Pat Devane gives updates on the process of fixing the roads in Elizabethtown.
The second speaker of the night addressing the Council.
Attendees at the Town Council meeting on July 10.
Despite the tension at the Town Council meeting, it was a lovely evening in Elizabethtown.
ELIZABETHTOWN — Last Monday’s Town Hall meeting on July 10 got a bit more heated than usual during the open floor portion, during which community members can voice their concerns or issues related to the town. The main issue at Monday’s meeting? The roads in Elizabethtown were striped and have not been repaved.
The meeting began as usual with the presentation of the colors by cadets from the Paul R. Brown Academy, followed by an opening prayer that seemed like both an opportunity to thank God for his blessings, as well as an attempt to elicit compassion for Councilmembers from attendees who had gathered to speak.
During the prayer, Mayor Pro Tem Rufus Lloyd asked God that the hearts and minds of those in attendance would be open and for “a sense of clarity that whatever is said or done will be for the betterment and improvement of this wonderful town in which we live.”
Lloyd then blessed the residents of the town and prayed a “special blessing for each person assembled, regardless of the circumstances of their reason for being present.” He also asked for the blessing of the Council members, staff, and “each and every person that provides vision and understanding” to help make Elizabethtown a better place to live.
The agenda was adopted by Councilmembers and assistant Town Manager Pat Devane was given the floor to make announcements, using the majority of the time to preemptively address the issues with the roads.
Devane explained that approximately three years ago, the town started a road study with the goal of doing something meaningful in town. SEPI Engineering & Construction is the company that was hired. According to Devane, SEPI works closely with the NCDOT and many of the employees have worked for the NCDOT in the past.
“They came to Elizabethtown and they rode all of our city streets and they mapped and graded the streets,” said Devane. “They gave us an extensive report at the end of about five or six months of investigation, and then we had to come up with a plan to carry out the recommendation.”
The recommendations given were to pave some of the worst streets with an inch and a half to two inches of fresh asphalt. It was also recommended to go throughout the town with a patching crew to fix potholes and other areas of concern with deteriorated pavement. SEPI also suggested crack-sealing the roads. According to Devane, the town has completed all of these recommendations and were planning to finish with a chip seal project, described by Devane as “tar and rock in two layers.”
The chip seal process was started last month and although most of it was completed, “We had a lot of complaints with that, so we stopped,” said Devane. “We have come back with a fog seal, which we did not intend to do, but we had money left in the project and we sealed some of the streets. We vacuumed the rocks off of them and swept them and we have sealed some of the streets and they ride much better.”
According to Devane, they were able to do this for everything to the west of Forest Hills. The reason the rest of the streets haven’t been sealed with the black tar is because they can’t get the crew back into town.
“They’re busy. Their schedules are about two years out from what they’re doing and we haven’t been able to get them back. We were able to entice them to do some streets so we could see if this was a process that would be satisfactory to our citizens. They did some of the streets and I think they ride much better. We don’t have any loose rock on those streets.”
Those who live on streets that have not yet been fog-sealed will have to wait until around November for the process to start back up.
“The problem we have now is getting somebody here to do the work. We have been waiting for these people for about six months to do the chip seal and now they can only do that process through October 15, so when they get all their contracts done by hopefully October 15 or maybe a week or two beyond that, we hope to have them back in here the first of November to do the rest of the streets that have been chip-sealed…” said Devane of the progress of the project. “I think you’ll like it. It’ll take care of all the loose rocks.”
In the meantime, residents will have to deal with a few more months of the roads that remain unfinished. Much of the concern is the safety of drivers and pedestrians. It can be difficult for cars to get proper traction on the rocks, and the spinning of tires could send rocks flying, causing them to hit other cars or pedestrians. It was also brought up at the meeting that these road conditions aren’t safe for children who may be riding their bikes more often during the summer break.
At the end of Devane’s report, Mayor Campbell jumped in, saying, “It’s gonna be fixed. We’re working trying to get them here sooner rather than waiting until November, but they were actually here in town about a week ago, maybe two weeks now, and the weather was really bad and it kept them from paving for about 3 days, so they’re gonna be coming back to take care of that.”
Before opening the floor for open discussion, Mayor Campbell added, “These roads are the town’s responsibility, and we feel that responsibility very strongly. It’s sort of like going to the dentist. You have to go and do a little bit along to keep the whole row from falling out. So we’re trying to take care of these roads the best we can, and I want you to know that we’re spending money very wisely, and I cannot say enough about this staff of the Town of Elizabethtown. For a town our size to have projects like we’ve got going on, you have to have grant money, and they are every day looking for ways that we can get grant money to make our town a better place for you, and I hope you all know that.”
Three of the four residents who spoke during open discussions addressed the difficulty of leaving the roads unfinished, and many of the complaints were about the quality of life in New Town. The third speaker of the night brought up that her area in New Town always loses power during storms and that, despite contacting Duke Energy and the Town of Elizabethtown, nothing seems to get done to rectify the problem.
The night’s second speaker spent his time questioning why it seems to him that New Town is always low on the priority list. He then went on to say that New Town residents pay taxes like everyone else, but it seems that they never see any benefits in the area from that money. Mayor Campbell responded by saying, “that’s exactly what we want to see in the New Town area, is for people to come and try to help us build that up, and thankfully we’ve got the grant for the community center and hopefully we can get some more grants.”
The second speaker continued with his questions, bringing up the recently completed Carolina QuickCare, saying that the town had plenty of money for the expense. Councilmember Howell Clark took exception to the statement, speaking up to clarify that “no public money went to that” and that “ a private individual did that.” Clark seemed to misunderstand the speaker, believing he was accusing the Council of misappropriating grant funds from Golden Leaf. Other council members quickly spoke up to clarify that the man was hoping to help the Council gain access to additional grant funding from Golden Leaf.
The Council, especially Mayor Campbell, reassured each speaker that their issues are important to the town and concluded the meeting by encouraging any residents who may have a problem to attend the Town Council meetings on the first Monday of each month at 7 p.m. at Town Hall to voice their concerns and issues.