Seven Lakes Times

Otis Ritter, a stalwart of the Moore County Republican Party, has been selected by the party's executive committee to serve out the unexpired term of Craig Kennedy on the Moore County Board of Commissioners.

The 73-year-old Ritter, who currently serves as Chairman of the County's Emergency Services Advisory Committee [ESAC], told The Times that he will be a staunch conservative on matters of taxes and spending, and that he plans to continue to work on public safety issues as Commissioner.

Kennedy resigned on April 25; his term would have expired in November of 2014. Under state law, a resigning Commissioner must be replaced by someone from the same district and party, and the law requires that the remaining Commissioners accept the person recommended by the executive committee of the appropriate political party in the county.

Moore County GOP Chairman John Rowerdink told The Times that the party's executive committee met on Tuesday, May 14 and voted unanimously to recommend Ritter for the post. Party officers had interviewed three other individuals who had expressed an interest in filling the seat, Rowerdink said, including GOP Men's Club President Lewis Gregory, Soil and Water Conservation Board Chairman Scott Sheffield, and former Robbins Mayor Theron Bell.

"I think he'll be an excellent Commissioner," Rowerdink said, noting that Ritter regularly attends Board of Commissioners meetings, and thus is well acquainted with the issues facing the County.

"All things being equal, we felt it was important to have someone from the northern part of the county," Rowedink added. "In the interest of geographic balance, we wanted to make sure those people were represented." Ritter lives outside Robbins, near North Moore High School.

The May 3 edition of The Seven Lakes Times is now available for download in pdf format.17You can download a high-quality PDF here, or, if you have a slower internet connection, download a smaller PDF here.

Highlights of this 32-page edition include:

- The SLLA has had plenty of feedback about changes the Board made to its guest card policy -- and very little of that feedback has been positive. Directors appear ready to put things back pretty much the way they were before the change.

- The SLLA Board's May 13 Work Session included a wide range of issues, from new doors and windows for the Landowners Office to hiring a consultant to help maintain and improve the community's lakes. You'll find a full report in this edition.

- County Manager Wayne Vest's draft budget for FY2014 includes no tax increase, but gives Moore County Schools $375,000 less than they asked for -- and underfunds Sandhills Community College's request by nearly $500,000. It also adds seven new paramedics to the county's EMS system.

- The Commissioners took the first steps toward creating a home for three of those paramedics in a new fire and EMS substation to serve Northeast Moore. And they also began the formal process expected to lead to a new water deal with Harnett County that will help meet the county's needs for the next twenty years -- and bring the Seven Lakes area a much-needed second source of water.

- MCS Superintendent Aaron Spence took exception to comments from Commissioners Chairman Nick Picerno suggesting that the county had been "overfunding" the schools for the past few years. Spence argues that, like the Commissioners, the School Board has been prudently building a fund balance as insurance against unexpected expenses.

- Few citizens turned out for a Citizen Participation Session on the budget proposed for FY2014, but Councilwoman Leslie Frusco used the opportunity to lay out the basics of the Village budget.

- The Council's regular meeting was dominated by a vigorous debate over a long range planning committee recommendation that the Village sell its water system to Moore County.

- One of next year's Kindergarten classes at West End Elementary will be speaking Spanish instead of English, giving two dozen students the opportunity to become bilingual through a Spanish Immersion program.

- Despite his affinity for ACC hoops, Don allows that athletics are over-emphasized at many colleges and universities; Jerry Johnson praises recent improvements in SLLA lake management; and Greg suggests one way to improve the just plain dumb system of education funding in North Carolina.

Download the high-quality PDF edition (or, if you have a slower internet connection download a lower-quality pdf edition) and read it all this morning, pick up a copy at locations all over Seven Lakes this afternoon, or check your mailbox tomorrow.

The Seven Lakes Landowners Association [SLLA] Board appears ready to undo a change to the guest card policy that was implemented just a few months ago.

Community Manager Ray Sohl, during the Board’s Monday, May 13 Work Session, said the new policy, which requires that guest cards be assigned to a particular individual, had resulted in “some very serious complaints about the new fees.” The office had been “inundated” with complaints, he added.

The longstanding SLLA guest card policy had allowed Association members to pay $25 for four guest cards that entitled guests to the use of any of the community amenities.

Motivated by a concern that overuse by guests was increasing Association expenses, the previous Board of Directors took the stables and the Northside pool out of the guest card system, implementing a separate fee schedule for use of each of those amenities.

Continuing in the same vein, they tightened up use of the guest card to access the remaining amenities, requiring that guest cards be purchased for specific individuals, rather than being transferrable from, for example, one group of grandchildren visiting on Memorial Day and a separate group visiting on July 4th.

“I do not be-lieve that our current operating expenses should be cut, as these are expenses we use to pay our teachers, purchase learning materials and run our schools,” Superintendent and Dr. Aaron Spence said at the Monday, May 13 regular meeting of the Moore County Board of Education.

Spence was referring to County Manager Wayne Vest’s proposed FY2014 budget, which carved $375,000 out of the $25.5 million in local operational funding requested by the School Board, using that money to create a new digital technology fund. An additional $375,000 drawn from the County’s capital reserve would bring that fund up to the $750,000 Moore County Schools sought from the County to pay for Phase 2 of an effort to put laptop or tablet computers in the hands of every teacher and student.

Foxfire Village held the first of two citizens’ participation budget workshops on Tuesday, May 7.

Mike Cole, Captain of the West End Fire and Rescue Department, was the only citizen in attendance, aside from the Council members. For the benefit of one, the Council laid out the proposed budget.

“We would like to give residents some idea where our revenue comes from and where it goes,” said Councilwoman Leslie Frusco, who heads the finance committee.

At the previous work session, the council had worked to prioritize departmental spending and make any necessary cuts. The revised budget is still a work in progress.

“This is the preliminary budget,” Frusco said. “After we have our citizens’ participation meetings we will go back and review it.”

The finance committee has devoted much of 2014 to the budget. “This is a process we have spent a lot of time on,” Frusco said, “making sure we are serving the needs of the Village and our residents and also taking care of our employees.”

The Council hopes that the end result will welcome new residents. “By keeping the Village looking good we hope to encourage potential people to come and build homes, while being cognitive of our residents’ needs,” Frusco said.

The Foxfire Village Long Range Planning Committee believes it is time for action. Earlier this year, the committee recommended that the Village Council should consider merging its water system with the larger Moore County water system.

Moore County Public Works Director Randy Gould fleshed out the proposal in a meeting with the Council in April. The County would acquire most of the assets of the Foxfire Water System, as well as its outstanding debt, and Foxfire customers would become Moore County customers.

During the Council's Tuesday, May 14 regular meeting, Councilman Mick McCue recommended action.

“I think we need to move forward," McCue said. "For myself, I am convinced this is the way to go. I am more than happy have a public hearing for the citizens’ input and listen to people and let them convince me that it is not. We know that Moore County is doing an excellent job of planning for the future water needs, thirty to forty years out. And I want to be on board with it.”

The cartoon adorned the office door of a college Spanish professor: A mouse barking like a dog to scare a way a cat. The caption read: “See, children, it pays to know a second language.”

At West End Elementary, twenty-four kindergartners will get the chance to learn to communicate beyond their mother tongue. Beginning in the new school year, West End will introduce its first Spanish Immersion kindergarten.

Principal Leigh Ann McClendon has done her research. Last year, Associate Superintendent Kathy Kennedy asked McClendon to visit the language immersion program at New Century International Elementary School in Fayetteville.

McClendon was amazed at what she saw. She immediately requested permission to begin a similar program at West End.

“We have done a lot of research, screening of candidates and interviews,” McClendon said. “We are partnering with VIF International Education Company out of Chapel Hill.”

West End currently has an opening for a kindergarten teacher. McClendon has conducted interviews to hire a native Spanish speaking teacher.

“This is not an additional position — this is based on my enrollment,” she explained.

The Moore County Planning Board has, in effect, banned industrial-scale solar farms in Moore County.

The action came during the Board's Thursday, May 9 regular meeting, as members considered a set of text amendments prepared by the Planning Department, that would have made "solar collector facility" a conditional use in a number of zoning districts. After considerable debate, the Board concluded the concerns outweighed the benefits.

At least three landowners have already taken the first steps to receive state approval for building solar farms in the County.

A viable business?

Planning Board Members questioned whether solar farms were viable as a business and worried that they are dependent on large government subsidies. They also worried that evolving technology would quickly date existing structures, making them obsolete. And they feared that, once a solar farm was no longer in use, the landowner would not properly dismantle it and that it would become an eyesore.

At the Board's request, the Moore County Planning Department has been conducting research on solar farms since October of last year. Several members of the board visited the Strata Solar Farm in Raeford. During the Board's April meeting, a question and answer session was held with a representative from Argand Energy Solutions, LLC. At that time, Planner Jeremy Sparrow was asked to edit and write text amendments to present at the May meeting for Board consideration.

Sparrow gave an in-depth presentation of the proposed text amendments, which tightly covered all bases -- from setbacks, proximity to existing three-phase electrical, height of fencing, and emergency access to the type of non-reflective coating permissible. Throughout the presentation, the Board commented on and discussed the proposed ordinances.

Budgets are a balancing act, and the Fiscal Year 2014 budget proposed by County Manager Wayne Vest during the Tuesday, May 7 meeting of the Moore County Board of Commissioners meeting is no exception.

Vest's budget, assembled by a team that included Chairman Nick Picerno and Commissioner Randy Saunders, has no increase in taxes, continues to pay down debt without depleting reserves, covers the rising cost of employee benefits, and adds seven new paramedics, including three dedicated to a new EMS & Fire substation to serve the northeast corner of the County.

On the other hand, it fails to fully fund Moore County Schools' and Sandhills Community College's requests for local funding, and offers no cost of living or merit increase for county employees.

Vest and the budget team were praised by all four Commissioners for their work on the draft document. The public will have an opportunity to weigh in on the budget at the Tuesday, May 21 Commissioners meeting; final approval of the budget is scheduled for the Tuesday, June 4 meeting. A copy of the full budget is available on the County's website.

No tax increase

The first of four goals that Vest said guided the budget process was to "maintain current tax rates," and the centrality of that goal was emphasized when Chairman Picerno called the wording of the objective his only quibble with the budget.

"I would have said 'maintain or reduce,'" Picerno said.

Vest's budget does indeed maintain the county property tax rate at 46.5 cents per hundred, where it has been since FY 2010, and the Advanced Life Support tax, which funds EMS operations, at 2 cents per hundred.

The fire tax rate in each of the County's sixteen fire districts remain at their current levels, including 4 cents for Seven Lakes, 5.9 cents for West End, and Eagle Springs at 7.5 cents. 

In addition to hearing the initial presentation of County Manager Wayne Vest's proposed FY2014 budget, the Moore County Commissioners got the ball rolling on two key initiatives during their Tuesday, May 7 regular meeting: a deal to buy into a water plant expansion in Harnett County, and the purchase of a site for a new fire and EMS substation in the northeastern corner of the County.

More water from Harnett

Commissioners Larry Caddell and Jimmy Melton have been working with Public Utilities staff to narrow down the list of options the County has for increasing its water supply. After investigating the alternatives and negotiating with Harentt County officials, they settled on buying into the expansion of Harnett County's water plant, which draws its supply from the Cape Fear River.

During Tuesday's meeting, the Board authorized Public Utilities to issue a Request for Qualifications for a consultant to develop a preliminary engineering report and environmental assessment -- the first step toward securing funding for the project. Public Utilities Director Randy Gould said the overall project will take 3.5 to 4 years to complete.

As proposed, the County would pay Harnett County $5.25 million to purchase 3.0 million gallons per day of capacity in its water plant, as well as $200,000 for infrastructure improvements needs to move that water to the Moore County line. That will permit Moore County to pay Harnett $1.92 per thousand gallons for water, compared to the $2.40 per thousand gallons it is paying now.

A waterline extension along NC Highway 73, booster pumps, and a new water tank near West End will add another $5.4 million to the cost of the project.

"This is the first step in a twenty-year plan for water," Caddell said. That plan will also include at least three additional wells to be drilled on sites on Linden Road

Speaking on behalf of both the Moore County Chamber of Commerce Board and the Water Task Force of the Moore County Summit, Chamber Director Patrick Coughlin commended the Commissioners on their decision to move forward to secure additional water resources.