By By MIKE VOSS
Contributing Editor
Washington’s City Council, during its meeting Monday, adopted a capital-projects ordinance to allocate funds for stormwater drainage projects in the city.
In May, the council voted to pursue spending nearly $4 million on such improvements in the Jack’s Creek basin. That vote does not obligate the city to issue bonds or spend any money on the projects.
To pay for the projects, the city is looking at using $4 million of the nearly $6 million in Economic Recovery Zone Bond capacity awarded to the city by the N.C. Department of Commerce. Of the $4 million the city is looking at spending, $42,000 would be used to replace the roof at the city’s headquarters fire station at the corner of North Market and Fifth streets.
Economic Recovery Zone Bonds are another tool that local governments may use to enhance their economic-development efforts. Issuance of such bonds does not require a referendum. Economic Recovery Zone Bonds are a form of Build America Bonds. The city was allocated $4,475,000 in bond capacity for stormwater drainage improvements.
About nine years ago, an engineering study identified about $12 million in projects that would help alleviate the city’s drainage problem in the Jack’s Creek basin.
The council, in a move to help pay off the bonds, accepted Councilman Doug Mercer’s suggestion that the city spend no less than $400,000 each year to retire debt on the $4 million in projects. The $400,000 to be spent on debt retirement each year would come from revenues generated by the stormwater fees imposed on city property owners and residents.
At the urging of Mercer, the council also approved a resolution that calls for the Highway 17 Association to seek funding for an economic-impact study of the U.S. Highway 17 corridor that runs through North Carolina from the Virginia-North Carolina line to the North Carolina-South Carolina line. Mercer is a member of the association’s board of directors.
The highway weaves through 13 eastern North Carolina counties, including Beaufort County. Portions of the highway have just two lanes, including a 30-mile stretch between Washington and New Bern and a 20-mile stretch between Washington and Williamston.
According to its Web site, the association’s mission is to assure, through collective action and constancy of purpose, that the inclusion and funding of all unfunded portions of the U.S. 17 corridor shall be part of DOT’s Transportation Improvement Program.
During the association’s annual meeting in New Bern in April, Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton, who delivered the event’s keynote address, touched on the economic effects a completely four-laned U.S. 17 would have on eastern North Carolina. Four-laning the entire highway throughout the state would improve trade routes to the area’s seaports and access to its military bases, including Camp Lejune and Cherry Point. It also would promote tourism to the region’s coastal areas, he said.
“It (U.S. 17) has always been a main artery for coastal tourists,” Dalton said.
The funding will be sought from the Golden LEAF Foundation.
The foundation was created in 1999 as a nonprofit corporation by court order in the consent decree resolving tobacco litigation started by the N.C. Department of Justice. It receives half of the funds coming to North Carolina as a result of the master settlement agreement. It makes grants to nonprofit and government agencies in efforts to improve the economic and social conditions of the state’s residents. Among its goals is receiving and distributing money for economic impact assistance.
LEAF stands for Long-Term Economic Advancement Foundation.