Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

Hazle Township Municipal Authority wants to shop for a better price before converting the former Sacred Heart Church hall into a new office and meeting rooms.

The authority board voted unanimously Wednesday to reject bids for the church hall renovation project after costs for general construction, plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) exceeded $484,000. "Optional" building systems and solar panels would have increased costs to nearly $900,000.

Directors had little to say prior to rejecting the prices, with board Chairman Eugene Rafalli announcing that officials would re-evaluate the project size.

"It was too high a figure," Rafalli said. "We'll see if we can get a better price."

The authority board will likely re-bid the project after accountant Richard Kline reports back with options for refinancing authority debts, Rafalli said. Refinancing would ensure that the church hall project will have no impact on rates, Rafalli said.

"We are not going to make our customers pay anything more," he said.

The authority will also consider "different options" for upgrading the former church hall in Harleigh, he said.

The original project scope included a "green" component, such as solar panels, which will be evaluated in the future.

Forest Hills resident Richard Wienches, who has on several occasions publicly scrutinized the authority board over the project costs, did not attend Wednesday's meeting when the bid rejection vote was cast.

Officials said the church hall project would build new office space, meeting rooms and a storage area at the 5,000-square-foot building. Plans originally included adding new heating and air conditioning units and other upgrades that will allow officials to heat only parts of the building that were in use. At one point, officials discussed the possibility of sharing space at the renovated church hall.

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Church hall work could be re-bid

View 540 Outer Loop in a larger map

Some commuters in western Wake County will face the choice of driving a free, four-mile detour during construction of a new bridge on Green Level Church Road -- or paying a toll for a shorter detour that will open about the same time.

The state Department of Transportation says it has awarded a $2.5 million contract to S.T. Wooten Corp. of Wilson to replace the 60-year-old Green Level Church Road bridge over White Oak Creek at the Cary-Apex town limits.

The contract gives Wooten the option to start work between Aug. 1 and March 1, 2013, with completion in 240 days. While the bridge is closed during construction, drivers will have a detour of four miles via Green Level West, Wimberly and Jenks roads.

The closing affects commuters who use the north-south Green Level Church Road as an alternative to the busy N.C. 55 nearby. It is timed to coincide with the opening in August of a six-lane toll road conceived as a new option for N.C. 55 commuters -- the new extension of Triangle Expressway south from N.C. 55 near RTP to U.S. 64 at Apex.

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Bridge work to close Green Level Church Road as 540 toll road opens

By Jennifer Jiggetts The Virginian-Pilot May 11, 2012

VIRGINIA BEACH

Leaders of a 170-year-old Kempsville church and the city have reached a proposed settlement over an eminent domain dispute that has spanned nearly 12 years.

The city announced Thursday morning that it will pay Emmanuel Episcopal Church $1.1 million in exchange for half an acre of church property sought by the city to widen and move Princess Anne Road. The city also will transfer to the church about 1.5 acres next to it and will seek closure of a half-acre portion of the old Princess Anne Road to add to the church's property under the proposed deal.

The church will use some of the money to build a 300-foot wall along the new Princess Anne Road to buffer its preschool from the traffic.

The agreement requires approval of both the City Council and the church's vestry.

The city previously offered the church an $852,716 settlement, according to Virginia Beach court records.

Emmanuel Episcopal representatives had been fighting with city leaders over the plan to relocate the intersection of Princess Anne and Kempsville roads.

Church leaders have said that about 12 years ago, before renovating their parish hall and building a preschool, they asked city officials whether there were plans to work on the intersection. They said they were told no and proceeded with the $2 million school construction.

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Va. Beach, church reach agreement over dispute

Rezoning of property at 100 E. 12th St. from commercial to residential is all right with the Rolla Planning and Zoning Commission.

Tuesday afternoon, the commission met and voted to recommend the Rolla City Council approve the rezoning requested by Roger and Nassreen Rome, who lives at 12601 Cardinal Point Rd., and want to construct an apartment house at the 12th Street site, which is near Missouri S&T.

There was no opposition to the proposal at the public hearing held during the commission meeting, and the Community Development department staff recommends the rezoning be approved without condition.

Community Development Director John Petersen told the commission the current zoning is C-1 (neighborhood business district), although the use of the property is residential, for a single-family, four-bedroom house sits on the 13,547-square-foot (.31 acre) lot.

Located on the south side of 12th Street between Oak and Elm streets, the property is in a neighborhood of apartments. S&T also owns property nearby and uses it for parking and storage.

The applicant submitted a rezoning petition and letter describing the proposed development which would permit the construction of a five-unit apartment building in addition to the existing single-family structure, Petersen told the commission in a memorandum. R-3 (multi-family district) zoning is required to allow the multi-family development as proposed and to permit multiple structures on a lot.

Petersen said the rezoning would not negatively affect the neighborhood, is consistent with the 2020 Comprehensive Plan Update and would not adversely affect traffic flow. Utilities are adequate and there is room for the 12 paved, off-street parking spaces that will be required.

Commissioners present for the meeting were Monte Shields, Russel Schmidt, Greg Sawyer, Robert Anderson and Dennis Bennett.

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Rezoning would allow apartment building

Anywhere. He could be anywhere.

Around the corner of the apartment building where they live. Across the street at the construction site where he works. At the nearby bar where he sometimes goes for a beer. She looks around, nervous. What if he sees her?

But she cant wait. Not anymore. She tightens her grip on the baby stroller and heads off into the night.

She has a plan: make it three blocks, to the shelter for women and children. Borrow someones cell phone, call 911. She tried to dial the number back at the apartment, but he yanked the phone out of her hands and broke it to pieces.

She zooms the stroller down the sidewalk of South Othello Street, heading west toward Martin Luther King Jr. Way South, a busy intersection in a diverse, yet gentrifying, south Seattle neighborhood. On her right, an abandoned lot and taco truck, on her left, an unfinished luxury apartment complex. By this time of evening, heading on midnight, hardly a car drives by; the light rail station sits empty. Shes all alone.

Except for her son. Their son. Tomorrow hell turn seven months old. About 90 minutes ago, shortly after the yelling and screaming drew her neighbors into the hallway, the child cried while she splashed water on her face in the bathroom of Apartment 21. Now he sits in his stroller, bundled up in a blue, fuzzy snowsuit.

In a rush, she forgot to grab her own coat. Not that she minds. She barely feels the chilly spring air rushing over the red mark on her throat.

But she can feel her right cheek throb. In the bathroom mirror, she saw the knot, the swelling, the purplish-maroon hematoma that formed under her eye. But its weird. Because when he hit her, she couldnt really feel it. It was like she lost consciousness Did she? Did she black out?

Outside, she hustles the stroller down the sidewalk. Streetlights cast an orange halogen glow, throw shadows that pile up under bushes, shadows large enough to hide a grown man. If only she knew where he went when he left the apartment.

Nearly 16 months ago when she met him, back in Idaho, she had wanted to change her life. Hed told her the same. They would do it, together. But things got in the way. The poverty, the drug use, the drinking, the yelling, the fighting, the fists, the fear all of it clouded their vision. All of it weighed on their lives.

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The Gravity of Abuse: On a south Seattle street, a tale of domestic violence unfolds

More downtown Winnipeg restaurateurs want to open outdoor patios this summer, according to a business organization that can help those restaurants cut through the red tape.

The Downtown Winnipeg BIZ says it usually gets just a few applications every year for its program to help restaurants build outdoor dining spaces.

"But for whatever reason, this year we have eight requests in," Stefano Grande, the organization's executive director, told CBC News.

"It's really nice to see our restaurant owners make a decision to move in that direction."

Grande said the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ accepts three applications every year. This year's recipients are:

The Downtown Winnipeg BIZ has the expertise to guide restaurants through the process of getting city licences for their proposed patios.

"We know the bylaws inside out, so we know what will or won't work even before we go to the city," he said.

"We'll work with that business owner; pretty much anything that we bring forward we know is going to be accepted."

Grande estimates that there are more than 30 patios in all of downtown Winnipeg.

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Demand for patios in downtown Winnipeg warms up

Prices rise, profits beat goals and service levels decline. Photo: Louie Douvis

So who's having a lend of whom? Victoria's electricity distributors are earning much higher profits than anticipated, as customer service levels have, for the most part, declined.

Part of their gains was good management, with tight cost control.

But a large part came from higher-than-expected revenues which enabled them to post much higher-than-anticipated returns for the fifth straight year. That in turn, signals the way spending is approved - which impacts prices paid by households and businesses - is out of whack.

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In its annual review, the Australian Energy Regulator, an arm of the Australian Competition and Commission, found returns on regulated assets of the five distributors is as high as 10 per cent. In these present difficult economic times, that is the sort of return many businesses would love to achieve, especially in a regulated sector.

The review covered the performance of electricity distributors such as CitiPower and Powercor in 2010.

It also disclosed an improvement in power supply, which was largely thanks to less extreme weather than in the previous year.

Singaporean-owned Jemena was easily the most profitable of the five, earning a 10 per cent pre-tax return on its distribution sector assets, followed by Powercor with 9.9 per cent, CitiPower's 8.8 per cent and United Energy with 8.5 per cent.

The laggard was SP AusNet with 6.9 per cent.

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Prices out of whack as profits beat goals

A group of local students is once again offering its services around town this spring and summer.

Last year, South Delta Secondary grads Mitch Lepore and Brennan Phillips started their own business - Local Student Labour - after deciding they didn't want to spend their last summer before university flipping burgers or waiting tables.

The pair teamed up with a group of friends and local contractors, spending the summer doing everything from house painting and staining to yard work and power washing.

Phillips and Lepore recently returned to South Delta after completing their first year at the University of Calgary, where both are studying business, with the aim of resurrecting Local Student Labour.

"It was really good last summer," Phillips said, adding the business was well received in the community.

Both Lepore and Phillips said the success of Local Student Labour last summer enabled them to save up enough money so they did not have to work throughout the school year and were able to fully concentrate on their studies.

Lepore said they are trying to be more independent this summer and rely less on established contractors to get jobs. He added they plan to focus more on house painting but will take on any job.

For more information, call 778-987-0587 or 604764-7078, or email lsl. painting@gmail.com.

Copyright (c) Delta Optimist

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Entrepreneurial students at it again this summer

LETTERS

"Only suspicious at this stage?" ... Craig Thomson joins the crossbench. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

''People want to hang Craig Thomson just on the suspicion,'' says Tony Windsor ('''Bugger the numbers', says angry Oakeshott on Thomson saga'', smh.com.au, May 10).

The tabled report of Fair Work Australia does not say Craig Thomson is suspected of using union funds illegally but reportedly says: ''Craig Thomson repeatedly provided false and misleading information during the course of a long investigation into the national office of the Health Services Union'' and Thomson was ''found to have lied when he denied using his union credit card to procure prostitutes''.

How can Mr Windsor infer that Thomson's actions are only suspicious at this stage? Surely the public and HSU members are entitled to believe the facts in the FWA investigators' report, which are certainly not ''suspicions''.

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Cartoon: Cathy Wilcox

John Munro Toowoomba (Qld)

Wouldn't a byelection in Dobell increase by an astronomical amount the cost of those escort services allegedly obtained by Craig Thomson on his HSU credit card?

Zehra George Warilla

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We've got the facts - abuse of power must end

NEWARK, Del.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

For the fifth consecutive year, more than 20 volunteers from Artesian (NASDAQ: ARTNA - News), a leading provider of water, wastewater and engineering services on the Delmarva Peninsula, came together for Christmas in April Cecil County to rehabilitate the home of a Cecil County neighbor.

It was gratifying to see so many Artesian volunteers working together to help this family, said Dian Taylor, chair, president and CEO of Artesian. Christmas in April is intended to be a one-day event, but Artesian volunteers always do prep work in advance to make sure we can accomplish what we set out to do give the family in need a safe, warm and dry home.

House captains Jimmy Snyder, Rick Straub and Joanne Rufft led the effort. They were instrumental in obtaining a front door and lumber donation from Home Depot and a 15% discount on garden items from Lowes. By the end of the day, the volunteers had accomplished the following:

Christmas in April Cecil County is the largest home rehabilitation organization in America. Its mission is to build partnerships to rehabilitate homes and community facilities of low-income, elderly and/or disabled homeowners so they can live in warmth, safety and independence and all at no financial cost to the homeowners.

About Artesian Resources

Artesian Resources Corporation operates as the holding company of eight wholly-owned subsidiaries offering water, wastewater and engineering services on the Delmarva Peninsula. Artesian Water Company, the principal subsidiary, is the oldest and largest investor-owned public water utility on the Delmarva Peninsula and has been providing water service since 1905.

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Christmas Comes Twice For Neighbors in Need; Artesian Volunteers Renovate Local Home