The Laurinburg City Council will consider a request for $1,475 tonight to help with scholarships for the Young Entrepreneurs Academy!

Funds for the scholarships will come from the city’s youth council budget. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at City Hall.

Also to be voted on during the meeting will be a grant to assist the Laurinburg Police Department’s traffic safety efforts.

The department has been awarded a grant for nearly $11,000 to be used for highway checkpoints and traffic enforcement around the city.

Provided by the North Carolina Governor’s Highway Safety program, the $10,870 grant will be finalized following a resolution by the city council.

In addition to a “light trailer” used to direct traffic in a highway checkpoint, the funds will also be used to purchase flashlights, traffic vets and traffic cones.

During tonight’s meeting the city will also seek to streamline and update its solid waste policy. The city will adjust its requirements for the handling of waste containers collected by the solid waste department.

If approved by council, the solid waste policy will require that garbage and recycling containers be placed adjacent to the street for removal and then removed from the curb “not later than 7:00 p.m. on the same day of garbage or recyclable removal.” Excepted from that requirement are businesses and manufacturing locations, where “empty containers shall not be left on the street for more than 30 minutes during the hours between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.”

Among other modernizing changes, council will also be asked to approve the inclusion of a definition of “electronic waste.”

Previously not addressed by the solid waste policy, “electronic waste” will be defined as “any type of electronic equipment, such as television sets, computer equipment and accessories, copiers, VCR’s, microwaves, etc.”

In other business, the city will consider resident Harold Mercer’s appeal of a decision by the city zoning officer to declare automobiles on his property “junk vehicles.”

In his request for the appeal, Mercer asks the council to consider his grievance in a closed session. “I don’t think you want it to be aired to the public,” writes Mercer.

The appeal will be heard by council in a “quasi-judicial” setting. It was suggested by the city’s legal counsel during last week’s agenda workshop that council members avoid contact with Mercer prior to the meeting in order to maintain neutrality in the matter.