Suffolk News-Herald

It’ll be awhile before northern Suffolk residents will be checking out the latest reads from the library planned for the Harbour View area.

At least two years will pass before Suffolk’s budding artists, dancers and actors move into their new home: The Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts.

Coming years will bring long-sought changes to the East Washington Street corridor: A new recreation center, new neighborhoods at the Fairgrounds, a redesign of the current East Washington/Hall and Pinner street intersection.

Though these projects haven’t advanced beyond plans and paper, they will move one step closer to fruition this month. The City Council is expected to approve a $27.8 million capital improvement budget for 2003-2004, probably at its first February meeting.

But first, residents will have a chance to offer opinions on the proposed CIP budget this week. A public hearing is being held at the council meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. in the Municipal Building.

Major items proposed in next fiscal year’s budget include:

n$14.5 million – King’s Fork High School (Received $26.9 million in previous budgets) – Construction on the new $41.4 million, 1,800-student Kings Fork High School is underway; it will be ready to open in September 2004.

n$3 million – Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts (Received $5.2 million in previous budgets) – The city has committed to investing $4.6 million of $13 million renovation of Suffolk High School, with the rest coming from private or non-local sources.

n$2.2 million – Great Dismal Wildlife Interpretive Center – The city is hoping to get the federal government’s nod to bring a proposed $2.2 million Great Dismal Swamp Interpretive Center in the Constant’s Wharf area. Project contingent on funding through the federal government.

n$1.3 million – North Suffolk library (Received $2.3 million from fund transfer in previous budgets) – Funding for design/construction of 20,000-25,000-square-foot library in northern Suffolk. Property for the library has been secured; design efforts slated to begin early this year.

n$1 million – Old Main Street commercial development – This funding will continue streetscaping, installing underground street lighting and other amenities from Finney Avenue to Constant’s Wharf.

n$700,000 – East Washington Street/Fairgrounds Neighborhoods plans – Plans call for using funds, acquired mostly from Community Development Block Grants, for an array of projects: Road improvements, streetscaping, sidewalks, streetlights, banners, creating neighborhood parks that allow for new home construction and the under-grounding of utilities along East Washington Street.

*$500,000 – East Suffolk Recreation Center (Received $700,000 in previous budgets) – Plans call for the $5.7 million renovation of the East Suffolk Complex to be funded over four years using money that is 50 percent local, 50 percent non-local. The city also formed a public/private partnership with the Boys and Girls Club, which is starting a major capital campaign to help fund its part of the project.

*$500,000 – Suffolk Industrial Park – Funding will be used to continue building a main road and developing additional infrastructure for potential new tenants, including a pump station and regional storm water management ponds.

Residents shouldn’t fear a tax increase because of the $27.9 million CIP request, said Mayor E. Dana Dickens III.

Plans call for the city to finance $18 million of the projects through the sale of general obligation bonds.

Some of the remainder will come through various alternate sources, including grants and funds generated by private not-profit organizations.

The rest will be funded as cash by the city, he said.

Typically, tax increases tend to be established to fund items that are recurring expenses in the general operating budget, Dickens said.

Keeping up with the city’s residential growth has become increasingly challenging, said Dickens. Last year, he said, approximately 1,100 new homes were built in Suffolk.

&uot;That’s healthy growth. As long as we can continue to bring new jobs and economic development into the city at the rate we have been, we’ll be OK,&uot; Dickens said. &uot;What is going to get us in trouble is when that starts to spike.&uot;

The biggest single expenditure of the CIP is earmarked for Dickens’ Chuckatuck borough – the $14.5 million being spent to complete construction of the new high school.

Another big winner in the current and proposed CIP budget is Council member Linda T. Johnson’s Sleepy Hole district.

Before next Wednesday’s council meeting, council and City Manager Myles E. Standish will cut the ribbon at the new $3.4 million North Suffolk Public Safety Center. The facility, slated to open as soon as equipment arrives later this spring, is a coup for the rapidly growing northern Suffolk areas.

&uot;We’re thrilled, happy to have it,&uot; said John Countryman, president of the Burbage Grant Homeowners Association. &uot;Our only concern is that they are closing the Sector II police station at the entrance to our neighborhood. We had hoped to keep that open, too.&uot;

In recent years, Countryman and his neighbors made numerous appeals requesting increased fire and police protection for the city’s northernmost community.

&uot;We didn’t really have to fight for it but I think it was important that we kept it on the floor,&uot; Countryman said. &uot;Once in a while, it would look as if it was falling by the wayside.&uot;

The community is looking forward to having a library nearby, too, Countryman said. Currently, the closest city library is a trailer situated in the corner of John Yeates Middle School’s parking lot.

&uot;A new school out here would be great, too,&uot; Countryman added.

The library and public safety center are both services vitally needed by the northern Suffolk community, Dickens and Johnson agreed,

&uot;Capital projects go where the greatest needs in the city are,&uot; Dickens said. &uot;They’ve needed the new fire safety building for a long time and there’s really no library out there. There is a desperate need for a new library out there.

Johnson said she realizes that capital needs still exist in northern Suffolk.

&uot;But I’m very pleased that the public safety center is almost up and running and that we have a time line on the library,&uot; Johnson said.

Johnson wants council to remember that her district’s older communities are experiencing basic problems that need to be addressed.

&uot;We are the gem of the city buy we do have community needs that need to be taken care of rather than overlooked,&uot; Johnson said. For example, some residents, particularly in older communities, are experiencing problems with sewer, sinkholes and ditches, she said.

For the next few years, plans call for East Washington Street corridor – which encompasses part of the Cypress, Nansemond and Whaleyville voting districts – to be spruced up like never before.

It’s a long-awaited project that will gradually reverse at least four decades of neglect, said Councilman Charles Brown, the Cypress representative.

&uot;When you wait that long to brings things back up to par, it will take a while,&uot; said Brown, a leading advocate of the East Washington Street revitalization. &uot;A lot of people on East Washington have been wishing and working very hard to make this start to happen.&uot;

Brown says he is looking forward to completing renovations and new construction of the East Suffolk Recreation Center, a project in his district due to be complete by 2005. Grants and a Boys and Girls Club capital campaign will be vital to the project’s success, he said.

&uot;When the city can’t afford something, we are starting to look for alternative ways to get the funding that is necessary,&uot; he said. &uot;Sometimes we have to find creative ways to get these projects done.&uot;

That’s why the city has traditionally placed such importance on economic development, Brown said.

&uot;There must be commercial development to make money,&uot; Brown said &uot;We can’t keep going back to the taxpayers.&uot;

Calvin Jones, who represents the Holy Neck district, said he supports the major expenditure of the 2003-2004 CIP being used for new schools.

Eventually, especially with the Target Distribution Center being built of Manning Bridge Road, Jones said he would like to see the $1.6 million Holland Road Fire Station proposed in the 2007-2008 budget bumped up the agenda.