Graham’s city council reallocated money that the city had received through the state budget in 2023, scrapping the preferences of former mayor Jennifer Talley and partially substituting recommendations from the new mayor, Chelsea Dickey, who defeated her.
Dickey brought up the possibility of redirecting the funds that had been designated previously by the council, at Talley’s insistence, for raised and stamped crosswalks for the alternative purpose of making repairs at Sesquicentennial Park. (That purpose would be diverted later by the council, but that was her initial approach.)
Talley’s often-expressed justification was both wanting to restore the aesthetically attractive walkways, as well as safety. And she insisted that making such changes were the purpose for which she had approached the General Assembly, specifically state senator Amy Galey.
But Tuesday, Dickey noted that the “stamped crosswalks,” which she said Talley had characterized as “traffic calming measures that would help with safety,” wouldn’t actually improve safety.
Dickey said that her research had discovered no evidence that stamped crosswalks per se would improve pedestrian safety.
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Instead, she presented the idea of making the crosswalks safer by using “rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFB)” on signs at each of the four crosswalks, a feature which she stressed that the Federal Highway Administration lists as a proven safety countermeasure.
The lights can be pedestrian-initiated by a push-button or activated by a motion detector of someone approaching the crosswalk.
“If our goal is safety, and I think it should be,” Dickey told the council,”the flashing lights would be a considerably more effective and economical approach, freeing up hundreds of thousands of dollars for work on the Sesquicentennial Park. She made this suggestion before the council took a different direction, deciding to move, rather than repair, the park.
She said the cost would be $4,500 to $20,000 for each of the four crosswalks, according to information obtained by the public works director, Burke Robertson.
Robertson explained to the council that the flashing lights could be powered either by electricity or potentially by solar power.
Robertson said batteries for the flashers would have a lifespan of eight to ten years, solar perhaps 20 years.
Robertson cautioned that if the flashers were on all the time, while a cheaper option, they would not be as effective inasmuch as drivers would grow accustomed to them and potentially ignore them.
Ultimately, the council decided to go with the flashers option, while earmarking the rest of the money for the costs for mayor pro tem Ricky Hall’s proposal to move the park [see separate story this edition].
City manager Megan Garner noted that about $13,105 had been spent on engineering services for the crosswalks (through November 30), but the remainder would be available to be reallocated.
The council was unanimous in allocating $84,000 for the flashers, but divided 3-2 on moving the remaining $486,000 toward the relocation of the park. Young, Whitaker, and Chin voted for the transfer; Dickey and Hall were opposed.
Background on $600K state grant to Graham
Talley had insisted during her tenure that a $600,000 grant received from the state budget via state senator Amy Galey’s efforts in 2023 must be directed toward reinstituting raised, stamped crosswalks at the four intersections around Court Square. Similar crosswalks had existed before the state department of transportation (NCDOT) repaved Main Street and the areas around the Historic Court House.
In Talley’s repeated telling, she had approached Galey personnaly about the crosswalk project. But the final budget that Galey helped craft designated the Graham allocation simply as what was referred to as Graham “downtown enhancements.” The specific language received by the city said, “Provides a directed grant to the City of Graham for downtown revitalization.”
At a city council meeting in June 2024, Talley explained, “When I initially went to get this grant,” she told the council, “ what I said was that we wanted pedestrian crosswalks. So I feel somewhat obligated to stick to what I asked for.
“There’s not a restriction [on the grant],” she acknowledged, “but I just feel obligated to say this is what I was trying to do,” she told the council then.
In an interview with The Alamance News in 2024, Galey had specifically said she had not put conditions on the use of the state grant funds.
Galey was asked in June 2024 whether the use of the grant to help stabilize Sesquicentennial Park would be allowable within the purposes for which she had designated the grant for Graham.
“When I met with Mayor Talley in 2022,” Galey said at the time, “we talked about a number of needs for the City of Graham including water and sewer needs as well as downtown improvements. I believe that ‘downtown enhancement projects’ [the term the city used in its agenda packet for the June 2024 meeting] would cover a number of items, including stamped crosswalks, which Mayor Talley did specifically mention.
Galey added, with respect to the Sesquicentennial Park, “We did not talk about the sinking foundation of the park, because to my knowledge it was not an issue at that time.”
Galey also noted in that 2024 interview, “I can only offer information about what was discussed, and am not equipped to give an opinion about mayor/council deliberations. I would defer to the city attorney or maybe the city finance officer questions about how to decide how to spend the funds.”
