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WINDSOR

On Tuesday, Windsor’s Town Council approved a revised memorandum of understanding with Isle of Wight County governing the town’s financial contribution to the emergency communications center that the county, Windsor and Smithfield jointly operate.

The revised MOU includes an updated funding formula, which Town Manager Michael Stallings explained was needed to better reflect the demands of the county’s new radio system on the E-911 dispatch center. The new system is scheduled to go online sometime this calendar year.

Previously, Windsor’s contribution to the cost of running the center was 8.5 percent. With the revised formula, this will drop to 6.8 percent. As such, the town may realize some savings by the end of the 2018-2019 fiscal year.

However, once the one year of included maintenance on the radio system ends next year, the town will have to start contributing its portion of these costs, in addition to its percentage of the operating cost. Stallings anticipates that this will result in a higher total contribution to the center during the 2019-2020 fiscal year.

In other business, the council also approved a resolution appropriating a total of $10,000 from the unappropriated fund balance of its general fund to the piping and storm drainage line item in its operating budget for fiscal year 2018-2019. This money will be combined with $5,000 already budgeted for this line item for a total of $15,000. It will go toward a proposal of $14,100 by Bowman Consulting for preliminary mapping and evaluation of each of the six problem drainage areas identified by the town’s drainage committee. These are:

• The ditch behind the commercial area on Windsor Boulevard near The Farmer’s Daughter Cafe, other ditches that stem off of this system, and a major outlet line from the stormwater pond at Windsor High School;
• The intersection of Windsor Boulevard and Church, Court, and Bank streets;
• Bank Street, Maple Lane and Griffin Street, and where Griffin becomes Old Suffolk Road;
• The north side of Route 460 (Windsor Boulevard,) that is channeled largely by pipelines from Watson Street or across Community Electric Cooperative’s property;
• North Court Street and the north side of Virginia Avenue;
• And the ditch running parallel to Sarahnell Lane on the west side, which carries stormwater from the high school toward and under Shiloh Drive.

Stallings also announced that the town’s Church Street/Shiloh Drive project has been approved for $304,000 in funding from the Virginia Department of Transportation in the 2019 fiscal year. He also said he had received and was currently reviewing the sewer study that the town partnered with the county to fund. The results of the study will likely be discussed during the council’s August meeting.