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The Windsor Town Council reviewed the different standing town committees and boards that exist on Feb. 11 and made the unanimous decision to dissolve the Drainage Committee and the Residential Beautification Committee.

Town Manager William Saunders said, “I created a board, committee and council roster at the beginning of last calendar year, and I’ve updated that for council’s information to show the current members in terms of all the boards, committees, councils and commissions of the council, and it also shows the vacancies on those boards.”

VACANCIES

Four of the seven seats on the Windsor Economic Development Authority are vacant, but the town has some prospects for filling at least some of those seats.

“We have received recently several Talent Bank forms for the EDA that we can turn over to them for their consideration for appointments,” Saunders said.

The existing members of the Windsor EDA include Tony Ambrose, DeWitt Holland and Councilman Jake Redd.

There is one vacancy on the Windsor Board of Zoning Appeals due to the recent movement of Debra Hicks to the Windsor Planning Commission.

“We really need to be thinking about that BZA vacancy,” Saunders said.

The other four seats on the Windsor BZA are occupied by Lewis Edmonds, G. Devon Hewitt, Sue Meadows and Marion Neighbours.

The seat representing Windsor on the Isle of Wight County EDA is vacant, but Saunders noted that Michael Maddox is in the process that could lead to his appointment.

“I believe staff was meeting with him … later in the week to interview him for that,” Saunders said. “So that’s in process right now.”

Saunders also noted that there was a vacancy on the town’s Drainage Committee.

On the roster, there were no listed vacancies for the Windsor Planning Commission, the Town Council or the Windsor Town Center Advisory Board.

DRAINAGE AND BEAUTIFICATION COMMITTEES

Windsor Mayor George Stubbs noted that neither the Drainage Committee nor the Residential Beautification Committee had held meetings in possibly a year.

“What was the feeling of council and desire of council of possibly dissolving these two committees?” he said.

Councilman David Adams requested definitions for what these committees were created to do.

Stubbs indicated that there are areas in town where water does not drain well.

Saunders said the Drainage Committee was created to identify drainage issues in town. The committee put a survey out to the citizens, and any citizen that had a drainage issue on any of their property was asked to fill out the survey.

The committee was tasked with compiling the surveys to try to learn where the drainage issues were in town, Saunders continued. Then committee members sought a drainage study from Bowman Consultants, and that study was done.

“When I (came on the job),” Saunders said, “I read through the study and everything the committee had done, identified two primary drainage areas of concern, mainly because they were the ones that threatened potentially flooding interior structures.”

He said one of those areas of concern was on Virginia Avenue. The other was along West Windsor Boulevard near Coastal Point Gymnastics and Sports Centre and Redd’s Climate Controlled Self-Storage, extending from there down to Dairy Queen.

“We got engineers to do a deeper dive on those two areas,” Saunders said. “So if you’re looking at it from the fact that (the committee was) originally started to compile the data and determine where the issues were, that’s really kind of run its course now.”

Vice Mayor J. Randy Carr served on the Drainage Committee and said it turned the information it gathered over to Isle of Wight County, which is responsible for addressing drainage issues, and it did so.

“So now, me personally, I think the committee needs to dissolve until something comes up and then we need to address something,” he said, adding that in the event of that happening, the town should specifically appoint people to the committee that have the relevant knowledge.

Councilman Edward “Gibbie” Dowdy indicated that there are still some small problem areas in town that need to be addressed, but he added that he did not know if a committee was necessary to do that.

Carr also addressed the Residential Beautification Committee.

“We ain’t doing nothing with that committee,” he said. “If something comes up in the town that needs to be addressed beautification-wise, we (should) put people on that committee that have the knowledge to go out here and keep it going and meet if we’ve got a project we want to do or whatever.”

Saunders mentioned a compromise that would have accommodated the approach Carr was recommending and that could also accommodate it in the future as well.

“The committee could have been a task force with limited scope, and then once that scope is done, it would just dissolve as opposed to being a standing committee that you end up years later having an awkward conversation like this about,” Saunders said.

Councilman Walter Bernacki offered Adams background on the Residential Beautification Committee, noting that in years past, there were several citizens who wanted to boost the beautification of the town by trying to entice citizens to spruce their yards up, plant flowers and trees, and they were interested in approaching businesses as well.

“So at that time, that committee was adopted, generated, created for that purpose,” he said. “But since then there have been a couple organizations in town I see that have kind of quasi-picked up on that cause.”

Councilman Marlin W. Sharp ultimately said, “I’ll make a motion that we dissolve the Drainage Committee and the Residential Beautification Committee since they’re no longer active.”

The 6-0 vote followed shortly thereafter.