By Jessica Dillon
During the June 23 City Council meeting, the second reading of the budget was discussed and an internal audit report was presented. Residents were also informed that Martinsville no longer has a city attorney, and an update on the Five Points Housing community was presented, highlighting structural concerns.
The second reading of the budget approved moving the tax rate from 75 cents to 84 cents per $100 of assessed value. Council Member Aaron Rawls voted no, while Mayor LC Jones abstained.
“Martinsville still remains one of the lowest in the region and in the state with regards to independent cities,” said City Manager Rob Fincher.
A change was made to refuse rates in an “attempt to break even.” The change is “basically a $5 increase across the board with all types of service.” This also includes an additional service to lower costs for Uptown businesses that use designated dumpsters. A 6 percent increase was also approved to electricity rates to keep up with rising costs.
“This increase shows that it’s going to be hard on citizens. I’m not going to go down the road to negativity because that’s what we’ve been doing for the past 18 months. I would encourage everybody to read everything. You’ve been told over and over again. This is happening. These people are bad. They did this. Read everything, learn for yourself. Don’t continue to sit up and listen to somebody and take their word as gospel. That’s the biggest trick the devil could ever see,” Jones said, and encouraged residents to look at the positive, such as increased housing options coming to the city.
“I understand that I may be able to absorb it, but a lot of other people in our community probably most likely cannot because (of) facing financial hardships. I had to change my mind set a little bit after a lot of feedback and engagement with citizens,” said Council Member Julian Mei.
“We’re at minimum staffing but now in the majority of our departments. In fact, we’re still under many, many duties up here that we don’t have money to completely operate. One of things is at night, I typically take out the trash and dust mop the floors, and on the weekends I clean the restrooms up here,” Fincher said.
“No job is beneath any of us up here. We don’t have the funds to hire a janitor to properly clean the building, and a lot of that is because we’re cutting the budget that much. Other department heads are pitching in. They’re taking out the trash as well. We’re doing things for the building … because to see the city advance, we’re willing to make those sacrifices ourselves so that way we can continue on,” said Fincher.
“We do need at least six months of leeway to talk about this stuff. It seems like every year we can run through our gauntlet of presentations,” said Rawls, saying the council needs more time to work on the budget.
“We never talk about these cuts. … I really don’t want to go to a senior citizen and explain to them why we’re funding the Mustangs and I’ve got to raise their taxes” and how the $1,000 a month they were living on now doesn’t cut it. Now they’re picking between cat food and rent,” he added.
During council comments, Rawls also said that the Sands Anderson law firm had ceased serving as the city attorney.
“You all will notice our city attorney is not here. We finally ran off our city attorney … And I don’t blame them,” Rawls said.
Fincher noted that the city is actively searching for a new city attorney.
The city’s general fund balance is about $9.4 million, and it also must cover a $551,000 deficit in the CDBG fund related to the Pine Hall project. The meals tax is sitting about $283,000 below budget, while sales tax is $442,615 below budget. Business license revenue is $169,000 above budget, personal property tax is $66,000 above budget, but real estate tax is $113,000 below budget.
Michael Green, a candidate for city council, expressed concerns about education in the city. “We still pay the most per student and budget cost. We also have more doctoral degrees in our school than in the other school districts. I only found one of the school districts that had two psychologists and a social worker on the payroll. Okay, the bottom line is, I’m glad we have qualified people” and the ability to fund the school system, but “sometimes that’s not always the solution considering our test results.”
The NAACP gave an update on the Five Points Housing Division. “We now have houses there that their floors are falling in. We have photos. We have successfully met with the Harvest Foundation. They are currently collaborating with the builder and with others to help rectify these people’s homes and put them in positive living situations when possible. The opportunity we have in front of us is until we fix the groundwork, the drainage, the vibrations, etcetera. There’s no point in remediating these houses because we will be having the same conversation one year from now,” said Committee Chair Kim Glisson.
Naomi Hodge-Muse, president, urged the city to help. “The city was instrumental in changing the regulation that allows trucks to go within six feet of prefab homes. This, the city did. The city put these houses there and now has put its citizens in danger. It won’t take but one catastrophic wind, like the straight wind, and these houses will be tumbled down, and these people will be injured. It won’t take another five years for these houses to literally fall down on their heads. I’m not being overly dramatic. I’m telling you that’s how deplorable these houses are,” said Hodge-Muse.
Martinsville Police Chief Chad Rhoads also presented his annual update.
In other matters, the council:
*Approved a proclamation honoring Independence Day and America’s 250th anniversary presented to American Legion Homer Dillard Post #78 and MHC AMVETS.
*Approved a proclamation honoring June as National Safety Month presented to Fire & EMS, Police Department and Sheriff’s Office.
*Approved a proclamation highlighting June as NLC National Small Cities Month.
