Public Works Miscellany

It has been Public Works week in my world with various issues including the Hwy 3 closure. As a result of sharing that information, the good folks on Facebook who are friends with the City asked some good questions about two other roads — Dakota Street and 8th Street. Below is an update for those that are curious.

Hi everyone. Here is an update on 8th Street and Dakota Street. First, both of these culverts became too damaged for traffic during the floods caused by Tropical Storm Fay. Because they occurred as the result of a weather event with the possibility of FEMA funds, the city applied for grant money to make repairs.

Unfortunately, neither project received federal funding and the application process caused delays in beginning work on Dakota Street. Basically, to receive the grant, Kannapolis couldn’t begin work to fix the road until FEMA had reviewed the merits of the application. Not the best scenario, but it was important to make sure there weren’t funding sources outside of city dollars to make the repair.

Now, for the good news. Dakota Street is currently being repaired and is slated for a mid-May opening. The bad news is that 8th Street is a very expensive fix (in excess of $1 million or $.003 on the property tax rate). There is no time frame for 8th Street due to the cost.

To give you an idea of the needs for both these projects and others, check out the presentation given at the council retreat in December. You can access it by visiting this page on the city website and clicking on “City Council Retreat Transportation, Stormwater and Pedestrian Five Year Plan.”

http://www.cityofkannapolis.com/co_services_display.asp?id=1427&deptid=1

Election Filing Deadline Tomorrow!

If you are interested in running for an elected position in 2010, the filing deadline is tomorrow at noon. These seats are open:

• U.S. Congress (6th, 8th, and 12th districts)
• State Senator
• State Representative
• County Commissioner (Cabarrus and Rowan)
• Sheriff
• Clerk of Superior Court
• Cabarrus County, Rowan County, and Kannapolis Boards of Education
• Rowan Clerk of Court, Register of Deeds, District Court judge, District Attorney

The Cabarrus County Board of Elections website and the Rowan County Board of Elections website have more information. The primary elections for each party will be held May 4. Early voting will begin April 15.

Be part of the democratic process – run or vote!

In addition, applications are being accepted for the following Cabarrus County boards and committees:

• Adult Care Home Community Advisory Committee
• Agricultural Advisory Board
• Animal Preservation and Protection Advisory Committee
• Centralina Workforce Development Board
• Concord Planning and Zoning Commission (ETJ)
• Criminal Justice Partnership Program Advisory Board
• Harrisburg Fire Advisory Board
• Industrial Facilities and Pollution Control Financing Authority
• Juvenile Crime Prevention Council
• Mt. Pleasant Planning Board and Board of Adjustment
• Nursing Home Community Advisory Committee
• Piedmont Area Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Authority
• Region F Aging Advisory Committee
• Tourism Authority

Click here for details and/or for an application. It would be great to have some Kannapolis representatives on these boards!

The Science of Road Repair

Example of a box culvert.

As most of you — our faithful readers — probably know, Hwy 3 is currently closed between Rainbow Drive and Franklin Avenue due to a water main break. Apparently what happened is that a box culvert settled, resulting in the break of the waterline. We’ll know more on that later.

Repairs are currently underway and would normally be completed in a day. But here’s the problem. In the winter you can’t always get hot asphalt or dry material to make the repairs. That little issue will likely delay the repairs on Hwy 3, and it has also impacted the progress on our downtown waterline project on a few different occasions.

So, when you hear on the news about this being the coldest winter in however many years, you now know one other little (or not so little depending on your normal driving routes) impact this winter is having in our region.

It’s Council Meeting Monday

Tonight is City Council meeting night in Kannapolis (I know that sounds really exciting). While you probably have no interest in actually attending the meetings, you can keep up with what happens at the meetings two ways.

First, you can read the council agendas on the city website. By visiting the Calendar section, you can scroll to find the meeting. The agenda is always linked. Here’s the one for tonight.

Secondly, you can sign-up for eKannapolis, an enewsletter that goes out after each council meeting. To subscribe, email me and I’ll add you to our database. You can also find archives from this year on our website.

$20 on the 20th – Support Local Businesses!

The Salisbury Post is spearheading a campaign for consumers to spend $20 on the 20th to support their local businesses.  In addition to their recent editorial and article, you’ll also see advertisements from local businesses for the specials they are running for tomorrow.

Some members of the Kannapolis Business Alliance are also running some promotions to encourage spending dollars locally:

• Bruster’s Ice Cream – running a 20% off coupon
• Cannon Pharmacy – running a 20% off coupon and $20 Cannon Dollars to transfer Rx
• Fall’s Jewelers – Personality Jewelry charms only $20 on the 20th
• Kilby’s Florist
• Plaster Creations – running a 20% off coupon and 2 items under $20
• Southern Charm – running a 20% off coupon
• Wallace Furniture
• Wiggles & Giggles Consignment
• YogaMoxie Studio – 2 Yoga classes only $20, plus coupon for 10% off 6-class purchase with 2-class purchase

Keeping your consumer dollars with locally owned businesses means that you are supporting the community’s small businesses and entrepreneurs, helping to create local wealth and jobs.

Groundbreaking on the Kannapolis Parkway

Rendering of the new PBH headquarters.

A few short years ago, I felt like I was at a groundbreaking every other week as our economy seemed to race in a constant state of overdrive. Obviously, things slowed way down last year. Which is why the groundbreaking yesterday for the PBH headquarters was so much fun.

Their new facility will be located across from Caremoor Retirement Center, and from what I understand construction should take about 15 months (but don’t quote me on that). Here are some excerpts from the official news release (email me if you’d like to see a full copy):

The groundbreaking for the new PBH Corporate Center on Kannapolis Parkway held Wednesday, February 17, will allow the managed behavioral healthcare organization to gain cost savings and efficiencies by moving all staff under one roof. PBH is the Local Management Entity (LME) for mental health, development disability and substance abuse services in Cabarrus, Davidson, Rowan, Stanly and Union counties. Its headquarters is located in Cabarrus County. Currently, PBH staff is spread across five locations in the Concord area…

Dan Coughlin, Chief Executive Officer of PBH, said, “The building will give staff the ability to use technology to gain effectiveness, be more productive, and  reduce costs on building rent. In addition to these gains, the new building will allow PBH to offer employment opportunities for consumers on a small scale, and both providers and consumers will have use of and benefit from a state-of-the-art training facility.”

The building was designed by Entasis Design, Inc. of Kannapolis and will be built by Edifice, Inc. of Charlotte.

From left: Bryan Knupp, Edifice, Inc., general contractor; Todd Meckley, Entasis Design, Inc., architects; Dan Coughlin, PBH Chief Executive Officer; Betty Babb, Chair of the PBH Board of Directors; Bob Misenheimer, Kannapolis Mayor; Pam Shipman, PBH Chief Operating Officer; Eric Coulson, Entasis Design, Inc., architects; and Gary Creed, Edifice, Inc., general contractor.

Kannapolis Transformation Recorded by NCSU

The North Carolina State University Libraries’ Special Collection Research Center (SCRC) has been documenting changes occurring in Kannapolis as our city moves from an industrial economy to a biotech economy. This evolution was preceded by Kannapolis transitioning from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy. Many of our area’s early residents made a living by farming. But when J.W. Cannon chose farm land in Kannapolis to become the site of his model mill town, many of the farmers moved from a tiller to a loom.

PAUL DAYVAULT FAMILY

Paul Dayvault, seated, sold 72 acres of farmland he used to grow corn and cotton to J.W. as part of the 1008 acres purchased in total to build his mill village. Dayvault’s son Dolph, far left, later worked for Cannon Mills Company as a sewing machine fixer.

Fast forward to February 1982. Long after J.W. Cannon built the mill and son Charles led the mill into great financial success and world acclaim, it was sold to David H. Murdock, sole owner of Pacific Holding Corporation. In December of 1985, Mr. Murdock sold the mill to Fieldcrest, an Eden, NC based textile firm. Then in September of 1997, Pillowtex Corporation of Dallas, TX purchased the mill. The largest layoff in North Carolina history occurred in 2003 in our city when Pillowtex permanently closed its doors, leaving 6,450 workers without a job. The mill had been in operation for more than 115 years.

On September 12, 2005 David H. Murdock, Dole Foods and Castle and Cooke CEO, announced a most ambitious plan for the Cannon Mills site that he purchased for the second time in 2004. The idea to transform the mill site into a unique college campus where scientist would come from around the world to study human nutrition was formulated. But rather than the traditional notion of a campus housing only one university, the idea began to take shape of a campus that would house multiple universities with a core lab at its heart. “We will be the largest single scientific research area anywhere,” explained Murdock.

Construction begins on the the North Carolina Research Campus

And this is the unique story that the North Carolina State University Libraries’ Special Collection Research Center is working diligently to preserve.  The NC Research Campus Archives captures this transformation with tools such oral histories, photographs and press releases.

North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Research Campus are sponsoring a lecture series that dovetails nicely with this archival collection. The D. H. Hill Library at NC State University has planned The New New South Lectures.  Mark your calendar for February 23 at 6 pm when Dr. Steven Leath, vice president for research, UNC system, presents the first lecture of the series in the David H. Murdock Core Laboratory. Partnering Transformation: Challenges of a Public/Private Partnership will be of great interest to everyone involved with the campus and our community.

North Carolina Workers and the Industrial South will be presented on March 4 at 4pm by Dr. David Zonderman, professor of labor history, NC State. This lecture will take place at NC State’s D.H. Hill Library.

Rising to the Research Challenge of the Twenty-first Century: The New Workforce (Panel Discussion) with Dr. Tom Miller, vice provost, distance education and learning technology applications, NC State; Donnie Goins, COO and president of Tavve Software Company; and Dr. Larry Monteith, chancellor emeritus, NC State, will be offered two times. On March 25 at 4pm, this discussion will take place at the D. H. Hill Library at NC State University and then again at the North Carolina Research Campus on April 8 at 6pm.

Communities in Transition will be presented Dr. Michael Walden, professor and extension agricultural and resource economist specialist, NC State University, at the D.H. Hill Library at NC State University, April 15, at 4pm.

For more information about the collection or the lecture series, contact Genya O’Gara, genya_ogara@ncsu.edu.

Building the Scientific Community

On Friday, Mike Legg, Irene Sacks and I had a fantastic lunch with Mike Luther and Sheetal Ghelani from the DHMRI. It was a catch up meeting about the DHMRI and their activities, and I walked away very impressed.

As someone with a non-scientific background, it is very easy for me to get caught up in buildings and land when I think about the NCRC. As in, cool! Another building is starting! That’s huge news!

In fact, for the past year, the activities at the DHMRI have been way cooler than another groundbreaking. And not only cooler, they have been more important.

The DHMRI is working with public and private institutions to help them solve problems and get new products to market. These institutions range from start-ups to major universities.

Yes, they have snazzy equipment at the DHMRI. But more than that, they have the ability to help scientists both here in Kannapolis and others from across the globe solve complex problems. (That’s right. They can do work remotely.)

In short, the DHMRI is the foundation for the scientific community that is the cornerstone of the transformation here in Kannapolis. As they grow and prosper, so does the NCRC.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love buildings. I think they’re great. And I especially love the high quality buildings constructed on the Campus.

But the work at the DHMRI – which we often don’t think about because they’re hidden away in a highly secure lab building – is what really matters in the long run. In the end, the NCRC will be about people, not buildings.

If you want to know more, check out their site at http://www.dhmri.org/about.html.

Cabarrus EDC visit to Golden Gait Trailers

Did you know that the Cabarrus Economic Development Corporation has an existing industry program? The program, called Cabarrus Roots, is meant to help existing businesses in Cabarrus County grow and expand. The economic development staff visit local businesses to get a better understanding of any barriers to growth, opportunities for expansion, any kind of facility or infrastructure issues, and other types of business issues. The next step is to link the company with local and state level resources that can help address those business needs.

I had the opportunity to join the EDC’s Existing Industry Specialist Samantha Moose to pay a visit to Golden Gait Trailers, located on Hwy 73/Davidson Hwy right near the I-85 interchange. GGT began production at their new location in Kannapolis in 2007. They sell and customize trailers for all kinds of purposes – landscaping companies, livestock haulers, race car trailers, and even mobile hospitals. They have quite an impressive facility, and their employees require all kinds of fabrication, woodworking, and electrical skills to be able to customize trailers to specific needs. The ability to build such complex mobile units makes it easier for companies to better serve their customers by taking their business and services on the road.

Getting to meet with GGT allows us to address some of their business concerns, including the impact of the redesign of the I-85/Hwy 73 interchange on the access to their business, and signage for their property. We were also able to inform them about some state and regional loans that may be available for businesses. Our collective goal is to ensure that businesses like GGT are able to flourish and grow here, and to help remove barriers preventing them from doing so.

South African Exchange Student Coming to City Offices

Several months ago Appalachian State University’s Masters of Public Administration Program approached the City of Kannapolis about its interest in participating in a propopsed project to bring a group of future leaders from South Africa to North Carolina to learn more about democratic practices.  We learned last week that the U.S. State Department has awarded Appalachian State University a grant to cover the costs of the project. The City of Kannapolis will host one of the South African visitors for a 22-day internship experience in April. 

Our guests will arrive in Boone, NC in early April and participate in a seminar at Appalahcian State on the American system of government.  Following a short but intense internship with the City of Kannapolis April 9-30th, our South African guest will travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in a seminar with the U.S. Department of State after which they will return to South Africa on May 5, 2010.