SALISBURY — County commissioners spent most of Monday night’s busy meeting discussing the county’s COVID-19 vaccine plan and a proposed animal control ordinance, but those two agenda topics weren’t all that was hashed out.

The commissioners also received an update on Open Broadband’s progress on providing rural parts of the county with broadband internet connection, approved a restaurant grant program and heard a report on an audit of the county’s 2020 fiscal year finances.

Open Broadband continues to connect

Kent Winrich, the chief technology officer of Open Broadband, told commissioners that his company has purchased all the equipment it needs to bring better broadband connectivity to rural parts of western and eastern Rowan County. 

Open Broadband is expanding its services in the county utilizing CARES Act funding distributed by the board of commissioners. 

Winrich said that the company will use three main antenna locations to provide services, including a central tower near Statesville Boulevard, two existing towers on Youngs Mountain and a tower located in the Springs neighborhood near High Rock Lake. Winrich said that Open Broadband has used LTE boxes to provide people in some parts of the county with a temporary internet connection until the antennas are installed.

Once the rainy weather abates for a few weeks, Winrich said, his company will work to install the tower at the Springs.

“We anticipate getting the tower up in March and getting people online in April for the eastern part of Rowan County,” Winrich said.

In the meantime, Winrich said that his company will work to bring connectivity to the western side of the county, including the Scotch Irish community.

“I don’t know a more pressing issue for our country and our county than broadband right now for security, for economic mobility, everything wraps into that,” Chairman Greg Edds said.

Open Broadband will be hiring several new employees to help the company complete its installations in the coming months. Job seekers and those interested in the company’s progress can check for updates on the company’s Facebook page or at www.openbb.net.

Restaurant Grant Program

Relief is on the way for locally-owned restaurants after the Rowan County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the county’s new restaurant grant program on Monday night.

The restaurant grant program will largely mimic the small business grant program administered by the county in December, except only locally-owned restaurants that have more than 26 employees will be eligible to apply.

“This is an attempt to try to include those that we inadvertently required out in the first grant,” Commissioner Craig Pierce said. “We’ve never done this before either. This is all new ground for us. I had people call me who said, ‘I’ve got 26 employees but 25 of them are part time. You didn’t clarify that in your original grant.’ I’ve asked that this comes back out so we can try to take care of our hospitality sites to give them some relief too.”

The county will allocate $250,000 in funds for this program, $25,000 of which would be paid to McGill Associates for administering the program. McGill Associates was responsible for administering the previous grant program.

The funding for the restaurant grant program will be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis to eligible restaurants that submit a completed application and follow all the written directions on the application. Each restaurant would be eligible to receive a $5,000 grant. 

To be eligible, a restaurant must meeting the following criteria:

• Shall be a for-profit business with a brick-and-mortar address located in Rowan County

• Must have a Secretary of State ID, unless business is a sole proprietor that does not operate under an assumed name. If the sole proprietor currently operates under an assumed name without a Secretary of State ID, they must file a Certificate of Assumed Business Name at the Rowan County Register of Deeds in person. A copy of the recorded form and receipt can be substituted for the requirement of a Secretary of State ID.

• Business located on or associated with the primary residence parcel are excluded

• Shall have been in business on or before Dec. 31, 2019

• Must be a restaurant that is currently open to the pubic and operating an in-person onsite dining facility

• Only one restaurant can qualify even if the owner has several locations within Rowan County. If the owner has locations outside of Rowan County, the Rowan County location must account for more than 50% of its total number of employees or 50% of its gross sales.

• The restaurant will not be eligible for the $5,000 if the restaurant received $5,000 during the 2020 Rowan County COVID-19 Small Business Grant Program

• Business will not be eligible if they meet any of the following: Business has filed for bankruptcy anytime in the last 3 years; Business has delinquent Rowan County property taxes; However, if a business pays delinquent taxes before April 15, 2021 the business will be eligible; Business is not operational.

• Nonprofit businesses are not eligible

Applications will be accepted online and in person on the second floor of the Rowan County Administration building starting March 1 at noon through April 15 at 5 p.m. Each application would be electronically or manually time stamped.

Audit of 2020 fiscal year finances

An audit conducted by Martin Starnes and Associates, CPAs, found that Rowan County had a clean comprehensive annual financial report for the 2020 fiscal year that ended on June 30, meaning that the report was free of any misrepresentations.

The report found that the county’s 2020 revenues ($156.6 million) outpaced its expenditures ($152.4 million).

The county’s total fund balance, which is partially a savings account, increased by $3.7 million from $51.8 million in 2019 to $55.5 million in 2020, the report found. The report also found that property taxes, which compose 57% of the general fund, increased from $82.5 million in 2019 to $89.1 million in 2020.

The county’s top three expenditures in 2020 were education (30%), Public Safety (22%) and human services (20%).

In other meeting business:

• Environmental Health Director Adrian Pruett delivered a biweekly update on the progress his department is making in cutting down the backlog of on-site inspections. As of Feb. 5, the backlog had been reduced to just two weeks and one day, Pruett reported. Pruett also told commissioners that he would be interviewing several candidates to fill vacant food and lodging inspector positions in the coming weeks.

• Commissioners approved the purchase of three vans from Carolina Thomas LLC for a combined $165,874. The vans will be used by the Rowan Transit System.

• Commissioners scheduled a public hearing for March 15 to receive public input regarding the Wildlife Resources Commission’s recommendations for buoy placement that will signify a no-wake zone around the Tamarac Marina. In August, commissioners requested an investigation by the WRC to determine whether statutory authority exists for the establishment of the no-wake zone. The no-wake zone was initially requested by resident Michael Barron. The WRC completed its assessment and determined that the no-wake zone is warranted, but the area is smaller than Barron originally wanted. Barron has agreed to pay for the purchase, installation and maintenance of the buoys.

• Rowan County Finance Director Jim Howden updated commissioners on the county’s current finances. He reported that the county’s annual cumulative expenditures totaled $85.8 million after January and the county’s annual cumulative revenue totaled $100.6 million in January.