April 2019
The Liberty Leader Newspaper
Town Of Liberty Mayor’s Spring Update Mayor’s Spring Update First, I would like to thank the Liberty Fire and surrounding departments for their prompt response to a structure fire on W. Moffitt Avenue. No one was injured and there was no damage to neighboring property. Please install smoke detectors in your homes! The Fire Department is working with the Red Cross and we hope to have some additional news regarding fire prevention. The Town Council unanimously decided to select the design for the "Need Based Design" for the new Liberty Police Department Facility costing approximately $1,320,000. It is not very often that a Town gets the chance to invest in a new building for a service as vital to a community as a police department. After several years of research, exploration and feasibility studies, the Council came to the conclusion that the most cost beneficial approach would be to construct a new facility on Town property adjacent to the existing Police Department. Preliminary plans and design specifications will be forthcoming. The Town is pursuing financing through the US Department of Agriculture Rural Development Community Facilities (USDA CF). The loan terms will be paid out over 40 year so that more of those who will benefit from the service will pay for the service. In addition, the annual payment will be much less pressure on the general fund spread out over a longer period of time with a USDA CF loan. The payment terms will be approximately $1.3-1.5 million borrowed for the PD facility at 4.25% interest for an approximate annual payment between $78,672 - $89,400 depending on bids and some other factors. There are no foreseen tax increases to fund this project. The Town has been awarded $100,000 in Golden LEAF funding to conduct a comprehensive study of the inflow and infiltration problems that have plagued
Volume 17 Issue 4
the system for years. The goal of the study is to prioritize repairs, as well as to determine if Hurricane Florence contributed substantially to increased inflow and infiltration. A full report will be available for public consumption in September. The Town has also been awarded $2,000,000 from the State Water Infrastructure Authority (SWIA) to be administered by the NCDEQ Division of Water Infrastructure Community Development Block Grant for Infrastructure program. These funds will benefit the entire community by completely replacing and/or rehabilitating sewer collection lines and laterals from South Murphy Street to South Carolina Street and from W. Swannanoa Ave. to W. Kime Ave. An estimated 15,000 linear feet of line will be rehabilitated in the next 2 years under this program. Stay tuned for more information! The funding is awarded with the intention for the community to increase awareness of fair housing issues, increasing opportunity for low income individuals, and providing equal opportunity for all in Liberty. The funding will be on a reimbursement basis and we expect to start this summer with environmental and engineering studies. Construction will begin in late spring or early
summer 2020.
The NCDOT, in conjunction with the aforementioned CDBG project, will be delaying repaving of W. Swannanoa from city limits into downtown in order to save taxpayer and CDBG funds. They will move forward with repaving from city limits out to the Highway 421 interchange in the coming weeks. The Town is hosting the Construction Professionals Network Institute (CPNI), NCGrowth, Randolph Community College, Randolph EDC, Heart of NC Tourism Authority and several community leaders to contribute to a feasibility study of our existing downtown building stock. The goal of the study is to determine the feasibility of establishing an entrepreneurial incubator in downtown Liberty where people can come together to start and grow enterprises and increase the economic vitality and resilience of the Town of Liberty!! We are very excited for this project. If you are an entrepreneur who could have or thinks you would be able to benefit from this project, we want to hear from you. Please contact us at www.Liberty-NC.com, email us at townhall@townoflibertync.org, or call us at 336-622-4276. Look forward to a full report later this summer.
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Free Monthly Newspaper April 2019 Liberty Leader Phone 336-404-9791
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Volume 17 * Issue 4 www.libertynewspaper.org