The Franklin Town Council approved additional funding for the next phase of the Main Street transformation project and set to work on updating the town charter during its October 5 proceedings.
The transformation project is evaluating concepts for Main Street like more trees, wider sidewalks to facilitate outdoor dining and events, and even parking changes.
As outlined in the agenda, “The North Carolina Department of Transportation has a resurfacing project programmed on Main Street, which gives the Town a narrow, low-cost window to reset the curb-to-curb space through pavement markings and other resurfacing compatible changes. In the longer term, the Town wants to know whether downtown circulation can work differently, and what Main Street could become.”
The second-round task order calls for John R. McAdams Company, the original contractor, to answer four questions:
- What can change with the resurfacing project, and what does that look like on the ground?
- How can traffic move through downtown, and is two-way operation on Main Street workable?
- What should Main Street become over the long term, once circulation is settled?
- What does the Town do next to fund, permit, and build it?
“We did budget, moving into the 2027 budget, an amount for task order number two in the amount of $200,000 in preparation for continued work on the project, meetings with DOT, in conjunction with the resurfacing project,” said Town Manager Amie Owens. “McAdams came back to us with a slightly higher task order too, but what it does is actually incorporate additional meetings with the DOT. It does some additional traffic studies for the traffic coming off of the Highlands Road and Depot Street as they’re assessing what changes may need to be made to Main Street.”
When questioned about whether the town had entered into negotiations to address the additional $29,546 needed to fund the new task order, Owens said yes. The firm found ways to replace some in-person meetings with virtual sessions and looked at ways to lower overall costs.
The additional funds will be applied to DOT meetings. The town would like to ensure decisions made upfront will stick and not require costlier remedies 10 months to a year down the road.
The council approved the final amount of $229,546 through a budget amendment and approved the second phase scope of work.
Town Charter changes?
The Council also agreed to form a committee to review and update the Town Charter prior to the 2027 North Carolina General Assembly session.
“We’ve got an opportunity to step back and look at an extremely old document in some places,” said town attorney John Henning, Jr., “There’s references to things that we haven’t done in this town for probably going on a 100 years, a mayor’s court and stuff like that.”
Mayor Guffey, Councilwoman Rita Salain, and Councilman Robbie Tompa agreed to serve on the review committee, with a plan to draw in the full council for further discussion in the November-December timeframe.
Assistant town manager and finance director Sarah Bishop provided a combined finance and planning department briefing in which she detailed a high degree of activity.
The finance department is
- finalizing the town audit,
- reviewing an ABC audit,
- transitioning to cloud-based computing to increase speed, storage, and cyber protection capabilities, and,
- reviewing uniform guidance to ensure grant eligibility.
Bishop also introduced Callie Barrett to be the new town planner. Barrett replaces Justin Setser who took over as chief of the Franklin Fire department.
Assistant town manager/finance director Sarah Bishop introduced the new town planner to council member
Other business
There was a powerful moment in the early stages of the meeting as Mayor Stacy Guffey called the meeting to order. He reminded members that in December, “A young man walked into these chambers to be sworn into a life of public service, the highest calling.” The members then stood for a moment of silence honoring the life and service of Officer Marcus McCarson.
Council also unanimously approved to move $3,000 from contingency funds to cover costs for the demolition of property located at 185 Rogers Road.
The property was approved to be vacated, closed, and demolished at the September 8 meeting due to the deplorable condition of the property that had affected health and safety of the local neighborhood.
