At a meeting last week commissioners agreed to move forward on the project after hearing recommendations from the public works committee. The committee had been asked to visit town halls in neighboring towns, to assess Fuquay-Varina’s needs and come up with recommendations.
The proposed new wing would include a larger board meeting room plus offices for the town manager, his administrative assistant, town clerk and the economic development director.
No price estimate has been applied to the project; however, Town Manager Andy Hedrick suggested at a meeting in February the town move ahead at least to look at plans and get estimates while interest rates and construction costs are low.
The committee has suggested the addition be designed to minimize the “add-on” look and made to appear that it was a part of the original design. A suggestion was made that the new wing be located at the intersection of Old Honeycutt Road and the present back drive behind the municipal building. An earlier design proposal had placed it at the corner of Old Honeycutt and Judd Road.
The meeting room should seat 150 people comfortably and be oriented with the audience section more wide than deep, so all visitors would have a good view of the commissioners, the committee agreed.
Another recommendation reads: Modern technology such as computers for board members, large wide-screen monitors for audience viewing and a clear, crisp audio system that enables audience members to clearly hear everything said should be included.
The recommendation states that technology necessary to have meetings televised should be installed, even though it might not be used when the new meeting room is first opened.
The final recommendation reads: “The building should be nice, but not “gaudy.”
It should represent something that the citizens of Fuquay-Varina will be proud of while appreciating that their tax dollars were not wasted on frills.”
Manager Hedrick summarized that final recommendation with, “We can’t afford a Cadillac, but we don’t want a Pinto either.”
Now that board members have agreed to move forward, town staff will proceed through the legally-required process to invite proposals, review and rank proposals and offer a recommendation for the board to consider. Proposals will not carry price estimates, Hedrick said.
In other business commissioners struggled over how to regulate signs in the parts of the historic business districts on Main and Broad Streets.
The question arose after Kris Kristofferson sought clearance to place a sign on a building he has renovated at the corner of Main and Academy Streets that would replicate a sign in use many years ago marking the building Mitchell Chevrolet Company.
In a proposed amendment to the sign ordinance, Mike Sorensen had described such signs as “historically significant.” He had defined as eligible for consideration signs in use prior to 1981 when the town adopted its first sign ordinance.
Mayor John Byrne expressed serious concern about that date as an appropriate marker for historic signs. He also said he felt some additional criteria had to be used to decide whether a replica sign cites a business that, in fact, contributed to the town’s heritage. He said the town might look at what the North Carolina Historic Preservation Society uses to determine what buildings qualify for historic status.
Board members decided the word historic should be replaced with the word heritage in the sign amendment. They also ask for other minor changes in the wording.
Three board members, Charlie Adcock, Jim Abernethy and Jimmy Johnson, then voted in favor of the amendment with a provision that all applications for heritage signs come to the board for final approval at least until all language in the ordinance is specific enough to cover their concerns.
Commissioner Cindy Sheldon favored giving the planning department two weeks or more to “tweak” the amendment to cover board members’ concerns, then putting it on the books. She didn’t like the idea of adopting an ordinance amendment knowing the board expects to change it sometime soon. Commissioner Bill Harris voted with her.
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