Posted by Staff | Sep 16, 2022 | Local Government

Pittsboro Mayor Cindy Perry joined 97.9 The Hill’s Andrew Stuckey on Tuesday, September 13th for the latest Chatham County Roundup. This time, Perry discussed Pittsboro’s new water filtration system, the Chatham Park sports complex, and an upcoming celebration of women leaders in the community. Below is a transcript of the conversation edited for clarity. You can listen to the full conversation here.

Andrew Stuckey: I guess we should get right to it because there is so much going on in Pittsboro. I think the top issue to discuss right now is the water situation as we had the activation of the GAC filter a few weeks ago, and that should be fully up and running now. So can you give us an update on that?

Cindy Perry: It is up and running. One of the things we are waiting on right now are test results to be able to show exactly how that filtration system is working. It is the filtration system, granulated activated carbon, which removes all of the PFAS and PFOA “forever chemicals.” They should be at a much-reduced level coming through our system now. It is a very exciting moment for Pittsboro. It was $3.2 million to protect the citizens of Pittsboro. It doesn’t do anything to take out some of the other chemicals that we have had problems with, like Dioxin for one. But this is a big moment for us. We are very pleased as soon as we have those test results. Andrew, I’ll be more than glad to share them with you online.

Stuckey: I am definitely excited to hear that. Do we have any sense of the timeline of when those test results will be back?

Perry: I am not certain. I believe they asked last night at our town board meeting, but there was not anybody there to answer the question. We will get back to you as soon as we know something.

Stuckey: Definitely good news out of Pittsboro with the GAC filter going in, and I was going to ask you about the cost. It is one of those things where I was so focused on the water quality, as I think is the reasonable position, that I had not thought about the cost and where that money’s coming from and all that sort of thing. You said it was 3.2 million. How does that work budget-wise?

Perry: Previous to this session, we had about a $7 million annual budget. I don’t need to tell you that these are major big chunks. Now we are up to $9 million a year as far as the annual budget is concerned, but there are certain requirements to have funds in reserve for emergency situations. This was one of those, but from my understanding, the money that was dispersed to create this GAC system will be reimbursed through some of the infrastructure funding that we will be receiving soon.

Stuckey: It is certainly one of those things where it’s like, if we can make this happen, we have to make it happen. There is a time for fiscal responsibility and there is a time to make sure that the water is safe. This seemed like the time to make sure the water is safe.

Perry: Absolutely. It was a no-brainer in a sense.

Stuckey: You also mentioned the board meeting last night, so I wonder if you can give us any other updates or news that came out of the board meeting from last night?

Perry: Absolutely. Probably one of the most exciting things was a 50-acre Chatham Park sports complex that will be off Pittsboro Moncure road. The Chatham Park folks are contributing these 50 acres. It is in the process of being surveyed right now for a top-quality sports complex that will have various different kinds of fields and championship kinds of playing areas. It will really be a complex, which has an appeal to championship games from all over the triangle area. Along with that, there is a $3 million fund coming from Chatham Park, which will begin the infrastructure and grading and things like that. That is just in its infancy, but what was approved last night was a resolution that we would accept that dedication. We also had our swearing-in of our new town clerk, Carrie Bailey. Carrie has been our customer service representative there at the front desk in town hall for two years. She is now taking on the responsibilities of sitting with us at these Monday night meetings and taking minutes and arranging HR kinds of things and resolutions. It is a real Jack of all trades and master of all of them too. We welcome Carrie to that particular new position for her. We also have a new public information officer, Colby Sawyer. He is well ensconced in taking care of public announcements that need to be made and scheduling. So one of the things that are interesting in Pittsboro is we have an affordable housing task force that we are forming. If anybody in your audience is interested in serving on the Pittsboro housing task force we would love to have their resume and their interest and their phone number. They can call me or town hall and get on that list. It is well known that affordable housing is a real crisis in nearly every community, especially this one where we have got property values going up so quickly. So we would be searching for volunteers for that public housing task force.

Stuckey: So if anyone out there is in the Pittsboro area and interested in joining that, reach out to Mayor Perry or the town government. We also want to congratulate the new town clerk, Carrie Bailey. I wanted to ask for a follow-up on this 50-acre sports complex. Is this going to be a public park then?

Perry: Yes, it will be. It will be keyed more towards organized sports and championship events, but it will be daily access for teams, intramurals, schools, individuals, whatever.

Stuckey: So this is the type of facility where we would see a softball tournament or a soccer tournament being played regionally?

Stuckey: Good to hear. Definitely good to hear. We have got other stuff going on in the Pittsboro area that I wanted to touch on as well. I wanted to see if we had any update on the Sanford water merger.

Perry: We do not. We are still investigating.  When we last talked before we were still in that due diligence stage and we are still in that now. Of course, we have just lost our town manager. He is staying on until the new interim manager comes on board on the 26th of this month. That will be Hazen Blodgett. Hazen will be our interim manager. He has just retired from an auspicious career in town management, most recently a 20-year stint as the town manager of Matthews, North Carolina. We look forward to Hazen coming and joining us and we will then pick up and take those utility initiatives like the fourth main sewer to Sanford and the Sanford merger. He will take those hopefully to the next level into fruition.

Stuckey: There is a virtual program celebrating local women who serve as county leaders and you are moderating this celebration. So what can you tell us about that?

Perry: This is a really wonderful event. The library started this series in March of 2021 celebrating women’s history month. This is the third in the series. What we will be talking about Saturday, the 17th from 1-2:30 p.m. is a celebration of women involved in public safety and law enforcement. We have wonderful participants like Chief Deputy Tracy Kelly and Major Tammy Kirkman of the Sheriff’s department. She is our first female major in the Chatham Sheriff’s department. Sherry Merrill is the assistant district attorney, and Renita Foxx is somebody who has worked very diligently with domestic violence in the court’s program. I look forward to speaking to these women and helping to guide a conversation about how it is that we as women can add a special touch. We can discuss barriers that we have been through or the celebrations that we need to have as women become more completely involved in law enforcement.

Stuckey: You can get more information for that at chathamlibraries.org. I also want to give a shout-out to the Chatham Community Library. They have a lot of programs going on and they do a really nice job of reaching out to the community as well.

Perry: They certainly do. I spoke this last week to a group of fourth graders at North Chatham Elementary School. If there was one single favorite thing that I do, it is going and speaking to school children about what the mayor does, how the government works, and all of that. In connection with that, the Chatham historical association has a wonderful program in which they invite fourth graders from all over the county in a series of Thursday sessions at the historical courthouse. Every single child in the county, whether private school or public school, gets an invitation and can come. Parents of fourth graders just know that we are working hard to give your fourth graders an interesting approach to government and history. We look forward to having your children.

Stuckey: I really appreciate you coming on and so glad we were able to catch up. I look forward to talking again soon.

Perry: Thank you, Andrew. Always a pleasure.

Every Tuesday, learn what’s happening from around Chatham County during the Chatham County Roundup! Featuring local government representatives, the Chatham News + Record and other community members, the segment spotlights the latest news from around the region.

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