It's nearing budget time again and Laurinburg City Council began wading into what could be troubled waters.

One of the major issues city officials foresees is the the upcoming property assessment.

"[The assessments] will be flat or will we will be losing value around the county," City Manager Craig Honeycutt said at Friday's planning retreat.

Honeycutt told the council that there has been a decrease in value at the plants that closed or has ceased some operations because the machinery is no longer there. The machinery was factored into the property value for many of these places when the property was last assessed eight years ago.

The assessments will not take effect until the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

Bill Riemer the city's director of administration and community development, said that there is a chance that the property valuation calculations will be adjusted to take into account the collapse of housing bubble.

He said he had never seen a decrease, the unprecedented times could cause a drop in property values by 15 to 20 percent.

Riemer stressed that he does not know what will happen.

Honeycutt also mentioned the possibility that there may be a decrease in the amount of sales tax revenues that will be given to the city.

He did say that, despite some of these struggles, the budget is in good shape.

"We have to commend these department heads and these staff," Honeycutt said. "They are not out there spending money unnecessarily."

"I think some of the things we have done with the hiring freezes and capital have helped," Honeycutt said. He said that most of the credit still belongs to the city's staff.

He mentioned that the current schedule for cost of living is unrealistic for this year. The city had been going by the average Social Security increase, which was 5.6 percent this year.

Honeycutt said that staff is not expecting any increase in wages this year because they understand the current shape of the economy and the city budget. He added that he strongly believes that council should do something for the staff if they can find space in the budget.

Honeycutt said he was opposed to a tax increase this year. He said that the residents could ill afford the additional cost during the current recession.

He said, however, that North carolina Eastern Municipal Power Agency was planning a five percent increase in rates next year, something he expressed frustration about.

The council looked over the budget information and will discuss it further at a future meeting.

Charette

Council members were briefed on the design charrette the Laurinburg Downtown Revitalization Corporation is currently hosting.

The program is the idea of Heather Ray, a Laurinburg native and a current student at the UNC-Charlotte School of Architecture.

Ray, along with LDRC Administrative Assistant Barbara Alexander, presented the project to city council in a thirty minute session at the Daily Grind before the city council retreat.

The goal of the project is to create an architectural vision for the downtown area.

Ray and Alexander discussed some of the issues with downtown and some of the limitations the LDRC faces.

The defined three major issues for downtown.

First, there are a number of vacant buildings. Several buildings will need to be torn down because they are condemned or would be more costly to repair than to replace.

Second, a number of people complain about the amount of parking. They were looking at ways of creating more parking, better utilizing the parking spaces available and requiring downtown merchants to park somewhere other than Main Street.

Third, people feel unsafe at night, especially in walking to their cars. They talked about installing street lights and getting officers to escort people to their car. Alexander indicated they got negative feedback on the police escort suggestion because people did not want to wait for officers to arrive.

They also described some of the struggles.

LDRC can not currently apply for grants because it is not a 501(c)(3) nonprofit - it is a 501(c)(6). This makes the organization ineligible for most grants, according to Alexander.

There are also limits on how much restructuring the city and LDRC could perform.

The results of the project will be announced tonight at 6 at the Daily Grind.

Mosquito program

City council heard a presentation on mosquito control from Amadou Jallow, a representative from the state health department.

“Mosquito control is all about public health & safety,” Jallow said, asserting that mosquito programs are important

He said a number of diseases are carried by mosquitoes, including West Nile and Eastern Equine Encephalitis.

Jallow noted that recent health complaints from people in Laurinburg and Scotland County, as well as from surrounding counties, reflect the need for a mosquito program.

He complimented Laurinburg’s mosquito program, saying “Laurinburg is going a good job, comparatively.”

Jallow then discussed some of the options people use for controlling mosquito populations.

The current method the city uses, adulticide, controls the current adult population. He said the problem with the approach is it does not affect unhatched eggs.

He said the other major route is larvacide, which kills mosquitoes as they hatch.

Jallow described this method as being more focal

“You get a bigger bang for your buck," Jallow said.

He recommended concentrating any efforts on breeding areas

“Larvicide would probably be the most cost effective way of doing it”

He said the key to an effective mosquito program was understanding the source of the insects so the city can create a plan to best reduce the mosquito population.

“If you are targeting container mosquitoes, spraying adulticide won’t help at all,” Jallow said as an example.

Last year at budget time, city council had decided to cut the mosquito program's funding in half. They have since refunded the program due to citizen complaints.

Beautification Committee

Addie Pratt, chair of the Beautification Committee made a presentation to city council about the committee and discussed the committees responsibility.

"One of the things we’ve been going over in the past few meetings is a wish list," Pratt said.

She said this list is a group of ideas to improve the aesthetics of the city.

Some of the ideas she mentioned were:

• Developing a long-term plan for some of the major thoroughfares.

• Putting in window boxes with flowers at downtown businesses.

• Creating city-run nurseries for flowers.

• Beautifying the entrances to St. Andrews.

• Create ordinances to address private property between sidewalk and city street.

• Find ways to get people more involved in city beautification.

• Create a litter control position.

Councilmember Amanda Faulk expressed that she thought the committe should come up with ideas for the city, but to avoid micromanaging.

The rest of council agreed with this assessment.

Faulk also said she wants to avoid having the city do work on private property.