Hospital describes expansion

Council also hears about need for city recycling program

By Hugh Fisher

hfisher@kannapoliscitizen.com

The Kannapolis City Council met Monday at the Kannapolis Train Station.

All council members were present. Councilman Roger Haas gave the invocation.

Business before the council included the following:

• NorthEast: Council members heard a presentation from Carolinas Medical Center NorthEast regarding the proposal to build an eight-story tower and perform renovations at the Concord hospital.

Larry Hinsdale, executive vice president of the CMC network, presented a brief video highlighting the planned expansion. A state hearing on the proposed expansion was held Monday.

Hinsdale called the tower a replacement “for beds built literally when Mr. Cannon laid the cornerstone,” although in later comments  he said the actual bed count of the hospital would not change.

Instead, a few beds originally constructed in the 1950s, and others still in need of updating, would be renovated. Other hospital departments would gain space in the expansion.

The proposed tower will cost an estimated $264 million, with a projected opening date of January 2014. 

Hinsdale said the need for growth was noticeable as patients using the hospital on crowded days noted the age of some of the rooms.

Charles Cannon helped establish the original Cabarrus County Hospital in 1937. 

Hinsdale’s talk was for information only and council members took no action.

• Recycling: A presentation given by Renee Goodnight and the Environmental Stewardship Commission highlighted the continuing demand and need for a curbside recycling program.

Kannapolis is North Carolina’s largest municipality without a recycling program, according to research by commission members, headed by Goodnight and Public Works Director Wilmer Melton.

Goodnight described the large number of inquiries from new residents interested in recycling.

“A lot of them are coming from communities that already recycle and are surprised to learn there are no recycling bins or carts,” Goodnight said.

Eleven members of the city’s Environmental Stewardship Commission, formed last May, sat in the audience as Goodnight and Melton presented a proposal that the commission said could have curbside recycling up and running in Kannapolis within seven months of approval.

Also on hand were eleven students from Kannapolis Middle School. The Kannapolis City school district is planning its own recycling program, which may be online by next year if funding is available through the system’s budget.

They sat in the audience as Melton and Goodnight presented the commission’s report, which projected costs for single-stream recycling with a weekly curbside pickup at all households currently receiving city garbage services.

Single-stream recycling means that households could put all their recyclables – aluminum, plastic, glass and paper – into one container, with no sorting needed.

The key to their plan is a proposed user fee of $4.60 per month, which the commission projects will raise $993,600 for the program.

After expenses, including the purchase of carts, $10,000 for administration and $50,000 to educate the public on the program, a balance of $8,712 is projected to remain in the first year, according to the presentation to City Council members.

The initial surplus would help keep costs from rising as quickly in later years, even if fuel goes up, Melton said.

But Mayor Misenheimer expressed some concern about adding another $55.20 per year to each household’s fee load.

Councilman Richard Anderson agreed. “My concern is that if this council is not careful, we’re going to ‘fee’ people to death,” he said.

“I’m really for recycling, but I’m not ready to jump in here with what I see here,” Anderson said.

No action was taken on the proposal, which was for council members’ information only. But Goodnight urged that attention be paid to the issue.

Mayor Misenheimer commended the commission, Goodnight and Melton for their work. But it remains unclear when or how the proposal might be acted upon.

• Beautification: Council members passed, by consent, a resolution to support code enforcement and beautification efforts in the city.

Among the efforts listed are an educational campaign to better inform homeowners and businesses of code enforcement efforts, a partnership effort with local businesses and a new list of beautification and code enforcement priorities.