By Mark Wineka
mark.wineka@salisburypost.com

GRANITE QUARRY — The built-in contradiction of municipal and county governments going on planning “retreats” is that with much of their discussion, they’re trying to move forward.

Such is the case with the Granite Quarry Board of Aldermen. The board spent all day Friday and will continue this morning talking about the months and sometimes years ahead.

Items on the town’s boilerplate include the implementation of a downtown revitalization plan, the recruitment of a grocery store, renovations at Town Hall, updates for Centennial Park, finding a new place for limbs and leaves collected by the town and maybe even a sports complex.

The retreat resumes at 8 a.m. today at Town Hall. Mayor Bill Feather gave his fellow board members an overnight homework assignment — come up with a better vision statement for the town.

Otherwise, the big item on today’s agenda is the setting of goals and priorities.

Friday, the board met with department heads — the fire chief, police chief and maintenance supervisor — and reviewed preliminary numbers for the 2016-2017 budget year, which will begin July 1.

It was the board’s first look at the budget, with more inspection to follow in coming months. As proposed now, the budget would not call for a property tax increase.

In other discussions Friday, the board also looked closely at the town’s fees and charges for various services and made adjustments on several items. For information purposes only, the board reviewed current salaries of town employees and how they compared to some other Rowan municipalities.

In addition, aldermen heard presentations from Allen Hart of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Kent Winrich of Fibrant, Dr. Van Madray of Rowan-Cabarrus Community College and Jason Smith of the Merchants Association.

Madray, head of engineering and business technologies at RCCC, reviewed the kind of training taking place at the college and how those students might someday fill jobs created by companies that move into the newly created Granite Quarry Industrial Park.

The town and county have been partners in creating an industrial park off Heilig Road. Granite Quarry is providing a waterline and, along with the county, tax incentives on two proposed speculative buildings.

When efforts are made to fill those buildings, companies will be looking for a skilled workforce, Madray said, adding his job, in part, is, “I have to predict what people will want in a technician.”

Madray encouraged Granite Quarry to look at existing companies and determine which ones are growing and close to capacity. He said it’s also important to recruit companies which make parts for other companies.

The Gildan plant is one of the most technologically advanced operations in the county, Madray said as an example. But somebody has to be selling Gildan parts and fixing their highly automated machines, Madray said.

He told the board Granite Quarry is “really in a good spot,” with its close proximity to Interstate 85 and the potential workforce that could be available. Madray said manufacturing jobs are coming back to America.

The “reshoring” is happening because companies want to make products closer to where their customers are and be able to react to trends faster, Madray said. The poor quality of products made overseas also has made domestic products more attractive, he said.

In an aside, Board members told Madray they might be interested in using RCCC students for certain town jobs. Madray said that’s a possibility because RCCC offers work-based learning that affords credits to students.

“Its’ good for them and it’s good for y’all,” Madray said.

Granite Quarry also has some interest in possibly working with Fibrant, the city of Salisbury’s cable utility. Fibrant runs service down Old Concord Road to the county’s Emergency Management center.

Feather said it might be possible to make an easy Fibrant connection down Heilig Road to include the Gildan plant and the new industrial park. Loans and/or grants from the USDA could make paying for that kind of infrastructure possible,, board members said.

The board agreed to develop some kind of “action plan” to work with Fibrant.

In speaking for the Merchants Association, Smith said 50 businesses are on the group’s email list. About 10 to 12 people usually show up at the monthly meetings, which run 50 minutes to an hour, Smith said.

The Merchants Association enthusiastically supports the downtown revitalization plan, and Smith said his business, the Hot Dog Shack, will adopt the exterior design changes suggested by the planning consultants.

Smith actually appeared at the retreat twice Friday, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. In the morning session, Smith showed town officials how Granite Quarry could use Facebook to its advantage. In fact, he went live with a town Facebook page that morning.

By the afternoon, the page already had 28 “likes,” and Smith predicted it could generate 500 likes within a week.

Mayor Bill Feather polled his fellow board members, and they all agreed the town should have a Facebook page. But Feather said a strong policy on what is posted, how it’s posted and how the page is edited and monitored has to be spelled out.

Alderman Jim Costantino said a big question also was how to handle negative commenting and how to make decisions on removing posts or banning individuals from commenting, if town officials thought that had to be done.

Smith posted a few photographs and a video from around town Friday, and he suggested the town start slowly on Facebook by first posting short biographies on the mayor, aldermen, fire chief, police chief and office staff.

Later, the town could share information about things happening in Granite Quarry, followed by promotion of events.

Smith, who has offered to be the page’s administrator until the town designates someone, said the Facebook page should have an editor to make sure things are accurate, a monitor to review posts and a protocol for what should and should not be posted.

Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263.