Lumberton approves 2 grants for law enforcement

Jul. 14—LUMBERTON — The City of Lumberton moved forward Wednesday with two grants that will aid the Lumberton Police Department in protecting the community.

City Council members approved for the department to apply for the 2023 Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) and to accept the 2023 Governor's Highway Safety Program (GHSP) Grant during a meeting Wednesday; the meeting was held virtually due to the recent increase in COVID-19 cases locally.

The JAG grant is in the amount of $16,274; from this total, $10,274 will go toward the purchase of four new mobile data terminals, the computers used by officers within their vehicles while working in the field. An additional $6,000 will go towards training exercises for officers.

"The JAG grant helps us out with additional training for our officers and also helps us out with buying equipment," Police Chief Michael McNeill told The Robesonian after the meeting. "Sometimes your budget won't allow you to buy certain things, but we can buy more things with the assistance of the Justice Assistance Grant."

One of the options for training exercises that the department can spend that money on is mental health training, helping officers learn how to better deescalate situations involving mental health crises.

"Deescalation, whatever training we want to use it for, as long as it's pertaining to law enforcement," McNeill said.

LPD is required to receive permission to apply for an accept the grant each year.

The GHSP grant is for $165,800, which continues funding the department's DWI enforcement team, including salaries and fringe benefits.

"We still have people that get out and want to drink and drive, and we're trying to encourage them not to drink and drive," McNeill said. "So we use special officers to go out, and they're trained in getting DWIs off the road, for fatalities and it decreases the crashes that we have. We found out that some of the people were driving under the influence and they crash, and that's one of the reasons. Fatalities come from DWIs, so we're trying to reduce that throughout the city."

The 2023 grant will be the third year of a five-year program, McNeill said.

The grant requires a 30% match by the city, which is $49,740. Councilman John Cantey asked what line item in the budget those funds come from, and McNeill answered it is from lapsed salaries; Cantey asked if the city planned to replace any missing officers whose vacant roles' salaries are in that fund, and City Manager Wayne Horne replied that the city does replace those officers, but there are always occasionally open positions and that money is used for the match.

In other news, Council approved the procurement of legal, appraisal and surveying services for the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program relating to homes damaged and/or destroyed during Hurricane Florence in 2018.

Council awarded a legal services contract to both Graham Law Firm, PPLC and Huggins, Davis & Associates, LLP; appraisal services to Hertigage Appriasal; and surveying services to both Kaukola Land Surveying and Powers Surveying. The cost is on a per-use basis listed as part of each agreement; two legal and two surveying companies were needed due to the size of the project.

The federal government approved in September 2021 for the city to receive $7.2 million in HMGP funds, which will fund the purchase and demolition of around 50 homes which have repeatedly flooded and allows those homeowners to relocate to non-flood-prone areas. Wednesday's step was simply a part of that grant process; the city has recently been through the HMGP process with homes damaged by Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

"That's pretty much standard procedure under the FEMA program," City Manager Wayne Horne said. "We're required to procure those services, and we did the same thing under Hurricane Matthew. Then with Florence, they wouldn't allow us to bring those people forward; we had to advertise and procure those people again. That was pretty much dictated in the federal policies that we're working under."

In a related item, Council gave approval for the reconstruction of a home on Swann Drive to be awarded to Faith Home Improvement and Construction Inc. at a cost of $158,000; the project was previously awarded to Finesse Builders, Inc., but the company withdrew from the contract.

Council also held a public hearing to mark the completion of the Community Development Block Grant-Sewer Systems Improvement Grant project to reconstruct the sewer system at Rosewood Mobile Home Park on Elizabethtown Road.

The original grant amount was for $1,977,500; the final cost of the project was within the budgeted amount, Horne said. The project grant was approved in Oct. 2020 and work began on the project in late 2020.

"Those projects usually take, from the time you get the grant awards and do the design and engineering, it probably takes a year," Horne said. "You're connecting 80 mobile homes, then you've got to go back in and rework the streets and do everything and it takes a while to get it all done."

The septic systems at Rosewood Mobile Home Park had been failing before the reconstruction, leading to environmental and public health concerns. Approximately 3,800 feet of gravity sewer lines and a new sewer lift station were installed, along with 3,000 linear feet of forced main to root sewer discharge to the Harrill Road Pump Station, according to Stephanie Canady from the city's Planning and Neighboorhood Services Department.

"You went from failing septic tanks and not allowing the mobile home park to utilize existing lots, because they couldn't get septic tank approval," Horne said. "And generally when you start seeing failing septic tanks, because of the sheer volume and numbers, you start getting some health and safety issues because you have ground contamination. We were able to fix all that; it's a big improvement."

In other business, Council,

— Agreed to move forward with a request by Kenneth Spencer to close a section of a city street. The section, between Roberts Avenue and Mimosa Street, was long ago a section of Hardin Road. The N.C. Department of Transportation and city staff both have no objection to the closure, and Council approved for the matter to be advertised and a public hearing to be held, as is required.

— Appointed Jeffrey McLean to serve on the city's Planning Board. McLean will represent Precinct 3, and replaces Susan Walker, who has held the position for several years but no longer resides in Precinct 3.

— Approved $700 in Community Revitalization Funds to be allocated to the MizFitz Back to School Event to be held Aug. 20 at Luther Britt Park, and $750 for the Pentacostals of Lumberton's back to school event.

— Accepted the donation of a property on Bryant Street; after a tax foreclosure the property owner agreed to donate the land to the city.

Chris Stiles can be reached at 910-816-1977 or by email at cstiles@robesonian.com.