By Carl Blankenship
carl.blankenship@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY – After discussion in closed session, the Spencer Board of Alderman on Tuesday night moved forward with a plan to hire an assistant manager who would eventually be moved into the town manager position.

David Treme, former Salisbury City manager, has been filling in part time as town manager for almost a year.

“Mr. Treme has been with us since June last year and has served us very, very well,” said Mayor Jonathan Williams.

Williams said the plan recognizes Treme is an interim who can not serve full time because of his previous retirement.

“We need to start looking now for our next town manager, and the intention would be to bring that person on for probably six months or so through the end of this calendar year,” Williams said, adding that would give the new hire six months working with Treme to transition the town’s leadership.

Williams said the town is looking for someone who wants to be part of a larger team and has a passion for small towns.

“We feel like this is the best plan for everybody,” Williams said.

Williams said new hire will probably not be made by the end of budget season, which is happening now, and plans to have someone on board by July 1.

In other news from the meeting:

• The town approved clearing material from the inside of the section of the Park Plaza building the town owns. All the partitions are still in the building as well as other material left by vendors and businesses that used to be housed there. Williams said all the material still left in the building will need to be torn out for renovations to begin. “It’s pretty amazing how much stuff is still there,” Williams said. The board approved contractor Martin Enterprises’ of Greensboro to perform the work for the lowest bid of $27,800 from three bidders.
• The board approved contracting with accountant Eddie Carrick to perform its annual audit for a fee of $4,750. John Sofley, who formerly was assistant city manager for Salisbury and is helping the town of Spencer, recommended the board accept the contract with Carrick because the fee is reasonable for the size of the town and most other auditing firms have already scheduled their audits for the year. Treme said it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find another auditor at this time.
• The board agreed to give N.C. Transportation Museum its usual $2,500 for its annual fireworks display. The museum requested $5,000. The board recognized there were tentative plans have some sort of festival in town involving Park Plaza, but decided to give the museum previous amount citing concerns about how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect events in the immediate future.