It has been a busy couple of weeks in city government since the last column. Our City Clerk, Dee Hammonds, said to me the other day that she cannot remember there being so much activity and so many ‘irons in the fire’ down at City Hall as there are right now. Before anyone reading this mutters under their breath something like, ‘yea, they’re probably busy redecorating the Mayor’s office’ or some other such snide remark, let me set you straight.

In the water department, last week we heard the preliminary report from the consultants regarding the water/wastewater plant in Wagram that is for sale. About 30 local and regional public officials were present, from Scotland, Robeson, Hoke and Moore Counties. The upshot was that the surrounding counties are interested in partnering with us but that further study is needed to see what works best for everybody. Scotland County and Laurinburg see this as a valuable asset, but the expense involved in purchasing and modernizing it may necessitate this type of regional approach, in order to share the costs and because state grant funding may be greater for a regional effort than if Scotland County/Laurinburg tried to do it alone, the cost being over 20 million dollars.

Over at the Laurinburg-Maxton Airport (LMA) there finally seems to be some real momentum gathering as BRAC approaches. The main impediment to growth at LMA has been the state of the main runway, which may be considered good if what you want is practice landing in third world countries, but bad if you want to attract US military subcontractors to locate there. With the recent news that the cost of resurfacing the airport has been more than cut in half with the process of rubblization and with more funding already recently obtained, it appears that this large hurdle may be surmountable in the near future. A delegation from the County and City will be returning to Washington, DC this month to meet with our lobbyists there and hopefully secure the remaining rubbles for rubblization.

Last Saturday, we had an all day City Council retreat over at St Andrews. The purpose of the retreat was to begin to prepare for the budgetary process. With the recent unemployment report showing unemployment at 17%, meaning 2,335 people in the County are currently seeking work, (and I’m sure many others underemployed), the focus was jobs,jobs jobs and what is the City's role in helping improve the economy here. Many people may discount how bad the situation here is by saying things like ‘ah, if you look hard enough anyone can find a job, people are just lazy etc.’ If that were the case, why did Nature’s Earth, who recently re-opened the old Eaton plant, have to stop taking applications after they received over 500 for the 94 jobs they are thankfully bringing to Laurinburg?

This was the third retreat we’ve had since I’ve been mayor and I am quite sure that none of them was as focused on improving the economy here as this one was. We devoted time to hearing each councilmember sharing their ideas and visions for what they would like to see happen in the City. Councilmember Leak summed this up when he expressed the desire that we develop an overall mission for what is Laurinburg going to be in the future, now that farming and industry are no longer the major economic engines they once were. There was general agreement that significant job growth was most likely to come from expansion of the service sector. Several ideas that were well-received were exploring developing a light industrial park within City limits, exploring how to induce real estate developers to building a retirement community for young retirees, developing a master plan for downtown revitilization, a stronger commitment and urgency to development of the airport, assisting small business start-ups, and many ideas on improving the economy by improving the quality of life through retail recruitment and expansion of recreational and performing arts venues. Though all of these ideas cost money, there was also the consensus that these initiatives could only be considered in the context of not raising city taxes and no layoffs of city employees. So, over the coming months, we will be looking very closely at how we are currently spending taxpayer’s money and how we can work towards achieving some of these goals within those budgetary constraints. We also will ask for citizen input to make sure we are moving in the direction the citizens desire.

Lastly, on behalf of Council, I want to thank all the city workers who enthusiastically stepped up to help ensure the City ran smoothly and safely during the recent storm.