City to apply to N.C. Step, Small Town Main Street programs
Saluda officials have talked quite a bit lately about the town’s need to prepare for its economic future.
In August the Saluda Board of Commissioners approved a 10-cent property tax increase, bringing its tax rate up to 60.5 cents per $100 of property valuation.
At the time, Saluda Finance Officer Ron Cole said the city had borrowed from its fund balance for the past three or four years to operate and needed to begin building equity.
But newly elected Commissioner Lynn Cass said she and other leaders understand something has to be done to ease the strain put on residents.
“We have so many retirees up here and I think they are starting to feel the burden of keeping the town up through taxes; I mean our younger residents are too – everyone is,” Cass said. “So, I feel we have to look at options that can help us relieve some of that burden.”
Cass presented two proposals to city commissioners at their meeting Jan. 9. One involved applying for the N.C. Step program and another for the Small Town Main Street Program. Both are programs related to providing assistance for small towns in North Carolina.
The N.C. Small Towns Economic Prosperity Program (NC STEP), according to its website, was launched five years ago in an effort to address how small towns can go about reinvigorating their economies.
This means helping the towns deal with structural changes because of a slow economy, implementing technical assistance and grants for revitalization efforts and providing information during the process of creating public policy that supports economic vitality.
Cass has already met with city administrator Erny Williams and administrative assistant Monica Pace to plan their grant application for this program. Part of that application requires the town to show the number of jobs lost and jobs gained over the last few years and to demonstrate a real need.
She said she hopes N.C. Step would also be able to help leaders define what type of business and growth would be appropriate for the community.
The next effort Cass has approached other commissioners with is applying for the Small Town Main Street Program (STMS).
Commissioners plan to take time Jan. 30 to meet with Sherry Adams, STMS coordinator for Western North Carolina, to further discuss the program and get some of their questions answered.
Communities participating in the program are mentored in terms of organization, design, promotion and economic restructuring with relation to downtown revitalization.
The STMS program is currently eight years old and is designed specifically for towns with a population less than 7,500. It spread to western North Carolina in 2007, the same year Tryon joined as a participant.
These towns are given two years of monthly on-site and on-call technical services as they work to improve the financial health of their town. Cass said she thinks this is something Saluda needs to investigate, especially with four vacant storefronts downtown.
“Our downtown area is a gem and we don’t want to change that, but these programs could help us improve our economic health without being detrimental to what we love about out town,” Cass said. “This isn’t really to change anything but to get all the stakeholders together on the same page to make efforts that would benefit everyone in Saluda.”
The STMS program application deadline is May 31.
“When I ran for city commissioner I just wanted to make sure we knew about every program available to us,” Cass said. “In these economic times I think we need to look at all the resources that are available.”