Minutes 05-25-2010 - Laserfiche WebLink

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As a child care provider, Child Care Services maintains a log of open slots at child care centers in Orange County. My center calls to update or we receive calls from a Child Care services staff inember to update the log of open slots. This occurs monthly and is a service to centers and families. In hard economic times finding jobs is tough; finding child care can be more challenging. A job is offered and you are to start next week; who is going to take care of your child. Losing Information and Referral means a loss of jobs in Orange County. Small business use Information and Referral as a benefit to new employees. Child Care Services Information and Referral agency supports economic development by assisting families finding child care. The agency depends on county dollars and the county depends on the agency to help parents to work. Cutting funds will cut this program. Orange County must move forward to achieve economic viability." Heidi Harkins is a parent of CHCCS students. She thanked the County Commissioners for the creative ways to fund the schools in the past, but she is asking the County Commissioners to fully fund the capital needs for the schools. She is concerned about Culbreth Middle School and the state of the building. There are significant limitations on science, especially. Emily Martine has been a resident of Chapel Hill for 22 years and has children in CHCCS. She said that she appreciated the commitment to the schools so far, but the current funding will not provide for capital needs of the schools. She said that people move here because of the quality of schools and this affects property values. She said that raising taxes is an option and she would be happy to pay more for the quality of the schools to be maintained. She said that one cent on the CHCCS district tax gets almost $1 million. She would be happy to pay $5 more per month for this. Gerry Christmas was speaking for Alexandra Browne, who was sick. He read a prepared statement. Alexandra Browne lives in White Cross and has worked at the Carrboro Branch Library, Cedar Grove Library, and the main library in Hillsborough. He spoke about library funding in these economic times. The libraries need at least the same funding for libraries because there are many who cannot afford a computer or internet access and the library is the only place these people can go to look for and apply for work, the only place that children that research and type their papers, and one of the few places a family can go for free entertainment and culture. Regarding proposed cuts, she agrees that the Cedar Grove branch is small and has not grown much, but for the families who use this library, it is essential. Many of the patrons come to this library on foot. She asked that this valuable and necessary resource not be taken away from these citizens. If there were a library in southwest Orange County, the burden would be off Chapel Hill and should the Town of Chapel Hill reject the $250,000 the County Manager has proposed, she would hope that the Board would promise to use those funds for libraries in the Orange County system. She asked the County Commissioners honor the promise made to designate $166,000 in proceeds for the sale of county buildings to libraries and education. Kathleen Ferguson is Chair of the Economic Development Commission, but she spoke as a taxpayer. She said that the revenue pie is getting smaller while expenses rise. Orange County needs more resources to increase the pie. Even though Orange County has the highest residential taxes in the region, it only covers 75% of the cost of services in Orange County and the average citizen cannot afford what it takes to reach a dollar for dollar balance. Only by improving economic development can more profit be made available to the County. There has been an extreme amount of business growth in the area, but not in Orange County. She said that Orange County must begin to offer what the businesses need to choose Orange County over other places. It has to start with shovel-ready land. She wants the money to stay in Orange County and be used to benefit Orange County schools, health, and programs.