BY STACIE LETT CAIN
Despite some lingering concerns, the Statesville City Council voted 5-2 Monday to approve a plan to borrow money to pay for part of the cost of constructing a new Municipal Operations Center and Fire Station 1.
Council members agree to borrow $10 million from Truist Bank. The terms call for the city to repay the loan over 15 years with an annual interest rate of 4.04 percent.
Davenport Public Finance Vice President Mitch Brigulio told the council members they had until May 5 to lock in that interest rate with a closing planned for the middle of July.
“Fifty letters were presented to national banking institutions on this project and we were very encouraged that we received six offers back,” Brigulio explained. “Of those six, Truist Bank was the only institution that would agree to lock the rate until the proposed closing date in mid-July.”
Although the council was in agreement about the importance of the projects, Council member Steve Johnson expressed concern about the need to make such a quick decision.
“If the deadline for this is Friday, where were you two weeks ago?” he asked.
Johnson argued that it made better financial sense to use money from the fund balance to pay for the projects than to borrow money and pay interest.
But the general consensus of the council was that borrowing the money and holding onto the reserves would give the city more options for other capital projects on the horizon. City Manager Ron Smith also favored that approach.
“I’ve looked at the future projects — Fire Station 5, the police station and the future phases of this project and I know prices aren’t going down,” the city manager said. “The $10 million that we are talking about gives us the flexibility to float funds to pay down these projects out of the fund balance and we really need that flexibility.”
The funding proposal passed, with council members Steve Johnson and C.O. Johnson dissenting.
An estimated $8 million from the loan will pay for the next phase of the Municipal Operations Center, which involves the construction of a new city garage and an ancillary building. The remaining $2 million will be used for the new Fire Station 1.
Fire response lauded by mayor
Mayor Costi Kutteh began Monday night’s meeting by thanking the city staff and employees for their hard work and support in the face of the devastating fire that damaged three downtown buildings last week.
“It was a pretty rough week for the City of Statesville,” Kutteh said. “We are proud of the efforts of all of our staff in addressing the fire. I know there have been other fires in our community but this effected a lot of our staff. It required millions of gallons of water, securing the area around the fire, and required the attention of our police and fire personnel. There were many people on our staff from our city manager on down that played a vital role in making this less of a tragedy than it could have been and we are grateful.”
The mayor expressed his optimism about the city’s ability to rebound from this setback.
“It was a tough week, but we will get over it,” he said. “We still don’t have a lot of answers, but we will have those answers. We are appreciative to the entire community, starting with our staff, for making it less tragic than it could have been.”
Green Street Cemetery update
The City Council also heard an update of the Green Street Cemetery project from Iredell County Public Library Director Juli Moore. Explaining that the library does so much more for the community than house books, Moore explained their grant funding allowed the library to contract with Omega Mapping Services to survey the cemetery and the area behind a nearby funeral home to locate hundreds of unmarked graves.
“At this point, 70 percent of the survey has been completed, and we have found 152 graves that are marked as well as 1,673 that were unmarked that now have had permanent markers placed on them,” Moore said.
The mayor reaffirmed the city’s commitment to the care of the cemetery and the area behind the funeral home.