GRANITE QUARRY — Patterson Farm Inc. has opened a new produce store at the Brinkley Center, 136 N. Salisbury Ave.
“We’re glad they chose to come here,” Mayor Bill Feather said, and he noted Patterson Farm hopes to be adding ice cream later.
In other Granite Quarry news, Thursday, Friday and Saturday will be spring clean-up days, and large garbage containers for use by residents will be made available on South Main Street at the fenced-in area close to Suburban Propane.
The containers can accept large items not allowed as part of normal garbage pickup.
Elsewhere, the coming year will see Granite Quarry contribute up to $100,000 toward construction of new sidewalks on portions of North Salisbury Avenue, East Kerns Street, Crook Street and Balfour Quarry Road.
The $100,000 represents the town’s 20 percent match to a federal CMAQ grant. CMAQ stands for Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality. The projects aim at serving as many rooftops as possible and provide additional safe pedestrian routes to school.
In other Granite Quarry news:
• Feather, Alderman Mike Brinkley and Zoning Administrator Susan Closner met April 22 with three graduate students from Raleigh who helped with a downtown study of Granite Quarry. That report will be shared with the town board in coming weeks.
“It’s good information,” Feather said of the work performed at no cost to the town.
“We got our money’s worth,” Brinkley added.
• Police Chief Mark Cook said the Granite Quarry/Faith Police Authority had 452 calls for service in April. Officers made 55 traffic stops, looked into nine domestic disturbances, performed five follow-up investigations, issued 24 traffic citations, responded to 10 crash reports, made 10 arrests and took eight incident reports.
Officers completed 112 hours of continuing education and training during April.
• Maintenance Director Kim Cress reports his staff made upgrades in April to the ball field, equipment and plumbing at Civic Park. Several potholes on town and state roads were repaired during the month, and warmer weather allowed crews to pick up 18 loads of limbs throughout the town.
Besides other duties, the maintenance staff also installed a new water fountain at the Granite Lake shelter and put up new fencing on the Nature Trail and repaired a Nature Tail foot bridge. A tennis court at Civic Park also was repaired.
• Aldermen approved a budget amendment Monday to reflect the financing of a new $444,686 fire truck, which will be delivered this fall. It will include a $250,000 loan from BB&T.

Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263.