County commissioners’ approval Tuesday night of the 2010-11 county budget gets Charlotte Mecklenburg Library only part way to its goal of raising an extra $8 million to keep all its community branches open. Town, county and library officials will continue negotiating this week in hopes of reaching a compromise that would keep open small branches, including those in Davidson and Cornelius.

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With July 1 closing threatened, town plans to raise money, recruit volunteers to save branch

Updated Wednesday, 3:02 p.m.
By DAVID BORAKS
DavidsonNews.net

Saying the situation is now in the “bottom of the ninth inning,” Davidson Mayor John Woods on Tuesday vowed to keep the Davidson branch library open full time and with full services through measures that could include financial concessions by the town, a community fund-raising campaign, volunteer recruitment and negotiations with library officials.

“If the library (Board of Trustees) cannot keep this branch open in its current budget environment, the town and the community will engage in an effort to keep it open. We will assume responsibility to keep it open,” Mayor Woods said at the end of Tuesday’s Town Board meeting. Read the full story

Updated Friday, 7:30 a.m.
By DAVID BORAKS
DavidsonNews.net

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library trustees on Thursday approved closing four branches in Charlotte as the system adapts to a big county funding cut for the coming fiscal year. The fate of community branches, including those in Davidson and Cornelius, is uncertain. The library says it needs money from the City of Charlotte and the county’s 6 towns, but the towns have tight budgets of their own. Can local branches survive?

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By DAVID BORAKS
DavidsonNews.net

Davidson officials are proposing a three-point approach to raising the budget-busting $2 million needed in the coming fiscal year to subsidize the town-owned MI-Connection Communications System: cost-cutting from a previously announced Town Hall restructuring, spending from town reserves, and imposing a new fee for household trash collection.

The proposed 2010-11 budget leaves the tax rate unchanged, at 36.5 cents per $100 of assessed value. But it adds the new trash collection fee, of $206 per year for a single-family home and $104 per year for apartments and condos. Read the full story

Davidson Town Manager Leamon Brice and Finance Director Eric Hardy will present their proposed 2010-11 budget at the Town Board’s regular monthly meeting Tuesday night. The $8.4 million plan proposes new fees and cost cuts, as well as dipping into reserves, to provide a $2 million subsidy to the town-owned MI-Connection communications system. Read the full story

This article is reprinted with permission from the Spring 2010 Town Message, which was published on Feb. 26. Mayor John Woods talks about why Davidson residents should consider and care about the future of the MI-Connection cable system.

By JOHN WOODS
Mayor of Davidson

A few months ago, we discussed the importance of buying local and supporting our local businesses. Local products are often higher in quality, lower in price, and more convenient. Today, I would like to discuss a buy-local opportunity that is all of the above. This is also a buying decision that is very important to our community.

In the Town Manager’s comments in [the Spring 2010] edition of our Town Message (see DavidsonNews.net, May 10, 2010, “Why Davidson got involved in MI-Connection”) Leamon Brice reviewed the town leaders’ 2007 decision to partner with Mooresville and purchase the bankrupt Adelphia cable system. Our third-party operator has turned a poorly operating, low technology cable television company into a state-of-the-art communications system. MI-Connection is locally-owned, focused on this community, and offers all the services a large company can provide, with superior service and price competitiveness! Read the full story

Last week’s announcement of layoffs at Town Hall is followed up this week with the first of an expected series of postings for newly created jobs on a reorganized town staff. The postings include jobs in public works, for a new town accountant and for a 20-hour receptionist. But all is not happy in Town Hall, judging from conversations with employees.

Meanwhile, with layoffs and MI-Connection budget troubles on people’s minds, Town Board members and staff will host the last in a series of “Commissioner Chats” Tuesday night at Town Hall.
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By DAVID BORAKS
DavidsonNews.net

Charlotte Mecklenburg Library leaders and local officials are working behind the scenes to find ways to keep open community library branches – including Davidson and Cornelius – if county budget cuts lead to closings. Naming rights for branches, staggered openings and using volunteers are among the ideas in the mix, officials say.

Shutting all community branches and keeping the 8 larger, regional libraries is currently the most likely option for library officials if Mecklenburg County goes ahead with plans to cut the library’s $35 million budget in half for the coming fiscal year.

That’s one option library chief Charles Brown and his staff had proposed several weeks ago, and it appeared to be the consensus of library trustees following a meeting Wednesday, according to public radio station WFAE-FM. But the picture won’t be completely clear until the county manager presents his budget – and the exact amount of cuts – on May 18.
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