At Spring Lake’s Board of Aldermen work session Monday, board members voted to officially change their designation to “commissioners” and lengthen members’ terms of office from two to four years.
The board also voted to close Main Street from Spring Avenue to Johnson Street for the monthly “First Friday on Main” series.
Proposed town charter amendment passes
What happened: Board members voted unanimously to amend the town charter to lengthen terms of office and to change the board’s official name from “board of aldermen” to “board of commissioners.”
Why it matters: Changing titles from “aldermen” to the gender-neutral “commissioner” required a change to the town charter, written in 1951. Over the years, the board has discussed changing election terms from two years to four years for board members and the mayor, and held a public hearing at the last board meeting.
What’s next: The town charter will be amended and all references to aldermen will be changed to commissioner. The four year terms will not be retroactive and residents can vote for new commissioners to serve four years starting in 2025.
Board approved road closure for town festival
What happened: The board approved a road closure to bring First Friday on Main for 2024 starting on Friday, July 5. The Main Street festival, which includes vendors, live music and food trucks, will take place every first Friday until November.
Why it matters: The town festival started last September. Commissioner Marvin Lackman asked when residents and Main Street property owners would be notified of the street closures, which was a concern last year. Mayor Kia Anthony said they wanted to make sure that the money can be raised to host the festival before they marketed it fully.
What’s next: Town residents and property owners will be invited to the monthly festival from 6-9 p.m. the first Friday of each month. A new addition to Main Street will also include the Spring Lake Military Banner Program, which will bring banners to honor military loved ones from Memorial Day through Veterans Day.
Special use permit proposed for a new digital display billboard
What happened: Jason Smallwood, who leases the property at 102 N.C. Hwy. 210 on behalf of Grace Outdoor Advertising, asked the board to issue a special use permit for a south-facing sign to be replaced by a digital face. The north-facing sign will remain static. The structure height is 50 feet and the LED lights automatically dim at night.
Why it matters: While most special use permits go through the Cumberland County Joint Planning Board first, this request went directly to the Spring Lake board.
What’s next: The request passed unanimously for the board to include a digital display.
Update on the Spring Lake parks renovation plans
What happened: Michael Gibson, director of Fayetteville-Cumberland Parks and Recreation, updated the board on Mendoza Park proposed improvements. Fayetteville-Cumberland Parks and Recreation took over park maintenance in November 2022 in a merger between the county and the town. Gibson said the group was considering resurfacing the walking trail, upgrading the athletic field’s turf, replacing the picnic shelter roof, renovating the bathroom facility, improving the parking lot and ensuring that everything looks uniform across the different county sites.
Why it matters: Spring Lake has a multi-purpose community center along with the senior center, five parks, a splash pad, two basketball courts and two tennis courts. Citizens were told in November 2022 that the parks would be receiving an upgrade. Gibson said that the money that the county is working with for Spring Lake is $200,000 and he was going to make “magic” happen because just the piece of play equipment proposed is $180,000 and updating fixtures in the bathroom facility would be $20,000. He said one of the best parts of the merger is being able to buy in bulk so it would be less expensive in the end to be a part of a group buy than Spring Lake trying to do things on their own.
What’s next: Gibson will be looking for sales on play equipment including a one-for-one sale that happens in the fall and will be coming back in the next few months to update the board on replacing the playground equipment for children up to age 14 in Mendoza Park, off of N.C. Hwy. 87.
In other news, the board appointed Anthony to serve as the Spring Lake representative on the Regional Land Use Advisory Commission (RLUAC).
The board will also come back to a future meeting to change the bylaws of the Spring Lake Events committee to remove community members from the committee. According to Anthony, they found it is only necessary to include town employees in planning, fire, police, public utilities and trash since they are the ones who need to make the decisions, not community members.
It was also the first meeting that new Town Manager Jon Rorie joined the board. Town Clerk Carly Autry said Rorie was sworn in as town manager by the mayor privately last week.
Anthony said the town plans to publicly acknowledge his new position at a future meeting.
Commissioners will meet next at 6 p.m. June 10 at the Grady Howard Conference Room of the Spring Lake municipal complex. There will not be a meeting on May 27 because of the Memorial Day holiday.
Jami McLaughlin covers Spring Lake for CityView TODAY. She can be reached at jmclaughlin@cityviewnc.com or at 910-391-4870.
