GRANITE QUARRY – Granite Quarry is already making plans for its upcoming Granite Fest by nailing down a familiar face for the Charlotte region to provide the evening’s entertainment.

Myrtle Beach’s The Tim Clark Band has been tapped to play the Oct. 15 event. Clark was the lead singer of the Charlotte-based rock band Sugarcreek. The band formed in 1971 and broke up in 1990, but it still performs occasionally.

The town is paying a total of $4,350 to bring the band on for the show.

The band will provide production for the show and the town is entitled to use the band’s likeness to promote the show.

The town brought back Granite Fest last year and contracted with China Grove native Darrell Harwood’s band for the entertainment.

The festival is intended as a signature event and a resurrection of the large-scale events of the same name the town used to host but scaled down to community days in recent years. It is a project of the town’s Parks, Entertainment and Recreation Committee.

Further details on the event aren’t yet announced. Alderman Kim Cress told the Post the town will discuss the event more during its annual retreat sessions next month and bring in more people.

The contract for the band is with Concord-based entertainment agency brioLIVE. The town board approved a budget amendment on Jan. 10 that would allow the contract to proceed, moving $2,000 from its PERC committee to its miscellaneous parks line item so it had enough funding to cover a $2,175 deposit to be paid the agency.

The other half of the fee will be paid directly to the band upon arrival for the festival.

In other items from the town board’s meeting this month:

• The board approved Town Manager Larry Smith engaging Centralina Regional Council to help facilitate the annual board retreat.

• The board approved Smith contracting with N Focus Planning for planning services at the town continues to look for a full time planner to replace Steve Blount, who took over the same role for Spencer.

• The town removed discussion about an ordinance that would regulate the construction of driveways in the town at the request of Smith. He told the board the town was not able to get engineering questions answered before Blount’s departure in December.

• Benesche, a planning and architecture firm, is finalizing a draft of the town’s new parks and recreation master plan. The town is expecting a presentation of a draft plan in February.

• The town is still in the closeout process for its FEMA project to repair erosion damage to its lake park. Smith noted the federally funded project has been “near the end” for three months.

• The town, per Salisbury-Rowan Utilities, will no longer offer its utility drop box effective March 1. This is a countywide discontinuation.