LAURINBURG — After last month’s heated discussion on the stormwater issues in the city, things were calmer at Tuesday night’s meeting on the same topic.
Cape Fear Engineering spoke to the council for the second time on the seven areas the company is looking at for the city. The updates included that unlike what was stated prior to the city does not have access to the easement on Blue Drive.
Matt Haley, director of engineering for Cape Fear Engineering, explained that knowing it was a hot topic area the company wanted to come back and give a better update.
Haley explained that on Blue Drive current existing storm drain elevations do support positive drainage within the ditch but its sediment and debris in a rear lot ditch that is impeding drainage. The city did clean some of the ditch out recently but according to City Attorney William Floyd, the ditch is on private property.
“Political pressure got us into something we shouldn’t have done,” said City Manager Charles Nichols. “We met and spoke with the stormwater engineers after Mr. Floyd cleared things up … elected officials are pointing at city staff as all six or seven of these issues were because stuff wasn’t maintained … as you can see today it would require purchasing easements and ditches.”
Haley recommended that the multiple private property owners to grant easements/access to the city to access the ditch that is causing the issues but per the city’s stormwater ordinance it will require the owners to “cost share” on the improvements.
Also in the presentation included that the storm drain overall in Scotsdale appears to be undersized causing backups but a more thorough analysis would be required to identify the scope of the drainage improvements.
In the October meeting, the company will be back with another update which will likely include estimated prices for the projects.
In other business:
— The council approved allowing Mayor Pro-Tem Mary Jo Adams to execute the right-away agreement and distribution easement with Duke Energy Progress in relation to the second substation to get on the distribution line in November or December.
— At last month’s meeting, the council agreed to have the city take ownership of the old Firestone building, which had been damaged when the former Market Furniture building fell on half of it. Since last month, the city has worked on securing it and has gutted most of the inside, as well as fixed the wall that was caving in. It was stated that the roof did have some issues, so council agreed to have a new roof put on the building.
Reach Katein Gandee at 910-506-3171 or at kgandee@laurinburgexch.wpenginepowered.com