County moving forward with $2.5M for Martin Luther King Jr. Park improvements

The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners on Thursday voted to place a $2.5 million agreement with the city of Fayetteville for improvements to the Martin Luther King Jr. Park on its Oct. 17 consent agenda.

The interlocal agreement passed unanimously among the commissioners present for the monthly agenda meeting. Commissioners Jeannette Council and Michael Boose did not attend the meeting.

The agenda meetings allow board members to discuss items and issues that may be placed on an upcoming regular meeting agenda. If the commissioners vote unanimously on an item during the agenda session, the item will be placed on the upcoming consent agenda. If there is a split vote, the item will be placed under items of business and open for continued discussion at the regular meeting.

The interlocal agreement will pay the city $2.5 million for improvements to the city-owned Martin Luther King Jr. Park on Blue Street. The city will be responsible for the administration and all aspects of construction. Also, the city will be responsible for the maintenance of the park enhancements.

The total cost of the improvements is $7.2 million. The project is headed by the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park Committee, a local nonprofit organization. A lighted, 120-foot spire was among the improvement projects considered for the park.

The state of North Carolina appropriated $2.5 million to the committee, the city appropriated $2.5 million, and Cumberland County’s portion is the remaining $2.5 million.

The commissioners in November 2021 approved a capital project ordinance for the construction project. The city also approved funding for the project.

County Attorney Rick Moorefield told commissioners that the Dr. Martin Luther King Park Committee is responsible for the design of the improvements and that money provided to the committee by the state should be used to pay for the design.

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He also assured commissioners the county would pay its portion to the city under a reimbursement system.

The commissioners also had two briefings. The first was from Alliance Health. Rob Robinson, chief executive officer, and Sean Schreiber, chief operating officer, of Alliance Health gave the Board of Commissioners an update on recent activities of the managed care organization.

The Cumberland County Innovation and Technology Services Department briefed commissioners on its numerous ITS projects. Keith Todd, chief ITS director, told commissioners many of the projects have been completed during the past year. He said several projects are upcoming in the current fiscal year.

Completed projects include:

• CureMD/LIMS, an electronic health record system that digitizes, automates and streamlines workflow processes, and is integrated with a new Laboratory System LIMSABC. Also, it allows for data sharing with other state entities.
• EnerGov Upgrade, which improves features, enhances the ability to develop custom reports, adds additional modules at the same cost, and allows for integration with PayIt.
• Emergency Rental Assistance Program, Phase 1 system with dashboards. The base system allows staff to review and pay rental assistance to citizens.
• The Sobriety Court System is an internally developed system that enables staff to enroll residents who have been court-mandated to attend the county sobriety program.

Current ongoing projects include:

• Neighborly is software for loan tracking, HUD grant tracking, construction bids and awards tracking. This software allows Community Development to become more efficient.
• Techlogic, upgrades for the library check-out software, hardware, RFID pads, gates, and tags.
• A countywide digitization initiative to back scan physical documents across the county and develop digital processes. This is an ongoing project.
• Time Clock Plus, a county timekeeping system to replace manual timesheets and digitize the timekeeping process.

Future projects include:

• Fire RMS (Records Management System) to replace current fire RMS software. The current system has limited interface capabilities, the invoice process is manual, and the product is approaching end-of-life.
• Migrating county email addresses to the new domain (@cumberlandcountync.gov), the next step is to move the current email to the online model to better support remote work.
• A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) program. ITS is beginning a discovery/feasibility phase of a CRM system to determine opportunities to leverage a system that maintains effective customer service.
• Finally, an ERAP Phase 2 implements customer portal.

Jason Brady covers Cumberland County government for CityView. He can be reached at jbrady@cityviewnc.com.