Executive Department
1st Quarter Report
Fiscal Year 2004
Activities and Accomplishments
A) The Grants/Special Projects Director, continued to work with the CSAFE (HotSpot) program, serving as the Lead Coordinator. Ann Northam is the Church Street Neighborhood Advocate.
The grant application for Year 6 of the Church Street CSAFE (HotSpot) program was approved as submitted, and we were awarded money for the following programs:
School Resource Officer / Wicomico Middle School / Sheriff’s Department ................... $20,000
Narcotics Buy - Bust Operations / Salisbury Police Department ....................................... $7,579
Prostitution Stings / Salisbury Police Department .............................................................. $6,431
Neighborhood Advocate - Lead Coordinator / Mayor’s Office ........................................ $7,500
East Salisbury Elementary School / Summer Program ....................................................... $3,000
Wicomico Middle School / Dream Catcher’s After-School Program ................................ $3,000
Grace United Methodist Church / Teens On The Go Program .......................................... $3,000
Total Funds Received ................ $50,510
The Lead Coordinator prepared Grant Award folders for each of the agencies receiving CSAFE funds. These folders contained all the necessary state paperwork for project progress and expenditure reporting for each project. All reports will be co-signed by the Lead Coordinator and submitted by her to the State.
CSAFE (HotSpot) meetings continue to be held the third Tuesday of every month at Grace United Methodist Church at 5:30 p.m. The CSAFE mailing list consists of over 100 agency representatives and area residents.
B) Work began on Phase 1 of the Boundless Playground in August. Phase 1 includes all major site excavation, the creation of the parking areas and the asphalt accessible trails, and the purchase and installation of the play equipment and the safety surfacing for the school-age play area. The site work has been progressing nicely, and the play equipment is due to be installed the second week of November.
Phase 2 includes the purchase / installation of the play equipment and safety surfacing for the pre-school play area, picnic tables, benches, trash cans, handicapped-accessible water fountain, fencing and landscaping. Our current estimate for completion of Phase 2 of the project is $164,200. We have completed and submitted a Community Legacy grant application to the Maryland Department of Housing & Community Development to acquire the funds necessary to complete Phase 2. We hope to hear from them in early December.
C) Work has been progressing on the Pedestrian Connectivity Study and the Downtown Lighting Analysis through Davis, Bowen & Friedel. This project was funded through Community Legacy. Davis, Bowen & Friedel began with the gathering of the base data, and from there moved to community meetings to get input from the public on their suggestions for possible improvements. We expect that the final version of the study will be completed and published sometime in October.
D) Work continued on the owner-occupied housing rehabilitation projects being funded through the Community Legacy Revolving Loan Fund monies ($150,000). These projects are being handled by Salisbury - Wicomico Department of Planning, Zoning & Community Development (PZCD). The limited number of contractors willing to do these small rehabilitation projects continues to present a challenge, as well as the extremely busy schedules of the inspectors, but steady progress is being made. We sent a flyer out to the residents in the target neighborhoods this quarter to advise them of the availability of these loan funds, and we received an excellent response. Applications are being handled on a first-come first-serve basis.
E) The Salisbury Neighborhood Housing Service (SNHS) continued working with the $150,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds that they received for their owner-occupied housing rehabilitation grant / loan program. SNHS is running into the same problems that the Planning, Zoning & Community Development staff have been experiencing - extremely busy housing inspectors and lead hazard inspectors, and a shortage of qualified contractors willing to do jobs this small. However, they have multiple projects rolling now, and things are progressing well.
F) In July the City received word from the Maryland State Office of the US Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) that they had determined that the City of Salisbury qualified as an “entitlement community” and would, therefore, be entitled to receive Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds directly from HUD upon HUD’s approval of a Consolidated Plan. As an entitlement community the City will no longer have to compete at the State level with all the other non-entitlement jurisdictions for CDBG funding.
The initial CDBG funding estimate for Salisbury is $357,000 per year. A more definite funding amount should be available by this winter. Our CDBG grant awards from the State over the last ten years have ranged from $60,000 to $210,000. By becoming an entitlement community we will have a set amount of funds available to us on an annual basis for community development projects.
Salisbury responded to HUD on September 26th, advising them that we did wish to accept our status as an entitlement grantee. The City will now begin working on an RFP to hire a consultant to assist us in the development of our initial five-year Consolidated Plan, and the first Annual Action Plan for the City’s new Community Development Block Grant Program.
G) On August 7, the Fire Service Agreement committee met to continue work on developing a new agreement between the City and the County. The County presented a proposal which represented a complete departure from the framework of the agreement under which the City and the County have been working for over twenty-five years. The previous agreement was based on the County paying the City a portion of the City’s Fire Department budget based on the proportion of the calls to which the City responded that lay outside of the City limits but within the Salisbury Fire District. The County’s proposal would base the County’s payment to the City on the amount that the County pays volunteer departments.
On August 27, the City responded by stating that it could not accept this proposal because the services provided by the City are not the same as those provided by a volunteer company. The City also argued that it should be treated differently because its Fire Department is a tax-based service, which is being provided to the unincorporated areas of the Fire District without a tax contribution from the people being served. We stated that we should return to the original concept and continue negotiating to resolve our differences.
Following this meeting, the County met with the volunteer chiefs from throughout the County and asked them to come up with a proposal for how the volunteer fire companies could pick up the calls that the City is now handling outside of the City limits if an agreement cannot be reached between the City and the County. The County Council asked for the volunteer chiefs to report back to them by December.
H) Continuing on with a promise made to the members of the Fire Department, on July 29, the Mayor, the Executive Officer and Acting Fire Chief David See met for the second time with the line officers from the three fire stations to discuss matters of mutual concern. Acting Deputy Chief Tim Keenan was also in attendance. These meetings are intended to establish a line of communications with the line officers to ensure that misunderstandings aren’t allowed to grow into full-blown crises. Among the items that have been discussed at these meetings are: volunteer officer professional qualifications; the process for selection/election of volunteer officers, and role of the volunteer executive board and the rules governing usage of equipment purchased by the volunteers using County funds.
I) At the request of the corporate officers at Fire Station #2, the Mayor and the Executive Officer met with Station #2 President Harold Scott, Norman Conway and Dr. John Bartkovich to discuss the physical standards for volunteer firefighters. Dr. James Burns, the Fire Department’s Medical Director, and the Acting Chief were also involved in this meeting. The volunteers expressed a concern that certain volunteers have been restricted from participating in fire operations because they failed to meet the physical standards recently adopted by the department. They also requested that, if the City is going to continue to enforce these physical standards, an appeal process be implemented so that the decision of the Medical Director can be reviewed if a volunteer fails to pass the physical. Finally, they requested that consideration be given to allowing volunteers to participate in limited activities if they fail to fully meet the physical standards. The group met first on August 12 and then again on September 9. At the end of the quarter, these issues were still being discussed.
J) Throughout the quarter, City staff members were involved in reviewing the proposed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City, Wicomico County, and Wor-Wic Community College for the extension of water and sewer service to Perdue Stadium, Wor- Wic and the surrounding area. This MOU was being developed to set forth the cost-share responsibilities of the various parties to this project and to assign responsibility for other administrative details. At the end of the quarter, the MOU was ready for approval by the governing bodies of the three participating entities. Once approval is secured, the City would be able to advertise for bids.
K) On July 29, City staff members met with representatives of the Station #16 volunteers to discuss the land acquisition process for a new fire headquarters facility. The Fire Department’s facilities planning committee had identified a parcel of land in which it had an interest, however, there were questions concerning contamination of the site by petroleum products of various kinds. In an effort to resolve these questions, and determine the extent of the contamination, the committee had been in contact with the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE). MDE stated that it could do an assessment of the property, under the Brownfields program, at no cost to the City. It was the consensus of the group that we would need to have a contract with the owner of the property before we could have this assessment done, with the contract contingent upon the results of the assessment. This group met several times throughout the quarter to continue discussions. At the end of the quarter, the group was ready to recommend to the City Council that we pursue a contract to purchase the property in question contingent upon a satisfactory environmental assessment.
L) On September 14, we were advised that Hurricane Isabel was headed toward the Chesapeake Bay or the Delmarva Peninsula with a projected arrival in our area on Thursday, September 18. In the subsequent days, the Police, Fire and Public Works Departments particularly were involved in making preparations for this very large, and strong, storm. All activities were coordinated with the County’s Emergency Management Department, which has overall responsibility for emergency response in the County. The hurricane actually passed to the west of the Delmarva Peninsula and so our area was spared the worst of the storm. A considerable number of trees and tree limbs were blown down causing power outages throughout the area. A number of people were without power for varying times up to three days before all citizens in the City had power restored. After the storm passed by the area on Thursday, September 18, the City experienced considerable flooding on low lying areas when the storm surge pushed water up the bay and its tributaries. A number of businesses and residents suffered flood-related damage. On Monday, September 22 the City Public Works Department scheduled a special pick-up of vegetative debris that had fallen as a result of the storm.
M) On August 6 and again on August 20, the City Council discussed the development proposals submitted by Gillis and Gilkerson for the Parking Lot #1 site and Rob Mulford for the Parking Lot # 12 site. These discussions were held in closed session, since they involved the possible sale of real estate. At the August 20 work session, the Council developed a counter proposal for both of these proposals. These counter proposals were transmitted in separate meetings to the firms making the proposals. At the end of the quarter, the Council had not received a counter proposal from either entity, although both were still interested in further discussions. The proposal to develop Parking Lot #1 would involve the construction of a parking garage, and an office building on Parking Lot #1 and a student housing building on adjacent land, which is also owned by the City. The proposal would also involve the relocation of the section of Market Street which is directly west of Lot #1. The proposal to develop Parking Lot #12 involved the sale of the portion of the parking lot, which is adjacent to the Market Street Inn, to accommodate an addition to the restaurant.