Harry Hipps Commentary on City Government

The City Council Meeting of 3-3-09 was a great meeting that showed our City government at it's best and worst. First I'll comment on the best. The announcement of the agreement between ASU and Hickory to enhance educational opportunities here is great news. Sadly we have a large uneducated and undereducated population here. It affects our quality of life and is a drag on the economic development we can get here. Thankfully our leadership has correctly identified this as a vital area of needed improvement and this is great news for Hickory.

More of the positive things going on were highlighted with the committee reports, especially the presentations on Parks and Recreation and the Libraries. These folks are well focused on what we have now, trends for the future and showed a passionate and professional approach towards their areas. We are blessed to have citizens like this working for the betterment of Hickory.

The John Locke Foundation recently announced that Hickory had fallen from the 2nd highest in terms of taxation for a City our size to 13th. Spending what we need within a budget that is based on reasonable economic assumptions, being careful with debt and City investments are great principles to follow in City finances and this has been done very well. Kudos to all.

All was not perfect of course. The Appearance Committee gives out trees for Arbor Day to support Hickory's image as a tree friendly area, which most would support. After that they seemed to be fixated on downtown which seems to be characteristic of Council as a whole. To be fair, it's difficult to address some of the ugly, blighted areas of town within this committee since it involves economic vitality, specific landlords, and their concerns (or lack of concern) and a host of issues too large for an Appearance Committee. But it seemed at times that they are flailing around for a purpose and downtown is what's easiest to latch onto.

The final issue was what really showed the weakness of the overall approach to governance with respect to discretionary spending. As the Mayor pointed out, most of the budget goes to water and sewer services, fire, police, etc. After taking care of core services there isn't a large percentage of the budget that can be used for discretionary spending ($70 million out of an $80 million budget goes towards Water, Sewer, Sanitation, and Security) .

At virtually every Council meeting there are small amounts given for various projects. Some of these, such as facades for arts organizations, landscaping or building improvements for charitable organizations (such as the Salvation Army) are probably a good use of these funds since the community as a whole benefits from arts and we owe compassion to our needy. But, in my opinion, there are too many small scale grants that use City money for private interests. Not only is this unfair to the businesses that aren't as well connected politically, but it is getting in the way of larger, more important projects.

This was clear at the Council meeting when the prospect of putting some electrical lines underground was discussed. Duke Power is proposing splitting the cost 50/50 with the City to bury some power lines. This has been a much discussed desire of many citizens for a long time now. It would be a maximum of $300,000 per year for three years. Even at this large cost, only a couple of miles of lines would be done. Duke Power would be concerned with the lines that are most prone to being downed by trees and safety concerns, whereas the City is more concerned with the aesthetics of the lines. The lines done would be at or less than one percent of the lines in the City (I believe new construction will bury lines for future use).

The total cost of the entire City would be tremendous. A reasonable view is that this type of project will be very long term if ever. In addition, there are sewer lines in Hickory that are 100 years old. This is a ticking time bomb. At some point large expenditures are coming. My question is this: why are we piddling with small scale spending, like shrubs and windows for certain area businesses, when we need to start looking seriously at our infrastructure? We complain about the federal government spending so much on earmarks and pork barrel projects and then do it here.

We need to come up with larger scale plans for our infrastructure as well as larger scale development for some of our blighted areas, and stop the nickel and dimeing. There are pressing needs that are becoming more urgent. We need some serious thinking about our priorities. While raising taxes to pay for things is always an option, I believe we need to stop the trickle of small ticket items and think about the big needs we have.

The good, the bad, and the ugly - what a meeting.