So below is the City Council meeting. With each agenda item, you can click on the links and it will take you to that specific point in the meeting. You can always drag the marker on the video display to the point in the broadcast that you are interested in seeing.
Agenda about the City Council meeting of February 4, 2014
- Go to this link if you would like more information about the Agenda items.
Highlighted Links below take you straight to that point in the video.
Special Presentations
A. Jeff Neuville, Business Development Committee – Presentation of Business Well Crafted Award to Mark Brown, Territory Sales Manager, Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated
(From the City Website) - Mr. Jeff Neuville of the Business Development Committee (BDC) commented that the BDC recognizes businesses that have been in our town for 75 years or more. He recognized the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated. In 1910, 34 years before Coca-Cola became a registered trademark, the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated laid down their roots in Hickory. In 1937, the company built at their current location, near downtown Hickory. From the beginning the company has been a family business, dedicated to its employees and community. The Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated is a licensed bottler for the Coca-Cola Company based in Atlanta. The company was the exclusive bottler for a six county area, and packages and distributes many beverages to over 11 States. They are the largest independent bottler of Coca-Cola products. For 104 years the business has flourished and provided jobs for Hickory residents. They also strive to being involved in the community with the focus on maintaining a hometown touch, the result is remarkable. More employee base, with over 100 employees in the Hickory area. The business helps communities in many ways, in addition to regular donations to local charities, employees helped with the construction of the Zahra Baker All Children’s Playground, with more than 40 employees volunteering time during the construction, and the company also donated drinks for the opening. Employees have also painted houses in the community, and regularly host coat and can drives. The company has a stewardship committee that focuses entirely on ways to reach out to the community. The Coca-Cola brand is ubiquitous in American culture, as American as apple pie, and as American as an All American City. We are proud that this iconic brand and company has called Hickory home for over 100 years. He asked Mr. Mark Brown, Territory Sales Manager, and Mr. Mike Watson, District Sales Manager, to the podium, and thanked them for being a part of our community, and presented them with the City’s Business Well Crafted Award.
Mr. Mark Brown thanked the Business Development Committee for honoring them. He commented think about the experience of a Coca-Cola bottle, and a lot of folks can probably think back years ago, drinking that little iconic glass bottle, and they experience that they had, the family they were with, the community that they were in. It is awesome to say that you work for the most recognizable brand in the world, not many people can say that. They are excited to be a part of this, and thanked everyone for the honor. He thanked everyone for allowing them to be a part of this community, they enjoy this community. It is actually a central hub for this area. Their home office is in Charlotte, North Carolina. They get the opportunity to show off the community a lot of times with their Vice Presidents and Presidents for the company. They will actually be in Hickory on Thursday, to show off this great community.
Mayor Wright commented that he is sure that there are not too many people who could remember buying those little bottles for six cents, and if you took the bottle back you got a penny back. That was a lot of motivation for the kids to go out and find those Coca-Cola bottles.
B. Presentation by Community Groups Requesting Appropriations from the City Council during the Next Fiscal Year Beginning July 1, 2014.
Catawba County Economic Development Corporation - Scott Millar - $149,919.71
Catawba County Economic Development Corporation – Greater Hickory Classic - Scott Millar - $75,000
Children’s Advocacy & Protection Center - Deborah Johnson - $10,000
Habitat for Humanity - Mitzi Gellman - $7,816
Hickory Downtown Development Association - Margaret Huss Jackson - $65,000
Hickory Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau - Bebe Leitch - $25,000
SALT Block Foundation - Mark Sinclair - $100,000
United Arts Council of Catawba County - Alan Jackson - $40,010
Persons Requesting to Be Heard
Larry Pope - (From the City Website) - Mr. Larry Pope addressed Council concerning two matters. He commented that as he listened to all of the reports from the various groups who had spoken prior to him coming to the podium, he was almost at the point of changing his mind about what he wanted to talk about. What he is concerned about, is equally as important as what others have spoken about. Even though the bubble has been enlarged, and has been filled with wonderful things that are happening in our City, as usually, he has things that are not as positive, as a citizen of this great City. Inspiring Spaces is a project that is being worked on and been discussed, and there has been trips made by our City Council, and others, looking at various locations and various things. This afternoon he got off the public bus to go to the bank, right before 5:00 p.m., and as he walked down Union Square, he started thinking, it is very frustrating as a citizen who has had restrooms, that were built with taxpayer’s money on Union Square, that is not open unless there are events going on downtown, involving beer gardens, or other events at different times of the year. He hopes, and he has asked in the past, that great consideration be given to reopening those restrooms, keeping them clean, and keeping them available for citizens who might want to go to the restroom without going into an establishment and spending their money to eat or drink. He knows that there has been problems, but he also knows that there are ways to solve some of the problems that have existed in the past. When we spend an estimated $40,000 on Inspiring Spaces from Lenoir Rhyne College to 6th Street SW, NW, to build a walking trail, and other events; where are people that are going to use those trails as they visit the community, going to have a place to go to powder their nose, if their nose needs to be powdered? He knows that there has been given consideration on the problems that those restrooms, in the past experienced. But he says now is time for a change and there can be a change.
Mr. Pope stated that under Title Two, of the American’s with Disabilities Act Section 504, it is incumbent of this City to provide information that he is going to ask for, and he wants it to go in the minutes of this meeting as part of the agenda packet. He would like to have the name, the address, physical address of every City Employee at Public Works, City Police Department, and any other employees employed by this City who travel our streets on a daily basis. The other thing that he is requesting is he wants to know, in writing, in the past three years from tonight back three years what workshops were provided to City employees, the names of those City employees that attended the workshops and what those workshops were for, and who provided the workshops as the instructor, during the period that the employee attended them. He has had a situation to happen, that it makes it imperative that this information be given to him, and that he has an opportunity to look at the training of City employees, because he knows that there are a lot of things as a citizen of this City with a disability, that he runs across on a daily, weekly basis, and he is told that no matter what it is not safe. That the City has to be made aware of it, and they have “X” number of days to correct whatever the problem is. He said in response to that, what happens, are you notified after injury occurs to a citizen. Before the injury occurs you have City employees that should be trained to recognize barriers that exist on our sidewalks. He is making a formal request under Title Two of ADA for that information.
Mayor Wright asked staff to see what information that Mr. Pope has requested is required to be presented to him under the public records act, to the extent that is required, let’s make it available to him.
Consent Agenda
New Business - Public Hearings
1. Resolution Confirming and Levying Assessments Along a portion of 10th Avenue NE – Petition No. 02-12 - Chuck Hansen presentation
New Business - Departmental Reports:
1. Approval of a Resolution of Support for the Western Piedmont Council of Governments’ Investing in Manufacturing Communities Program Application and Presentation by Andrea Surratt on the IMCP Grant Investigation Manufacturing Community Partnership.
Hound: Not much went on other than the Status Quo at this meeting. The appropriations presentations were the same as every year.
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