The Highlands Town Board at their meeting Thursday night, Nov. 21, heard updates on the Mirror Lake dredging and the Chamber of Commerce lease and heard a pitch from a contractor who could make a new town website.
At the workshop before the regular meeting, the board heard from web development company CivicPlus, which is in consideration to help design the town’s new website after the board agreed to look into getting a modernized site at their last meeting.
A representative with CivicPlus appeared over Zoom and went through an extensively detailed presentation on what the company could do, including design and navigation features. He said they could make a site that would be ADA-compliant and which would allow for features like paying bills online and letting the town put out emergency alerts.
If CivicPlus ends up being selected, he said it would take them about 12-16 weeks to put together a site.
Mirror Lake update
The Mirror Lake dredging will proceed next year with its initial phase, according to John Bryant, a representative of contractor River Sand Inc.
Bryant said the challenge of the project will be the limited amount of space available around Mirror Lake.
“We have very limited space where we can access the lake,” he said. “It’s basically divided by a bridge. It’s very limited. You cant pass underneath it just because of the height. We have two access points. One has already been a canoe launch.”
He went over the process of the dredging, comparing it to “a big vacuum,” saying it would extract water and sediment from the lake and then like a vacuum filter would produce clean water out the other side. Then they will load the sediment on a truck and haul it away.
He said the system would be set up in December and January, though freezing weather would likely necessitate that most of the actual dredging get done in spring and summer of 2025.
“We’ll probably delay until it warms up a little bit more,” he said. “Come the spring we’ll start the dewatering cycle. It will be about three or four months to get this phase of this cycle done.”
Bryant added that much of the process of the dredging will happen under the lake and it won’t be distracting to nearby residents. “You may not even know we’re dredging.”
Asked by Mayor Pat Taylor when the project was likely to be complete, Bryant said it would depend on when the initial phase got done and seeing if anything else needed to be done. He said the second phase could start in 2026 if it was deemed necessary to do more.
In addition, Volunteer Pat Gleeson with the Mirror Lake Improvement Committee added that people whose canoes were removed from around the lake would be able to pick them up at an off-site area.
Planning discussion
There was some debate over a planning board application to divide a parcel at 651 Holt Circle into two lots, one of them being 3.85 acres and the other 1.57 acres.
While the 3.85-acre lot has gotten septic approval from the Macon County Environmental Health, the 1.57-acre lot was listed as simply already having a dwelling on septic, town water and electric.
Commissioner Amy Patterson raised objection over this, saying if there was no repair area for the septic then she would be more hesitant about approving the plan. A repair area refers to another nearby area with suitable soil in case the original septic system fails.
Patterson said she’d like to see the lot approved by Macon County Environmental Health for septic services as well.
She went back and forth with attorney AJ Braswell, a paralegal with the Law Office of Russell R. Bowling in Franklin, who contended that there was no need for a separate environmental review or a repair area since the two lots were connected.
Braswell said there was “adequate room” for the septic to drain out, but Patterson said that wasn’t the same thing as a designated repair area.
Commissioner Brian Stiehler said he shared some of the concern since “what if someone’s living on the property and the septic fails?”
Taylor asked Town Attorney Bob Hagemann what his recommendation was on the issue, and Hagemann said he recommended continuing the item to the next meeting, which they agreed to do.
Other business
The board also discussed budgeting for improvements to the water treatment plant. The town was the recipient of a grant for $4.9 million to go towards water infrastructure needs. The grant came from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Drinking Water Reserve and Wastewater Reserve.
In addition, the town will also be using $1.7 million from a loan to go towards the project, making the total $6.7 million. The board passed through the resolution unanimously, save for Commissioner Jeff Weller, who was not in attendance.
The final item for discussion was the Chamber of Commerce lease. There was some debate with Chamber executive director Kaye McHan at the previous board meeting, as McHan and the commissioners disagreed about a possible idea of charging the chamber rent.
Since then, discussions between Taylor, McHan and Chamber chairperson Blye Hunsinger have reached a different conclusion. Taylor told the board that the new agreement won’t charge the Chamber rent, and instead will go back to their old lease. The Chamber will create a new “visitor hospitality area” at the town center, which will work with businesses on Main Street to provide information for visitors, and would be involved in maintaining the bathrooms.
Taylor said this will see the Chamber dealing with Main Street businesses from now on without the town being involved as would’ve happened under the other lease idea.
Stiehler said he thought it was the right way to go, as it would be “keeping the lease the way its been for the last number of years.” He said the Chamber maintaining the bathrooms would help the town as the town would not be paying to clean the bathrooms.
There was no vote at the meeting as they still have to finalize the lease and have Hagemann look over the agreement.
The next Town Board meeting will take place Thursday, Dec. 19 at the Community Building on 4th Street at 7 p.m.