SILER CITY — The Immigrant Community Advisory Committee (ICAC) met at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, July 12, to discuss scheduling a meeting with Siler City Police Department Chief Mike Wagner, to decide the next meeting dates and to speak about ICAC membership, in addition to reviewing the Transportation Community Priority List.
Though ICAC’s last meeting solely focused on learning more about Language Access Plans, that line of conversation was put on hold to address more pressing topics.
First, the committee members unanimously moved to invite Chief Wagner to the next ICAC meeting at 6 p.m. on Aug. 2 to discuss recent police vehicular checkpoints around Siler City.
Second, because of scheduling conflicts with committee members, ICAC and Town of Siler City Community Development Director Jack Meadows decided on the following dates for their meetings: Tuesday, Sept. 19, and Tuesday, Oct. 17.
Third, the committee said that there are some concerns with membership and quorum. Hannia Benitez, ICAC chair, said the committee had requested at the beginning of 2023 to receive a draft of a proposal for streamlined updated policies, procedures and guidelines for advisory committees from the Town Manager Hank Raper’s Office.
These drafts will be presented to the town board of commissioners for approval in order to streamline guidelines for all advisory committees, including ICAC, Benitez said.
Meadows said that other advisory boards, like the Downtown Advisory Committee, have also faced issues with quorum — not enough board members able to attend meeting, thus cancelling meetings.
He said the Town Manager’s Office have been creating proposals for updated policies and guidelines addressing these issues: addressing number of meetings, remote options and calendars.
With this information, the committee unanimously agreed to schedule a meeting with Town Manager Hank Raper to discuss these concerns and receive the most updated draft of advisory committee policies and guidelines.
Lastly, the committee and Meadows starting reviewing the Transportation Community Priority List which are bike and pedestrian sidewalk projects, which differ from N.C. Dept. of Transportation’s Priority List. Meadows and the committee went through six of these projects before adjourning the meeting.
Meadows addressed potential projects such as the South Sixth Avenue project which would go from East Raleigh Street to South Second Avenue to construct a sidewalk, and a project on Fifth Street and North Garden Avenue.
This one would entail constructing a “sidewalk on the north side of Fifth Street from North Second Avenue to North Garden Avenue … [and a] sidewalk on [the] east side of North Garden Avenue from West Fifth Street to West Third Street.”
The other ones they addressed were potential sidewalk construction for East Fourth Street and Pine Glade Avenue, North Second Avenue and Greensboro Avenue and finally South Seventh Avenue and East Dolphin Street.
Before adjourning the meeting ICAC board members and Meadows tabled reviewing the rest of these projects for the next meeting at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 2, in the courtroom at City Hall.