By Steve Huffman
shuffman@salisburypost.com
SPENCER ó The crowd was so thick at Tuesday’s meeting of the Spencer Board of Aldermen that people had to be asked to leave to comply with the fire code.
Mayor Jody Everhart told the congregation the meeting room in Town Hall was certified to hold only 50 people. He said Police Chief Robert Bennett told him about 55 people were in attendance at the start of the meeting.
Everhart asked anyone who didn’t have an interest in the first item on the agenda, a public hearing concerning the proposed High Rock Raceway, to please leave the meeting room and return once a few people had filtered out. A handful of attendees did as Everhart asked.
“We made the announcement,” Everhart said as he watched a few leave. “We’ve done all we could.”
Surprisingly, despite the turnout, input at the public hearing was virtually nonexistent. Only one person spoke during the hearing that addressed a development agreement between the town and officials involved with the raceway.
Phillip Haithcock said he was a Rockwell resident and general manager with Clayton Homes, the firm that had contracted with the raceway to build townhomes at the site. Haithcock told aldermen that Clayton Homes operates three plants within a 25-mile radius of Spencer. He said that like a lot of businesses, the downturn in the economy has put a hurting on his company’s sales and manufacturing.
Haithcock said that if the proposed raceway eventually sees the light of day, it’ll mean more than two months of production for two of his company’s plants.
“I don’t have to tell you how much that’d do for our team members and the community,” Haithcock said. “It’ll be a positive influence for the community.”
He said Clayton Homes employs 541 workers, but that number is 25 percent less than the company employed when the economy was booming.
Following Haithcock’s addressing the board, aldermen moved quickly to adopt the development agreement between the town and the raceway. Alderman Scott Benfield made the motion that the agreement be adopted and Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Morris seconded it. The agreement was approved unanimously though aldermen Donnie Hinson and C.E. Spear were absent from Tuesday’s meeting. Aldermen said Spear was taken to Rowan Regional Medical Center Monday night. They said that while Spencer’s 85-year-old elder statesman’s medical condition didn’t appear life-threatening, they asked that he be remembered in prayers.
Dave Risdon, chief executive officer of the proposed raceway, said he was surprised there wasn’t more public input Tuesday, but admitted to also being somewhat relieved.
“No drama is a good thing,” he said at the conclusion of the meeting. “I was happy to see as many people in attendance as there were, and happy to see things go through as quickly as they did.”
Town Manager Larry Smith said he was also surprised by the lack of comment during the public hearing.
“I’ve never seen as many people turn out and only one person speak,” he said.
Town officials referred to the development agreement as something of a formality, though they said raceway officials had invested several thousands of dollars to have the matter fine-tuned by attorneys. Aldermen said the 28-page agreement relieves the town of a number of liabilities pertaining to the proposed race track. They said the agreement also calls for a 20-year working relationship between the raceway and the town, though Spencer isn’t investing money in the track.
At the conclusion of Tuesday’s meeting, Risdon said he’d get a signed copy of the agreement this morning and fax it to the track’s developer, Thomas Senenfelder of New York City’s TMS Inc. Risdon said that once the agreement was signed and delivered, he expected grading for the long-anticipated raceway to start in short order.
“Hopefully, we’ll see something very quickly,” Risdon said of major construction efforts at the track.