The City Council voted unanimously today to include a median, and not a center turn lane, in a widened 1.3-mile section of Falls of Neuse Road.

The vote ends several months of debate over the road’s design. City and state officials had recommended that the widening of Falls of Neuse from Raven Ridge Road to Fonville Road include a median with interspersed turn lanes.

A coalition of residents along the stretch had been lobbying for a five-lane design that included a center turn lane. N&O reporter Sarah Lindenfeld Hall explained both sides of the issue in a recent North Raleigh News article.

The approved road design includes a 17.5-foot-wide median and traffic signals at Raven Ridge Road, Dunn Road and Wide River Drive.

Although the council voted for the median design, it also agreed to address several concerns raised by residents. Six months after the road widening is complete, the city will review the road’s performance to see if any additional traffic signals are needed. The city has also agreed to improve landscaping at several points along the stretch being widened.

The 1.3-mile section is part of a $29 million project to realign Falls of Neuse Road through Wakefield Plantation and add a new bridge over the Neuse River below Falls Lake. The city is contributing $15.2 million toward the project, with the remaining funding coming from state and federal sources.

Falls of Neuse is a state road.

If downtown Raleigh had as much interest from lenders as it did parking, the City Council and City Manager Russell Allen would be very happy people.

Last week the council voted to lease the property at 301 Hillsborough Street to Campbell University so that the school can turn it into a parking lot. You may recall that the land was supposed to be sold to the Reynolds Company, who were going to develop it into a hotel. But Reynolds could never nail down financing for the project, and the City Council and Allen got tired of waiting so they terminated the agreement earlier this year. 

Now the giant hole in the ground at 301 Hillsborough has been filled, and Campbell Law students and faculty will soon be able to park across from the school's new home, which opens next month. The lease agreement was approved at the same meeting where the council gave the developers behind Charter Square more time to get their two-tower project off the ground. The developers were given an extension largely because they are about to finish an underground parking deck below the site, which is at the south end of Fayetteville Street next to the City Plaza. 

The city will buy the deck for about $25 million once it's complete. And let's not forget the Wake County parking deck that was just finished on the other side of the convention center. That deck is supposed to be surrounded by Empire Properties L Building, another project halted by the credit crunch. 

Downtown Raleigh already had a lot of parking before these latest decks, so it seems reasonable to ask why the city appears to have never met a parking deck/lot it didn't like. The leasing of 301 Hillsborough is a sensible short-term use of the property, but are all these parking decks necessary? They're not cheap, after all, particularly when they're being build underground. 

What do you think?

Raleigh’s recently adopted $697 million budget was sharply criticized this afternoon by Wake County Republican Chairman Claude E. Pope, Jr.

In a speech before the Wake County Republican Women’s Club, Pope said the council’s budget was stuffed with unnecessary spending at a time when everyone, particularly governments, should be cutting back.

Pope criticized the council’s decision to not reduce funding for the arts, and also took a shot at City Manager Russell Allen for accepting a $10,000 raise.

Pope compared Raleigh’s budget, which increases spending by $53 million, unfavorably with Wake County’s budget, which reduced spending by $30 million.

Pope said the presence of three Republicans on the Wake Board of Commissioners showed that the GOP is the party of fiscal responsibility.
“We applaud the efforts of the Wake County Board of Commissioners,” Pope said. “In contrast to the city, the county commissioners passed a budget that cut spending, showed compromise and fiscal restraint.”

Pope also criticized the City Council for adding $1.85 million in new spending by reducing the amount the city will put towards paying of existing and future debt.

“If you put off paying your mortgage for a year, you would no longer have a house to live in,” Pope said.

Pope praised Councilman Philip Isley, the only Republican on the 8-member Raleigh City Council and the only councilor who voted against the budget.

Pope said after his speech that he hadn’t spoken to Isley since the budget was adopted on Tuesday.

At least one of Pope's criticisms showed an unfamiliarity with Raleigh’s budget. Pope said the city should have cut inspectors since new building permits have dropped as the housing bubble has burst.
“Have any of these jobs been cut?” he asked.

The city’s adopted budget cuts 15 positions from the Inspections Department.

After his speech, Pope fielded questions from reporters. He said the City Council’s recent actions are an opportunity for Republicans to win back seats. City Council elections are officially nonpartisan, but the number of Republicans on the council has been shrinking in recent years.

Pope acknowledged that the GOP needs to field a stronger slate of candidates this fall.
“The Republican Party needs to do a better job fielding qualified candidates,” he said.

The filing deadline for this fall’s election is July 17.

Lee Sartain announced today that he is running for one of the two at-large Raleigh City Council seats. Sartain works on education technology issues at the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at N.C. State. He also graduated from NCSU.

Sartain is the fourth person to enter the race for the two at-large seats. The two current at-large members, Russ Stephenson and Mary-Ann Baldwin, are running for re-election. Realtor Champ Claris announced last week that he is also running.

Sartain's announcement said his campaign would focus on growing new jobs, comprehensive public transportation and strong neighborhoods:

“Raleigh’s high quality of life and embrace of education, technology, and innovation has led to rapid growth over the last twenty years. More people are calling Raleigh home than ever, and the pace is not expected to slow. This growth has also placed us at a crossroads, and Raleigh must take several strategic steps to ensure a bright future. Stepping up job growth downtown, building strong neighborhoods, and building a reliable transportation system will ensure that Raleigh is a destination city for years to come.”

Sartain also wants to create something called the Raleigh Innovation and Technology Zone in downtown Raleigh. He says it would be an economic development zone designed to compliment and model the success of the Research Triangle Park.

Michael Slawter, a 34-year-old examiner for the N.C. Secretary of State's office, announced today that he is running for the District C City Council seat currently held by James West.

West has held the seat, which covers Southeast Raleigh, since 1999.

In a release announcing his candidacy, Slawter said he's running because he's worried the city has become stagnant: 

“These are tough times economically, socially and I believe we need change. Mr. West has done a great job for Raleigh. However, I believe that more can be done for the Southeastern part of Raleigh and the wonderful folks in my district. We have store fronts that are boarded up, folks shot and left dead in the road, drug deals on corners and folks who are scared to shop at their local grocery store in broad daylight.  Now is the time to make changes. To bring about a new era in Raleigh that can move us in the right direction. I hope to be the leader of that movement.”

Slawter, who has lived in Raleigh for the past 16 years, is married with a young daughter. In addition to being an examiner, Slawyer acts as a the corporation's division liaison to professional boards in North Carolina. Slawter previously worked for the city of Raleigh and the sate Social Security Administration.

City Manager Russell Allen has told Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker that he will accept any decision by the City Council to lower his recent $10,000 raise.

Lowering Allen’s salary would be in violation of the city manager’s employment agreement, which states that the “employee’s base salary or other benefits shall not be decreased during the term of the agreement.”

But Meeker said Allen won’t object should that occur. “Russell Allen has told me that if the council wants to adjust his salary based on budgetary reasons he will not hold us to the written contract,” Meeker said.

Meeker said last month that the council would revisit its May 5 decision in light of public anger over Allen’s annual salary being increased by 4.76 percent from $210,000 to $220,000.

Allen’s raise is three-quarters of a percent more than any other city employee would be eligible for under the city manager’s proposed $696 million budget for next year. The raise was criticized by a number of speakers at Tuesday night’s public hearing to discuss the city manager’s budget.

Meeker said Allen’s raise will be reviewed after the council has looked over the entire budget. The council will meet each Monday at 4 p.m. until a budget is passed.

The City Council spent 95 minutes in closed session during its May 2 meeting discussing Allen's performance review. Only Councilman Thomas Crowder voted against the raise after that discussion. Councilman Rodger Koopman did not attend the meeting.

Some councilors wanted to give Allen a larger raise than he received, while others wanted no raise.
Meeker said today that the purpose of the raise was to reward Allen for a job well done.

“What the council was attempting to do was reward an outstanding manager for excellent performance,” Meeker said.

Critics of the raise have said the council’s decision was tone-deaf given the current economic environment and the budget cuts being implemented by the city. The decision drew even more criticism after Allen released his budget, which calls for smaller raises for city employees, the elimination of a cost-of-living adjustment and higher health care costs for some.

“It’s certainly a perception issue. It’s not a lot of dollars but it’s a perception issue,” Meeker said. “And the council pays attention to perception so we’ll take a look at it.”

About the only thing less popular than City Manager Russell Allen's raise at Tuesday night's budget hearing was the Hillsborough Street roundabout project. One speaker told the City Council that instead of spending $11 million installing roundabouts on Hillsborough it should have used that money for something more useful, like beefing of city employees pay. The comment drew a standing ovation from much of the crowd, something even the most strenuous condemnations of Allen's raise couldn't do.

It will be interesting to see whether the Hillsborough Street project becomes an issue during this fall's election. The result of more than a decade of dialogue, the redevelopment plan for the street has its supporters. But it's clear the project has its critics. And many of those critics are likely to become more vocal as the street gets torn up and inconveniences drivers.

Of course, the completed project may end up being a smashing success. But that success won't reveal itself until long after the election.

The City Council held its first budget workshop late this afternoon and it included the release of more details about the proposed cuts in City Manager Russell Allen’s budget. Among the more interesting items included in the budget notes were:

•  The cut backs at parks facilities include the closing of the Shelley Lake Boathouse, as my colleague Sarah Lindenfeld Hall reported last week. The boathouse is currently open Friday afternoon and all day Saturday and Sunday. Councilwoman Nancy McFarlane asked Parks and Recreation Director Diane Sauer about why the boathouse was closing all operations. (Most of the other cuts involved scaling back hours at all facilities during nonpeak hours.) Sauer said the boathouse’s facilities weren’t used much, the concession stand typically lost money and vandals frequently targeted the boathouse. Add paddle boat rentals and flavored icy drinks to the list of items not immune to the current recession.  

•  Cutting the arts funding from $4.50 per resident to $4 per resident would mean a 14 percent funding reduction for those receiving money under the program. Total funds would decrease from $1.71 million to $1.52 million.

• If the City Council decides to move forward later this year with construction of a series of remote operations facilities and a new public safety center downtown it will require a 1 cent property tax increase in fiscal year 2011 and 2 cent property tax increases in fiscal years 2013 and 2015. The combined cost of the two projects is a little more than $400 million. The City Council won’t make a decision about whether to move forward on these projects until the late summer or early fall, and Mayor Charles Meeker has already said the council is unlikely to green light a tax increase until the economy improves.  The council doesn’t have to take any action on these projects as part of this budget discussion because no additional funding is being included in Allen’s budget proposal. Councilman Philip Isley, an arch opponent of moving forward on the public safety center, reiterated that point this afternoon. City Manager Allen responded by saying that before the council makes any decision about delaying the safety center and remote operations buildings it should tour the city’s existing facilities. Allen said city staff are operating in buildings that are meant to service a city with a population of 100,000, not one approaching 400,000 people as Raleigh is.

Among the items on tomorrow's City Council agenda is a proposal that would require new Raleigh water customers to pay a $100 deposit to get service. Raleigh currently does not require customers to put a deposit down before opening a water and sewer account.

But the city’s Public Utilities and Finance departments say the amount of people skipping out on their water bills has risen in recent years, particularly in the last few months as the economy has deteriorated.

City staff is recommending that new residential and commercial customers be required to put down a $100 deposit beginning Dec. 1. That's the date when the city will switch over to tiered-water rates for residential customers and move to monthly billing, two features made possible by new billing software. Existing customers would not be subject to the deposit ordinance unless they have a poor credit history with the city.

Between 1999 and 2008 the annual amount of bills going unpaid to the Utilities Department has increased from $543,371 to $1,226,850. The utility system’s revenues increased from $37.6 million to $89.3 million during that same period.

The city disconnects on average 1,720 accounts per month with an average bill of $100. Over the last year about $30,000 of unpaid utility bills were due to bankruptcies and about $370,000 was due to bad checks or over-drafts, according to the city. In a memo to the City Council, Chief Financial Officer Perry James and Public Utilities Director Dale Crisp said that “the current economic situation only exacerbates the ability to collect on accounts that have gone in to delinquent status.”

Most other utilities in the Triangle do require new customers to put down a deposit. OWASA and Durham charge $50. Cary charges $60 but will soon raise its deposit to $150.

Raleigh already charges new water and sewer customers a $50 new service fee, meaning residents would need $150 to get service hooked up. The city’s proposal would allow for new customers to have the deposit spread over several bills.

The City Council meets at 1 p.m. Tuesday in City Hall, 222 W. Hargett Street. At 7 p.m the council will hold a public hearing to discuss City Manager Russell Allen's budget proposal.