part of that fear that we're going to be another Cary. In reality, because of the limits of water and traffic infrastructure, Hillsborough is likely to top out in our lifetime probably around 12,000. Maybe that could get stretched out a couple thousand, but we're really talking about doubling in size. That's very different from in 1980 when Cary was 7,000 and now they're like 135,000. Pittsboro, a town of 4,000, just passed a development for 60,000 people. That is something that we could not do if we wanted to. And of course it's not necessarily what we want to do. We do not have to worry a whole lot about our size. It's naturally contained. What we need to do is probably the same things we have been doing already for years. We have a new website, by the way. This is what it looks like. I've referred to it a lot today and it's a lot easier to navigate. It's nicely done. So, this is one of the pages from the website. I'm going to invite you to hillsboroughnc.gov. You can find lots of information on our website, including the documents that we have developed over the last decade about how it is that we can grow. That includes our Strategic Growth Plan that was passed about 10 years ago. We had a lot of community member input, including our partners with Orange County and neighbors and folks from all around Hillsborough, and looked at different scenarios of how Hillsborough could grow. And one of the scenarios was if we just left things open, we would have sort of suburban neighborhoods all spread out around the periphery of town, especially north of town and east of town. Or, if we made some plans, knowing that our water and roads were limited, if we could pull in, we could keep our neighborhoods closer to the center, pull in our service boundaries where we're willing to provide water and sewer, and make those neighborhoods much more town -like. That's what our Strategic Growth Plan talks about. That's what our Future Land Use Plan is about, which maps out not what our zoning is now but what our land use might look like in the future. We pulled together people for the Vision 2030 plan. Here are the key things we want to do in 10 or 15 years. Specific plans for the Churton Street Corridor and for the US 70 Corridor Plan. It is these plans along with other plans about connectivity (you'll find this under Parks & Recreation ... this is one of the very cool maps you can find about connectivity in the town.) This describes what our plans are about building sidewalks and connecting neighborhoods. Sidewalks, roads, and bikeways are all very, very expensive so we want to be very strategic and add those in ways that really connect neighborhoods like the Nash Street sidewalk that really connected the west end and Fairview to Riverwalk. We need to use these plans while we're making decisions. And that's something that many of you may not see, that our board has a very good track record about using these plans. You've seen the developments that we've approved like Forest Ridge and Fiori Hills. You don't see the ones that we've turned down, usually very early in the planning process because we have developers come to us informally and say we're thinking about doing a March 28, 2016 Board of Commissioners State of the Town Address Approved: April 11, 2016 Page 5 of 8 neighborhood north of town, north of Churton Grove. We've had several of those proposed east of town and we've politely said, "You know what, that just doesn't fit in the fabric of the community." And the developer doesn't have to waste their time and we don't waste our time. And we've turned down any number of plans. We have helped developers refine their plans to fit Hillsborough better. Elfin Pond, which is townhomes on Eno Mountain Road, for example, that developer wanted to do that on the Gatewood property. And we said no, that north side is where we want to see more commercial. And let's help you find a place south of town, which he did. And he's building a lovely community. And in the meantime, we've had another developer come in who wants to put three restaurants on that area north of town. And this is a process that all of you as citizens can become involved in. Recently, we've made a decision not without a lot of discussion, and that is Collins Ridge, which is a major development in the center of town. And maybe a quick version might be when the developers came to us, we said this is a pretty big development, this might be one of the biggest ones we have in our community. As a town, we said if you want to build here, this is what's going to be very important to us. We need a neighborhood with a lot of housing types, not just one big neighborhood with all the same kind of houses. We need the variety because a variety of housing stock helps with affordability. It's important to be laid out like a town. We have design standards that houses face the street and the streets are town - like and connect with one another. That they include support for affordable housing for those who can't afford market rate houses. That you make these houses sustainable, that you offer solar. And that you have conservation for water and power. That we have connectivity between the different pods in the neighborhood and the neighborhoods in the town, including a trail throughout the entire center for a north -south trail that would go through town. Your development would need to lend itself to enhancing commercial development right next door to you in the Daniel Boone Village and where we have a rail station. You need to include in your design public transit and access to emergency vehicles. There needs to be recreation and playgrounds for every single pod on the parcel. There's a period of time when our police department and other services are just not funded because it takes three years for taxes to come in, so funding those taxes. $235,440 might be very useful to bridge that gap until the taxes kick in. And traffic is already a bear there, we need to do something about traffic. So, you're going to have to fund the road improvements to work there. And so those are the conditions that we as a town said this is the kind of thing you have to do if we're going to do this kind of development. The short version is the developer said OK. So we said OK. And that's how we have this new development in town. This will be the infill development that will be based on 10 years of planning that we have been doing as a community. That's only the very first stage, the master plan, for that particular development. Each one of those pods will get a much closer look by our planning boards. A couple quick words. I usually mention something about our budget. I really appreciate our town staff who work with this. The town staff and the Town Board look at three things: we want to take care of what we've got, we want to invest strategically in our future, and we want to minimize the rate impacts on our citizens. I am very, very proud (and this is something that we've inherited) that we are one of the few communities that has a multi-year financial plan. We have an entire management system that ties our budget to what it is that we want to accomplish. So, for the coming year, in Fiscal Year 2017, we're looking at about a $23 million budget. Generally, our funds fall into two categories: a general fund, which is everything except our water and sewer, and our water and sewer fund, which is an enterprise fund funded entirely by the fees collected to pay for the water and sewer services. And we will be proposing a new stormwater utility to meet state mandates to deal with stormwater. Certainly you've seen some of that with some of the major storms we've had lately and the rainwater. We are projecting no property tax increase for the next three years. No projected water rate increases. No projected sewer increases. We will need to establish a stormwater fee and that is still a work in progress. I think there's some information out back. There will be more community meetings about that. We've had some community meetings. We've gone back to the drawing board based on the feedback. March 28, 2016 Board of Commissioners State of the Town Address Approved: April 11, 2016 Page 6 of 8 Commissioner Ferguson mentioned most of the staff but I want to mention our police chief, Duane Hampton, is here. Jerry Wagoner, our fire marshal. Chief Cabe, other police officers. Ken Hines, our public works director, is here. Heidi Lamay, our finance director. Jen Della Valle, on our management team. Katherine Cathey, our HR person and town clerk. Margaret Hauth, director of planning. Terry Hackett, our stormwater manager. Catherine Wright, who is our public information officer. And our manager, Eric Peterson. There are other town folks here. These folks work so hard day in and day out. Those of us who are public officials sleep well at night because of these guys. Will all of you who are on staff please stand so we can recognize you and applaud you. (applause) We have many citizens who also participate on our advisory boards. Our Board of Adjustment. We have a Cemetery Board, which if you've seen our cemetery, they've cleaned it up and are doing lots of preservation. We have a Tree Board that is planting trees and keeping that nice canopy that we have in our town for the future. Our Planning Board. Our Parks and Rec Board, which is making the plans about connectivity. The Historic District Commission. The Water and Sewer Advisory Committee. And we have two boards that are not advisory in nature but are self -standing boards that can make their own decisions with their budgets and that's our Tourism Board and Tourism Development Authority. All of those boards are working together with citizen volunteers who are helping to make our community a much better place. Those of you who are serving on those boards, will you please stand up so that we can thank you. (applause) A lot of these folks, particularly staff and our volunteers, have accomplished things in the past year. We've hired a new economic development planner, as one of the big changes. Recently, you saw an opening of Cates Creek Park in the Waterstone area. I already talked about the new website. We have new billing software and new management software that was installed very painfully. We are very, very pleased with our Citizens Academy and our Police Academy. And folks who are now participating in the Citizens Academy or who have graduated from either academy, will you please stand. Thank you all for being here tonight. (applause) Again, we are proposing a new stormwater utility and likely a new parks department. We are trying to grow the town's infrastructure. What I'm pleased with is the way that our town is taking care of our water and sewer infrastructure and our road infrastructure. We have replacement schedules for both of those things in the course of just a couple of decades. That's something that most communities are not doing. We firmly believe in not robbing our future to pay for what it is we need now. We have excellent management. Again, the innovation and customer service we have, but also the sustainability and safety. We hear not only from our own employees but from folks around the state and the nation. I want to recognize again our town manager and police chief who have been working on highway safety. Probably the most danger an officer can be in is driving a vehicle. It puts himself in danger and puts other citizens in danger. We have a world class program of driver safety that has been educating other officers around the state and is even getting some international attention with the level of expertise that we're training. And it pays off. Every time that siren goes off and you see the cars go down the street, you'll notice that there's a sense of control. Slower is really, really faster. We appreciate that and all the things our police department and our fire and public safety folks do to keep our community safe. I talked a little bit about where we've been in 10 years, so where are we going to go? What's it going to be like 10 years from now? Here's what I'd like for you to imagine. There's roughly about six districts. You could think of Hillsborough as about six general areas: north, east, west, south, Historic District, and a town center district. The north side is the Fairview community and areas that surround Highway 70. West with West Hillsborough, the traditional mill villages. East, we have new neighborhoods like Forest Ridge and Fiori Hills. South is Waterstone. And then we have town center, which is where Collins Ridge will be, Daniel Boone Village, our new rail station. And our Historic District that has been here for more March 28, 2016 Board of Commissioners State of the Town Address Approved: April 11, 2016 Page 7 of 8 than 250 years. Connectivity is the key. So I want you to imagine each of those districts in itself as a thriving place where people live and people work. In the east, you have Forest Ridge and Fiori Hills where people can walk to the Mountains -to -Sea Trail, to the Speedway Trails, and to the Sportplex. They can walk to jobs in Meadowlands or Elizabeth Brady Road where we have a lot of our distribution companies. In the west, certainly anchored by the two former mills. The Eno Cotton Mill being built out with not only the schools and the amenities there but it's been a place where we've had industry but more that people are actually in the mill and enjoying it. And in the Bellevue Mill, 10 years from now, there will be a little over 100 residences that all participate in that commercial strip. To the north, in Fairview, the lovely neighborhood that's connected to Nash Street and through Highway 70 by sidewalks, and that there's new jobs and businesses up there on the north side. With new restaurants that are already being planned and other community businesses. Very much a part of our community, as well as the park that's up there, which is an incredible facility for Hillsborough. In the south, there's Waterstone, where the residences 10 years from now will be mostly complete. We can see the commercial areas filling out and of course we have a thriving hospital and community college. In the center of town, an Amtrak station should be up and running. Chances are reasonable that Daniel Boone Village might be well under its way for redevelopment if it's not completing that. Collins Ridge at this point will be well underway with people living and working there. And all of those are connected not only to the greenways we have with Riverwalk (which we're bookended on one end by the great Eno Mountain at one end and the Speedway and Ayr Mount at the other) but we have a north -south greenway that connects to Cates Creek Park and the hospital and through all our neighborhoods. In our downtown, helping to anchor the north side and all those communities, we're likely to see some pretty significant changes, not just the road improvements that you'll be seeing in the next year, but the town is creating an entire new town campus. We have our historic building, the Ruffin-Roulhac house. Diane Cates is here and I know it was your father, Mayor Cates, who helped acquire that for the town in the '70s. If you can imagine, the town is building on the north side of that on the other side of Corbin Street, a new fire department, a new police department, and town offices in the medical building. And perhaps a little park on the historic land that the neighbors could really enjoy and that could become a gathering place and a place where tourists would want to come to see our historic place. That becomes an anchor for that north side, again connected with sidewalks to the northern part of town. If the fire department and the police department move there, and we know the county is moving the jail, and we know that other buildings like the SunTrust building are going to be up for sale, we're likely to see some major redevelopment downtown, which again can give us some real opportunities for expanding our commercial base and providing jobs and providing amenities that citizens and visitors will enjoy. Certainly there will be other things that you probably won't notice, like the expansion of our reservoir and continuing infrastructure improvements. But these are the things that in Hillsborough 10 years from now that we will see if we keep working the plan. This is where it's really, really important for those of you in the Citizens Academy, for those who are here today. We really believe in becoming involved because all of our plans, all of those things we're talking about, are works in progress. There is a good solid base. We have a vision for our town, but it is involvement from people that really strengthens and is going to shape the community and build the community in ways that will serve us or not. So in many ways, it is up to us. We will not do well to not follow the plan or just to follow whims. But that doesn't mean those plans are chiseled in stone. Those plans need to evolve. And that involves a lot of community input. The dangers that we have are if we just try to do it ourselves and don't pay attention to what's happening in the March 28, 2016 Board of Commissioners State of the Town Address Approved: April 11, 2016 Page 8 of 8 Triangle and especially what's happening in Raleigh and we won't get into House Bill 2 right now but that is something of concern not only for the discrimination and what it says about North Carolina but also for the ways the state can interfere with our local control. You'll hear more about that from us probably very, very soon. Really, the most important part comes from you because it's your involvement and paying attention to what's going on and inviting your neighbors and inviting the folks who are new to town to help them feel like they are part of a small town. We're a small town of about 6,000. A few decades ago, we were a small town of about 3,000. And a couple of decades from now, we'll be a small town of about 12,000. That is still a small town. What is going to be important are the human connections we have. We can do all the built connectivity we want, but it's going to be the human connections, talking with your neighbors. There's nothing more wonderful than when I hear people moving into Waterstone saying, "I love it here." Or moving into Forest Ridge and saying, "I love it here." Or people moving from the Historic District to Waterston or moving from Cornwallis Hills to Becketts Ridge or people moving into Fairview and folks hear them say, "I like this neighborhood. We've got a garden. We've got a park." That's what we need, people coming together and introducing your neighbors to all the different things that we're doing as Hillsborough because when it's all said and done, we're one Hillsborough, one Hillsborough with a sense of place, and a feeling of home, and an experience of community. It is up to us. Thank you very much. (applause) 7:46:32 PM Mayor Stevens encouraged the audience to speak with town and county officials informally over refreshments. Respectfully submitted, c Katherine M. Cathey Town Clerk