With no tax increase and few big-ticket items stirring up political tensions, Rock Hill leaders whisked through a speedy budget review session on Monday morning, finishing almost in time for a late breakfast at Kinch's across the street.
The harmony stands in sharp contrast to what other area cities are experiencing this spring in the face of a sluggish economy. Charlotte is wrestling with how to confront an overburdened court system and a recent spike in property crimes. Columbia might impose the maximum tax increase allowed by the state to help pay for repairs to aging water and sewer lines.
Decision-makers in Rock Hill don't face those kinds of dilemmas in the $163.9 million budget drawn up by City Manager Carey Smith. But controversy could await in more specific forms -- most notably, yard waste rollout carts and new tennis courts.
Trouble ahead on yard waste?
Frustration will arise this summer when the city rolls out a new plan for collecting brush and grass clippings from homes, Councilman Kevin Sutton predicted. Sutton appears ready to extend his two-year streak of voting against Smith's budgets, saying the yard waste changes are most likely a dealbreaker for him.
Residents would be required to put grass clippings and sticks into roll carts, similar to trash bins, and leave them at the curb. Customers won't be forced to buy the carts -- but cannot put yard waste at the curb without them. The carts would cost $50 each.
Their purpose, utility officials say, is to prevent loose grass piles from sitting for days on the curbs, where they can smell rotten, blow into other people's yards and clog storm drains.
"I just don't see this project being well-received by the public," Sutton said to The Herald afterward. "We want to encourage people to maintain their yards. This may be a disincentive to do that. Now all of a sudden, if I fill that cart up, then what do I do?"
The answer: Buy another cart for $50, city officials say.
The cost will be unpopular, but neighbors will like the idea of cleaner streets, said Chris Harmon, who moved to Rock Hill from Bellevue, Wash., a suburb outside Seattle where carts were used.
"With a heavy rain, you've got grass streaming down the street," said Harmon, president of the Highland Creek homeowners association. "Teenagers drive right over the pile just to knock it down. It just makes a mess of the street."
Tennis courts draw heat
Sutton and Smith also renewed their annual volley over the city-run tennis center next to Sullivan Middle School. Smith's budget calls for building two new courts, at a cost of $160,000, with hospitality tax revenues covering the bill. Two more courts would bring the total number to 10, as has always been the plan.
An avid tennis player, Smith speaks of the game in very personal terms, as when he talked Monday about how the center is "reviving the interest in tennis in our community."
Sutton doesn't quibble with that, but he questions whether City Hall should be in the business of subsidizing what he considers a sports club.
"That's his sport, so obviously he's more knowledgeable," Sutton said afterward. "I'm that way about golf. I just don't have the public funding."
Perhaps sensing what awaited him, Smith showed up armed with a memo outlining the center's growth in the past three years. With two more courts, Smith believes the facility would immediately increase league play by 50 percent because a facility needs at least 10 courts to host two league matches at one time.
"When we came here, we had to play in Charlotte," said Smith, formerly the city manager in Daytona Beach, Fla. "That's no longer the case. And that's true for a lot of people in Rock Hill."
While Sutton shared a number of concerns, other council members seemed content with what was presented to them. Osbey Roddey and Susie Hinton did not raise any questions during the one-hour, 45-minute session. In fact, Roddey did not speak a word.
