William “Trey” Mayo Appointed Fire Chief

   

 "City Manager Lee Garrity today announced the appointment of Rocky Mount Fire Chief William “Trey” Mayo as Winston-Salem’s next fire chief. Mayo will assume his duties Jan. 12, following the retirement of Chief Antony Farmer on Dec.31.

        Mayo, a third-generation firefighter, began his fire-service career in 1989 as a volunteer in his hometown of Plymouth, N.C. In 1996 Mayo joined the Raleigh Fire Department and was named valedictorian of the 1996 Raleigh Fire Academy. During his 11-year tenure, Mayo rose to the rank of captain and was assigned to engine, ladder, and rescue companies in south and east Raleigh. He was recognized with the Professional Firefighters and Paramedics of North Carolina’s Emergency Services Award in 1999. In December 2006, Mayo returned to Carrboro Fire-Rescue, where he had previously volunteered, and served as deputy fire chief until May 2010. He assumed his current position in Rocky Mount in June 2010. 

        “I am very pleased with the amount of feedback that I have received from all levels of personnel within the department and Chief Mayo has received tremendous support throughout,” Garrity said.

        “After careful deliberation of all aspects of the chief’s job, I have determined that Chief Mayo is the best candidate to assume this major responsibility for our community. He will provide the leadership to the department and the community as we seek to upgrade the services provided to our citizens.”

        Mayo said, “I am honored to have been offered this opportunity. I am eager to continue advocating for enhancements to the wide range of emergency and non-emergency services delivered by the men and women of the Winston-Salem Fire Department.”

        Mayo said his immediate priorities will be to assess the department in the areas of safety, services, programs and policies, effectiveness, and efficiency. “I want to get a good grasp on where we are and how we arrived here and then guide the department toward a vision of continuous improvement.”

        Mayo, 41, has an associate’s degree in fire protection technology from Wilson Technical Community College, a bachelor’s degree in industrial relations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a master’s degree in public administration from North Carolina State University. He is a graduate of the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer Program and is credentialed both as a chief fire officer and as a member of the Institution of Fire Engineers.

       Mayo and his wife, Annie, have a two-and-a-half year old daughter, Charlotte. Mayo’s salary will be $125,000 annually. At the end of 12 months, he also will be eligible for a special merit pay adjustment based upon successfully accomplishing several key initiatives in the department."

- A Press Release

Winston-Salem council urges citizens to express outrage to state lawmakers on guns in parks

People stand to express opposition to a state law denying municipalities authority to regulate concealed guns in parks.

Winston-Salem City Council voted to update its local ordinances to reflect legislative changes by the NC General Assembly to expand the areas in city parks that citizens can carry concealed firearms to playgrounds, greenways, and biking and walking trails, but under protest.

The vote gave people on both sides of the gun-control debate an opportunity to vent their feelings.

City Attorney Angela Carmon said that under the state law passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly this year, the only areas that cities may prohibit concealed firearms are playing fields, and then only under certain circumstances such as when games are scheduled. She said that if the city failed to make the update, the entire ordinance could become unenforceable.

"This issue is not about the Second Amendment, which all of us up here support," said Councilman Dan Besse, a Democrat who represents the Southwest Ward. "It's not about the right to own guns to protect yourself in your home and your family. It's not even about the right to have a concealed-carry permit. This is about forcing concealed guns on the rest of the community in our parks and greenways and public spaces."

Besse called the state legislation "wrong-headed and dangerous." Councilwoman Molly Leight, a Democrat who represents the South Ward, piled on by saying it was "ignoble" and "goes against any logic."

Council approved the amendment to the ordinance by a vote of 7 to 1, with Councilwoman Derwin Montgomery, a Democrat representing the East Ward in dissent. Councilman James Taylor Jr., a Democrat representing the Southeast Ward, said he wished he could abstain, but his vote counted as a yes.

A dozen or so supporters of gun-owner rights, including Pat Kleinmaier, a Republican candidate for the North Ward seat on council, gathered outside City Hall before the meeting. Some wore stickers stating "Guns save lives." A security officer Lankford Protective Services told them they could not carry signs into council chamber, and some citizens voluntarily surrendered their poster-board props to him. The meeting drew both gun rights supporters and gun-control advocates, who filled council chamber and a committee room set up with a live video feed to accommodate overflow. Police said about 85 people showed up for the meeting.

Brian Reese of Kernersville, who said he spends time in Winston-Salem doing business, was one of the few gun-rights supporters who spoke during the public comment period.

"I see it as an individual's right to life," he said. "I as an individual want to make sure I stand a fighting chance to survive any encounter that I come across. So it's not the Second Amendment trumping property rights. To me, it's an individual's right to life.... It's that .38 revolver that gives a four-foot, 90-pound woman a fighting chance against a guy my size. It's a great equalizer."

The city council also passed a resolution expressing opposition to the state law. Council members note that the city's greenway system is composed of easements granted by private property owners, and City Manager Lee Garrity said the law is silent on whether the property owners retroactively ceded their right to prohibit concealed firearms on their property when they granted easements to the city.

The resolution reads, in part: "It is extremely imperative that citizens and members of the North Carolina General Assembly understand that Session Law 2013-369 not only arrogates control of municipalities over their own parks but it creates potential conflict between private property owners and greenway users wishing to carry concealed weapons."

Garrity added that the city parks are supported by city funds paid by city taxpayers, and that the city is liable if anyone is injured in a fall.

Councilwoman Wanda Merschel, a Democrat who represents the Northwest Ward, apologized to constituents who conveyed easements without knowing that they were potentially allowing greenway users to bring firearms on their property.

The resolution goes on to urge citizens who have expressed outrage over the city's inability to prohibit concealed handguns in its parks to share their concerns with state lawmakers.

Republican state lawmakers from Forsyth County, including Reps. Debra Conrad and Donny Lambeth, pledged to clarify the legislation as it affected greenways during a joint meeting with council members earlier this year, but stopped short of saying they would restore the city's authority to regulate guns in its park system.

Mayor Pro Tem Vivian Burke, a Democrat who represents the Northeast Ward, expressed scorn for the Republican-controlled legislature, stating, "It's an embarrassment to say you're from the state of North Carolina because of the behavior of some of these people in Raleigh," but then went on to vote against the resolution. She joined Councilwoman Denise D. Adams, a Democrat who represents the North Ward, and Councilman Robert Clark, a Republican who represents the West Ward.

Clark, like many of his colleagues, said he objected to the state legislature seizing authority from local government, but explained his objection to the resolution as tactical.

"Charlotte picked a fight with Raleigh, and they no longer control their airport," he said. "Asheville picked a fight with Raleigh, and they no longer control their water system. If we pick a fight against Raleigh, we could end up losing control of our parks. I just think the old adage applies that you don't bring a knife to a gunfight."

City council also approved $4 million in incentives to Wake Forest University Health Sciences for expansion of the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter on the eastern flank of downtown. Specifically, the funds will be used by Wexford Equities LLC to develop a 230,000 sf lab and office facility and parking deck at the northeast corner of East 5th and Vine streets in the space formerly occupied by Reynolds Tobacco's Building 90 South.

Under the deal, the city would provide payments equal to 65 percent of the net taxes paid by the owner over an 18-year period. Deputy City Manager Derwick Paige said the incentives would be paid annually and only after the tax payments were received. The non-profit owner also agrees to keep the property on the tax rolls for an additional 20 years after the initial 18-year period. Mayor Allen Joines said that combining $2.3 million in tax revenue in the first 18 years and $7 million in the next 20-year period, the city would gain an almost $10 million in the deal.

Taylor said the deal would not have happened without incentives from the city.

In other action, city council approved a plan to move forward with the creation of three district police stations, although Merschel noted that the resolution does not commit any city funds to the initiative. The resolution also identified the Lucia building as the facility to house the district station in the southeast part of the city.

The council also voted to rename Civic Plaza — bounded by 3rd, Street, 4th Street, Town Run Lane and the Strollway — in honor of Merschel, who is retiring from council at the end of this year.

The resolution cited Merschel for being the first woman appointed to chair the city council's finance committee, helping the city garner recognition for maintaining the lowest combined tax and fee structure of any major city in North Carolina, along with supporting downtown initiatives such as "Restaurant Row," BB&T Ballpark and the downtown business improvement district.

Merschel wiped away tears as the resolutions was read.

"I've gone through 16 of the most difficult budgets in this city's history and never cried," Merschel said. "But I am honored and I am humbled. I can think of no greater honor than to have a green space in our community's living room that will bear my family's name."

Winston-Salem council: No evidence of misconduct in sanitation department

The Winston-Salem Council voted unanimously tonight to adopt a resolution stating that the city manager and city attorney found no evidence to substantiate allegations of forgery, perjury, unaddressed incidents of sexual harassment, failure to respond in a timely manner to a medical situation and retaliation in the sanitation department.

The statement was issued in response to remarks made by several current and former employees to council in a public comment period during a Feb. 18 meeting.

The formal statement indicated that council was prohibited due to state personnel privacy law and a federal healthcare privacy law from disclosing additional information, but directed the city manager to try to obtain written authorizations from affected employees so that additional details of the investigation could be released at a later time.

"We are very willing and anxious to provide the information," Mayor Allen Joines said. "We take those allegations very seriously."

The city council met twice in closed session to discuss the matter.

"We did a thorough investigation," City Manager Lee Garrity said after the vote. "It did take several interviews. This all had to be reviewed by the city attorney. The city council members had questions. And then we had to determine what the city council could and couldn't release."

Victor Bethea, a sanitation laborer who was among the current and former employees who addressed council in February, declined to comment tonight on council's formal statement.

Bethea explained to council members how he had been implicated in the firing of another employee, Angelia Byrd, the driver for his crew.

"In reference to Ms. Byrd I was the person that they forged his name on false accusations about her that I did not state or did not write a statement to," Bethea said during the Feb. 18 city council meeting.

Garrity told YES! Weekly in late March that no forgery occurred, and that the matter had arose because of confusion on the part of Deputy Sanitation Director Randy Britton during a hearing for Byrd to appeal her termination.

Donald Gore, a sanitation driver who complained that he had suffered a minor stroke after driving a truck that lacked air conditioning on a hot summer day, also declined to comment this evening.

City council hears report on discontent in sanitation department

Council members pose for a photo to commemorate the city's centennial.

Winston-Salem City Council met in closed session for about 50 minutes on Monday night to hear a report from top administrators on the findings from an investigation into allegations of misconduct in the sanitation department.

"We do take these issues very seriously, and that's why we have asked for this investigation," Mayor Allen Joines said after council adjourned in public following the closed session. The mayor added that he was limiting his statement to avoid preempting a formal statement to be drafted by City Manager Lee Garrity and City Attorney Angela Carmon on behalf of the city council and released in the coming weeks.

Former and current sanitation employees have raised several issues of concern about the department, including allegations of sexual harassment, unsafe working conditions and disrespectful treatment by citizens who are customers of the department's public services. Most troubling perhaps is an allegation by a sanitation laborer captured on an audio recording that a supervisor forged his signature on a statement.

The supervisor, Darrell Moody, can also be heard on a recording obtained by YES! Weekly, pressuring the laborer, Victor Bethea, to change his statement and threatening to write his own statement in substitution. Both incidents took place during an administrative investigation that ultimately led to the dismissal of a driver named Angelia Byrd who was involved with a confrontation with a resident over whether the resident should be receiving special backyard trash pickup.

The allegations were detailed in an investigative report published by YES! Weekly earlier this month. Garrity, Assistant City Manager Greg Turner and Sanitation Director Johnnie Taylor, along with Carmon, met in closed session with council to answer members' questions.

Joines said the city will have to strike a balance in its statement between providing adequate detail to maintain public confidence and protecting the privacy rights of employees.

"It's a very difficult position that the city is in," he said. "We have to be careful in how that's worded to protect the rights of employees, but we do want to reassure the public that the department is being managed appropriately." 

Addressing council during the public speakers portion of the meeting before council went into closed session, Byrd reminded council members that she had come before them last month with allegations of sexual harassment, forgery and wrongful termination. She asked Joines and the other council members what came of the investigation and whether anything had been done about it.

Joines responded that council would be unable to publicly address many of the allegations because of restrictions on the release of personnel information.

Byrd said after the meeting that she expects to meet with Garrity to receive a report on the findings of the city's internal investigation. 

Related to the personnel problems in the sanitation department, employees have raised questions about possibly abuses in the city's curbside garbage pickup program, which allows residents to receive backyard service simply by filing an application that attests that no one in the household is capable of moving trash to the curb. About 5 percent of households in Winston-Salem receive backyard service in Winston-Salem, compared to about 1 percent in other cities across the state. A citizens budget review committee has recommended that the city require residents to obtain a doctor's note to continue to receive backyard service -- a change that would save taxpayers an estimated $114,000.

"I've been a bit concerned about the large number of exemptions," Joines said on Monday. "I've felt for some time that we should maybe take a look at that issue and perhaps adopt a more formal policy and require more detail in the applications."

He added that he expects staff to make a detailed report to the city council's public works committee on the matter in coming months.

Councilman Dan Besse, who represents the Southwest Ward, has said he supports the current policy, arguing that requiring the elderly and people with disabilities to obtain a doctor's note would subject them to indignity and unwarranted inconvenience.

"Thus far a majority of the Winston-Salem council has come down on the side of the elderly, frail and disabled," he said earlier this month. "That's my vote, and I'm sticking to it."

In other news, the council unanimously approved a resolution in support of legislation filed by NC Rep. Ed Hanes Jr. that would allow county commissions to set aside the most recent tax reappraisal. Constituents in predominantly black neighborhoods on the east side of Winston-Salem have sought relief from the recent round of revaluations, which they contend have artificially diminished the value of their properties.

Council also delayed a vote on change orders to Blythe Construction and HDR Engineering for work on stormwater management and new streets at the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter on the eastern flank of downtown.

Councilwoman Wanda Merschel, who represents the Northwest Ward, said she opposed the change orders because of escalating costs due to unforeseen environmental contamination.

"At some point someone's going to have to explain to me what could have been done to avoid $5.2 million in change orders," she said.

Turner, the assistant city manager, said fly ash and fuel oil were discovered that were likely created by a physical plant and incinerator operated by the city. He said state would require the city to clean up the mess one way or another.

"This is our fly ash and our fuel oil poured on top of it," said Councilman Robert Clark, who represents the West Ward, "and we have to clean it up."

Merschel replied, "This one is hard.... This one just looks bad for taxpayers."

Before council could take a vote, Councilman James Taylor Jr., who represents the Southeast Ward, made a motion for no consideration. The parliamentary procedure results in the matter being placed on the agenda for the next meeting in April. After listening to objections from Merschel, along with Mayor Pro Tem Vivian Burke and Councilwoman Denise D. Adams, Taylor said he found himself on the fence and surmised that he might be in a position to cast the swing vote on the contract.

 

Winston-Salem police officer's firing upheld by city manager

Robert Lee Baker

Winston-Salem City Manager Lee Garrity upheld the termination of police Officer Robert Lee Baker in a final ruling on Wednesday.

Baker was suspended without pay in August for conduct unbecoming, a violation of department rules.

Garrity noted in his letter to Baker that the violation "was based on your actions in officially reporting off-duty employment hours worked for the Housing Authority of Winston-Salem (HAWS) when you did not actually work that full number of hours. An investigation by the professional standards division revealed that on multiple occasions you left your off-duty employment before the scheduled end of the shift. Yet based on your submissions to HAWS and the hours entered into the police department's off-duty employment tracking software, you were paid for working full shifts and thus received a greater amount of pay than you were lawfully entitled.


Type rest of the post here

Streetcar desires and budget realities

Winston-Salem may have to wait for a streetcar system.

City leaders are getting cold feet about putting a $100 million bond issue, which would include funds for a streetcar system connecting Winston-Salem State University and Baptist Hospital, on the November election ballot as they anticipate consecutive tax increases just to cover basic services such as keeping police officers employed. The council had contemplated a modest tax increase of about 1 cent to cover debt service on the bond.

Budget challenges faced by the city include an anticipated 11-percent decrease to the property tax base with revaluation next year, the loss of federal stimulus dollars for police salaries, increased fuel costs, and plans for the city to kick in more for employee salaries and healthcare benefits.

For all of these reasons, City Manager Lee Garrity told the city council’s finance committee this evening that he is recommending that there be no bond referendum this year.

“The latest numbers for the first quarter of this calendar year are very concerning,” he said. “Sales of houses are up, as you may have read, but the price versus assessed value is down. A house in Forsyth County right now on average is selling for 11 percent below tax value. What that means for us going into the year after next with the budget is pretty significant.”

Garrity said the city has learned that Reynolds American has finished closing its Whitaker Park plant, resulting in millions of dollars of equipment and machinery being transferred either to Tobaccoville in Forsyth County or to locations overseas.

“That’s almost a million-dollar revenue hit for next year,” he said.

The city projects a $10.5 million budget gap for the next fiscal year, and a $17.1 million gap in fiscal year 2013-2014, including an $8 million loss from the revaluation. Staff recommends that council spread the pain over the two years by levying consecutive tax increases of 5 cents and 4.75 cents respectively.

The 4.75-cent tax increase would maintain revenue neutrality from the standpoint of the city.

“I think we need to explain that even though the tax rate may increase, the value of your underlying property has gone down, so you would not be paying more property taxes,” said Councilwoman Wanda Merschel, who represents the Northwest Ward.

Garrity cautioned against assuming that a revenue-neutral tax increase would be painless to city residents.

“The commercial part of the real estate base is probably going down more than the residential, so shopping centers — all those type of properties,” he said. “So that will cause more of a transition of the tax burden from the commercial base to the residential base. Many residents… will see a tax increase.”

Among the cost-savings ideas floated by staff are phasing out police officer positions, eliminating commercial garbage collection, looking at recreational centers that are underused, implementing a hiring freeze and excluding police new hires from the city’s local retirement plan.

“There are ways we can responsibly cut the size of the [tax] increase and we should,” said Councilman Dan Besse, who represents the Southwest Ward, after the meeting. “Unfortunately, I don’t think we can avoid some increase without making irresponsible cuts to public safety and services. I think it would be irresponsible to lay off 33 police officers.”

Council had planned to hold a workshop to discuss a wish list of projects that could be funded through the floated $100 million bond package.

“I’m suggesting that it might be prudent not to have that meeting,” Garrity said.

Besse said if the council decides against putting the bond package on the ballot this year, it should be resigned to wait until 2016 because the tax increases presented to taxpayers this year and next are likely to sour voters on a new bond.

“In the off-year elections we have a smaller turnout of the electorate,” Besse said. “On average, they are going to be more impacted by local factors in terms of their thinking than in a presidential election year. The presidential election will give us the broadest audience for the argument for the investment that the bonds will represent. If we determine that we can’t forward to the voters the investment package this year, then I think we should plan on having to wait until 2016.”

Besse indicated after the meeting that he hasn’t given up on the possibility of financing a streetcar system through a bond referendum this year, stating that council members have yet to come to a decision. He said the streetcar system would spur investment and increase the city’s tax base.

“We get a big, new economic benefit from a streetcar system that we don’t get from anything else we’re talking about,” he said. “This is a tough set of years to talk about a discretionary public investment even when the long-term return would be enormous.”