STOKESDALE town council
June 9 / MEETING HIGHLIGHTS as reported by PATTI STOKES Mayor Mike Crawford called the monthly meeting to order with Mayor Pro Tem Derek Foy and council members Jim Rigsbee, Tim Jones and Jimmy Landreth present. Following the Pledge of Allegiance, Councilman Rigsbee gave an opening prayer. The meeting agenda was unanimously adopted. 4 1 (Jones opposed) to approve the Aug. 12, 2021 meeting minutes. Before casting his vote, Jones said he objected to being forced to vote on approving minutes from a meeting in which he wasn’t serving as a town council member (Jones was sworn into office in December 2021).
PUBLIC SAFETY Stokesdale Fire District Chief Todd Gauldin reported the department responded to 93 calls in May; of those, 11 were fire-related calls, 44 were medical related and 38 were “other” (miscellaneous). Safety message: Gauldin encouraged citizens to always remember to put a smoke alarm on every level of the house, inside and outside of any room that is a sleeping area, and to periodically test the alarms to ensure they are working and change the batteries at least once a year. He note that smoke detectors are available for those who are hearing impaired.
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ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT Town clerk Dale Martin said water bills would go out the week of June 13.
Martin said the town has received 120+ resumes for the deputy clerk position; a notebook in Town Hall has been updated with the revised water system specifications approved at last month’s meeting. Also per council’s approval last month, a performance bond was released for the Coldwater Terrace subdivision. Staff recently worked on extending the approval period for running water lines to Phases 3, 4 and 5 of Northwest Meadows and an application to extend water lines to the North Ridge subdivision, Phase 6, has been submitted to the state. The Clean Water Needs survey, required by DEQ, has been submitted to the state and the Consumer Confidence Report on the water system is posted on the town’s website, Martin reported.
FINANCIALS
Town Finance Officer Kim Thacker provided balances in the General Fund account. Foy asked about the .5% interest rate for the funds in the Bank of Oak Ridge checking account, which is more than the rate the town is getting on its CDARS. “I’m surprised that a checking account is returning more than a CDARS account,” Foy said, and Thacker agreed to research this as well as confirm the maturity dates for the town’s CDARS.
CITIZEN COMMENTS On behalf of Friends of Stokesdale, Eileen Thiery requested Fire Chief Gauldin correct the statement he made at last month’s council meeting in which he indicated a representative(s) of the nonprofit attended a fire department board meeting a few years ago and pre-
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sented a plan to put a town clock on the department’s front lawn “with the agreement that the nonprofit would be responsible for the electricity cost and the maintenance of the site.” Thiery said FOS members have confirmed that no one from their group appeared before the fire department’s board, but they did accept responsibility for maintaining the area around the town clock that is on the front lawn of Stokesdale Fire Department. “Therefore, we will be returning the check the town issued to the Friends of Stokesdale,” Theiry said, referring to the council’s vote last month to donate money to FOS in appreciation for the work they have done in beautifying the downtown area. Thiery also said FOS would appreciate Gauldin submitting a corrected statement to the town council. Council members discussed whether it was necessary for FOS to return the check for the donation, since it was not a payment, and Theiry said she would leave that between the council and the group’s president. Town Clerk Dale Martin read a letter from Summerfield resident Maria Adams, a parent and self-described children’s advocate, who wrote of two Northern Guilford High School parents who challenged a book assigned by an AP English teacher because of its sexually explicit content. Although the teacher who assigned the book, “Salvage the Bones,” gave the option for students to read a different book because of the content, parents were not informed of the explicit content, Adams wrote. Adams said that after reading the book, a student in the AP English class told his parents he found it to be “disturbing,
