Franklin’s Town Council brought up a lot of concerns during their strategic planning meeting and the board members are determined to do something about them.
One concern that every town official shares is litter. While the Adopt-A-Street program is experiencing modest success and continual growth, many streets are still blighted with excessive trash. To remedy this, the Franklin Police Department has been working in tandem with community service workers assigned to the town through parole to clean up roads that Adopt-A-Street doesn’t cover. There are limits to how often they can do this, but department staff expect it will make a visible difference in time for tourist season.
“So far, we have gotten probably 50 to 75 bags of trash picked up,” lieutenant Devin Holland said. “Hopefully we can make it look good for our visitors this summer.”
Police chief Bill Harrell reached out to state representative Karl Gillespie and state senator Kevin Corbin and says he was encouraged by the potential for the NCDOT to expand cleanup efforts on state roads. Council member Mike Lewis has been in talks with Macon County Schools about adding anti-littering lessons to their curriculum and superintendent Chris Baldwin has been receptive. New coursework will have to wait until next school year, but Lewis believes focusing on children is a good way to get adults to care more about littering too, especially at the youngest grade levels.
“With these little kids in the car, if mom and dad want to throw something out the window, they’re going to get scolded,” Lewis said.
Whitmire property
As it is every year, the Whitmire property and what to do with it were discussed at length in the strategic planning session. To help put the matter to rest, the board members resolved to hold another meeting, this time with public input, which would focus entirely on ideas for the Whitmire Property. The potential dates for the meeting include June 21, June 25 and June 26 and one should be formally selected at the board’s May meeting. The details of the meeting’s format are still up for debate, but mayor Bob Scott likes the idea of hosting interested citizens on the Whitmire Property to give residents a clearer picture of the land’s potential and stimulate more ideas.
“I would like to see, as we start really moving towards what are we going to do with this property, to have a block party up there and invite the public to come in and see and walk around on the property and just see what we’ve got there,” Scott said.
The council also made it clear during the strategic session that they wanted to see a big celebration downtown at the end of the pandemic, something they encouraged when they decided to accept new reservations on the town gazebo and offer street closings to a variety of events planned for this summer.
The Town Council recessed their meeting until their budget meeting, which will be held oat 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 13 in their boardroom at Town Hall.