Chuck Sutton, one of the developers of the property said Monday night that the sand drag racing strip will be for ATV and other vehicles that only race on sand. There will also be camping and RV sites near the track and they anticipate the track will attract people from many states and provide more local jobs.
Sutton said the race strip will become the fourth race stop in an association for sand drag racing strips and there will be one large event at least once a month, with other small events on the weekends.
The property had previously been zoned rural residential but is now zoned highway commercial.
On Tuesday, owner of the Rockingham Speedway Andy Hillenburg said, “I’m a big fan of any kind of motor sport and in order to make Richmond County the center for speed we welcome all motor sports.
“Part of our game plan at the speedway is to get any type of racing we can so I can only see this as a positive.”
During the county manager’s report, Rick Sago announced the county has received a $600,000 Division of Community Assistance Urgent Needs Grant from the Department of Commerce for the Fox Road water project.
This money will go toward the Fox Road water extension project which will create a new water line to serve residents of Fox Road where water wells have been contaminated with hazardous chemicals once used to kill insects attacking peach trees grown there.
Sago said he is meeting the Division of Community Assistance to wrap up any details and will be ready to begin the bidding process for the project soon.
Sago also announced that the county has met with the owner of the Nordstrom Enterprises, LLC property of Safie Mill and the owner said he was basically bankrupt and couldn’t afford the cleanup of the site.
The county asked Holly Wright, owner of the second half of the mill property who has already begun his cleanup, how much it would cost to clean up the Nordstrom site. An unofficial estimate was $142,000. Wright has already spent about $62,000 to clean up his site.
“It’s up to the board now how you want to proceed,” Sago said.
Chairman Kenneth Robinette said one of the options would be for the county to take it over.
“He’s basically bankrupt,” Robinette said of the Nordstrom owner. “He’s willing to give the property to anyone who will take it. Most people I’ve talked to said they could do the cleanup for $50,000 or less. We’ve got a grant from the Cole Foundation to cleanup East Rockingham and it won’t be clean until we clean up these two properties.”
Robinette said after the county took over the Nordstrom property and cleaned it up, the county could sell it to the highest bidder.
“I would like to see the board take this over and clean it up,” he said.
Sago said the county still has about $100,000 of the Cole Foundation grant available for this project, and can always reapply for more. He added that Wright said he would take on the Nordstrom property, but would need money to help clean it up.
He continued and said the best bet would be to bid out the project and see what kind of numbers come in.
“My concern is I don’t want the public to pay for this,” Commissioner Pam Dillman said. “From this we’ve learned we need some sort of bond to protect us from an LLC like Nordstrom who wants to come in and tear our properties down because they often go bankrupt because they have limited money to begin with.”
Robinette added that the county’s legal council needed to look into this to find out what would be the best course of action and the board agreed to pick up the discussion again during its November meeting.
Following Sago’s report, Commissioner Dillman had several questions for the manager including one about the potential of the county becoming an inland port, but fellow commissioners felt it was something that didn’t need to be discussed in the event it create false hopes for the residents of the county and creates unrealistic expectations of county staff.
Dillman also questioned the possibility of revisiting the idea of a leash law in the county.
“I keep getting calls from people who see dogs without collars bothering children and adults,” Dillman said.
Commissioner Thad Ussery said it’s too hard to enforce a leash law in the county because, “you have to have a little cooperation from the people, too.”
The commissioners discussed that the county’s animal control officers will respond to calls of dogs running around without tags and collars and the county does have a dangerous dog ordinance that says if anyone is bit by a dog, animal control will respond, and if the dog is deemed “dangerous” it will be put to sleep.
Robinette added that it might be worth looking into specific dog bans like other county’s have for deer-hunting dogs and the like.
“Developers need to have specific rules for their subdivisions, too,” Robinette said.
They all stressed that until there are more specific laws on the books, the best way to keep people and animals safe is to keep dogs on a leash, but to also make sure the animals have a name tag and their rabies tag on the collar because if a dog is picked up by animal control and there’s no proof of a rabies vaccine, it could be put to sleep.
Also during the meeting Director of Community Services B.K. Jones gave another update on the new judicial center, stressing that all that will be housed in the new building are the courtrooms, judges’ chambers, district attorney’s office and the clerk of courts, both civil and criminal.
The sheriff’s department, jail and register of deeds will remain at the old county courthouse building.
In other actions, the board:
- Set the public hearing for revisions to the county’s tower ordinance for its Dec. 7 meeting.
- Approved the remaining $13 million in school construction bonds be used for the Chalk Road Elementary school already under construction.
- Approved a budget amendment to reflect the decrease for the 2009-2010 Criminal Justice Partnership.
- Approved a budget amendment to reflect a 5 percent reduction in salary line item for Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
- Waived authority to approve the Sandhills Center Area Board’s Selection of chief executive officer, allowing the board and the personnel committee to make the selection.
- Approved a resolution declaring some water maintenance equipment as surplus property.
-Accepted a North Carolina Rural Center Workshop report.
The board’s next regularly-scheduled meeting is Nov. 2, at 6:30 p.m. in the county administrative building located at 125 S. Hancock St., Rockingham.
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