2008 State of the Town Address
Mayor Harold Weinbrecht
Cary begins 2008 by continuing to be one of the most desirable places to live, with tree lined streets, well planned subdivisions, beautiful office parks, world class recreation amenities and a prosperous, diverse citizenry. Cary continues to be one of the top 20 safest places to live in the country, and your Town government is efficient, effective, and fiscally sound. The potential for Cary’s accomplishments are unlimited if we work together on a shared vision of better managed growth, increased citizen involvement, improved environmental protection, and continued sound budgeting.
During the last few years Cary’s population growth rate has begun to increase dramatically, with some reports showing Cary to be one of the fastest growing towns in the nation. Recognizing that growth is necessary for a healthy economy, the Town Council in 2003 set our community’s target growth rate at 3-4 percent measured over a 5 year rolling average, but based on current trends, Cary will likely exceed this target within this calendar year. The time to act is now.
We know that rapid growth can create congested roads, shortages in water supply and sewer capacity, overcrowded schools, and a stressed environment. To continue to move Cary forward, we must adjust growth policies, renew our focus on roads, strengthen our partnership with our schools, increase our already proactive approach to protecting our environment, and maintain our conservative approach to the budget.
To allow our infrastructure to keep up with new development, we will need to adjust our growth policies. We do not need to go back to policies of 1999 and we must be mindful of the economic slowdown the housing market is already seeing.
Good solutions will require the full participation of everyone impacted -- citizens, staff, consultants, and the development community. Our goal should be to better match growth with infrastructure.
For my part, I believe that Cary’s development fees will need to be adjusted so that taxpayers don’t bear the burden of most of the costs associated with new development. We also need to adjust guidelines for large developments to be more sensitive to the surrounding neighborhoods and allow for more meaningful citizen involvement in the development process. And the town’s Adequate Public Facilities Ordinances (APFO) should be corrected to ensure that new development is a benefit rather than a detriment to our existing community.
Cary’s more than 450 miles of roads continue to be some of the best in the state, yet traffic persists as one of the major concerns of Cary citizens. The good news is that this year, Cary’s road system will see the completion of several important widening projects including Tryon Road (phase II), Evans Road, Kildaire Farm Road, and Southwest Maynard Road. But we need to do more. Reviewing and fine-tuning our APFO so that developments complement existing neighborhoods will be extremely important in the upcoming months.
In addition, improving our traffic management system will help with Town-wide traffic issues, including continuing to adjust light cycle timing, launching our traffic Web site, wink, and getting all of Cary’s dynamic message signs in good working order. Increasing our attention to road maintenance will also be key elements in making Cary’s road system superior.
With regards to schools, Cary is blessed that the Wake County Public School System continues to be recognized as one of the premier school systems in the country. But the region’s continued attractiveness to newcomers has created overcrowding with frequent reassignments that jeopardize the quality of life of many in our town. As lobbyists for our citizens, Cary leaders will need to increase our outreach to the numerous officials who can make a difference, and fortunately, the Cary Town Council already has positive relationships with the school system, county government, and area cities and towns that we can build upon. Working closely with other leaders will be absolutely necessary in tackling school issues. Every local government in Wake County - including Cary - must take increased responsibility for the new school seats generated by the new development we approve. In Cary, expanding our current land banking program and creating new programs with developers will be a significant step forward. New programs should also include increased sharing of resources, like parks and gymnasiums, with the county schools.
Cary has long been a leader in environmental initiatives, and continuing to be proactive will be vital to protect precious finite resources, especially water. Our citizens’ culture of conservation has helped give the town a significant water supply during this extreme drought, and we will likely be called upon by the state to do even more, including offering further assistance to neighboring communities unless conditions change. Keeping in mind that our water supply – Jordan Lake – is a regional water source and not ours alone, we must be prepared for this eventuality, standing ready to share with others as we would want them to share with us. Therefore, I am asking each of you to continue to do all that you can to conserve water every day, regardless of drought. We will also need to consider new programs to protect and preserve the environment in the future, and citizens will need to get involved in providing ideas as we move forward.
Prudent budgeting along with increasing revenue has allowed Cary to receive and maintain our AAA bond rating and remain strong financially. Nonetheless, Cary’s increasing debt to pay for capital expenditures (mostly water and sewer) is a concern that will need to be addressed. Conservation of our water resources may help in delaying some of the debt created by future water needs. Other debt may require reprioritizing planned expenditures, or rates may have to be adjusted to meet the needs. In either case, the Town will have to continue working hard to make appropriate, conservative financial decisions so that we can maintain our fiscal health.
Another important issue facing our community this year is the reevaluation of real property. While most Cary residents have seen a significant increase in their property values, Cary’s municipal tax rate will go down when we set it again in June with the upcoming budget. Cary has a long-standing history of charging the lowest tax rate possible for the highest quality of services for its citizens, and this will not change with the current revaluation. Your Town Council is comprised of working families who are as concerned about paying taxes as our citizens, and you can be assured that we will set a tax rate that only yields the amount we need to keep our community the best place to live, work, and raise our families. To help us know exactly what you need from your government, I encourage you to be involved in the annual budget process by participating in the Town’s outreach efforts throughout the month of February.
Finally, though Cary leads the area in community involvement with televised meetings, on-line citizen feedback, and other programs, additional community involvement was a clear directive of the citizenry in the 2007 elections, and I’m happy to report that three initiatives to help with community involvement were approved in the new Council’s first meeting.
The first involvement initiative has been to create a monthly TV program called Cary Matters. In this program Council members will let citizens know about important issues on the horizon so that you can be more involved, and we’ll answer questions from concerned citizens. Cary Matters will begin airing on February 1 daily at 12:30 p.m. and following each televised meeting of the Council, Planning & Zoning Board, and Council committees; the show will also be available in the Cary TV section of the Town’s Web site. To compliment Cary Matters I have begun hosting a journal on my personal Web site, www.weinbrecht.org/JournalPage.html. This journal will provide information about whom your Mayor has been meeting with and what the Council has been discussing.
The second community involvement initiative is to create a task force to set the process for establishing Issue Advisory Groups – groups that to date have come together informally around a hot topic and worked at the grassroots level to influence the Town’s direction. Once the process has been established, qualifying citizen groups will be formally recognized as Issue Advisory Groups and supported by the Town to form and address topics of interest, eventually making recommendations directly to the Council.
The third community involvement initiative has been to call for a public hearing to revamp our board and commission appointment process. If approved, the existing appointment process will be changed so that all future nominations, votes, and interviews of potential appointments will be made openly and in the public eye.
While 2008 will be a year of change, I am confident that it will be a year in which Cary moves in a positive direction. It will be a year where Cary continues to grow but at a manageable pace allowing our infrastructure to grow along with the population. It will be a year in which the environment plays an even bigger role in the Town’s decisions. It will be a year in which citizens become more involved in their government. I am excited about the opportunities and great accomplishments that this year will bring, and I appreciate your faith in me as your Mayor. I truly believe that we all want the same thing – to keep Cary great – and working together, we will succeed.
Watch the Mayor’s address airing regularly through February on Cary TV 11 or on the Web at http://www.townofcary.org/med/video/video1.htm.