ARP Corner reglazed, preserving the historic windows while saving the town money. “It has made a great difference in the appearance of the library,” Beverly McCraw, Spencer’s library director, said. “It was cracking and peeling, and it does look much better, and we are getting more customers.” Another exciting prospect for the town is the creation of the Rowan IDEA Center—an entrepreneurship and innovation center that will serve as a business incubator and coworking space. The town has a former church facility that could be revamped into this new center, with the necessary space to consider additional features such as a culinary incubator and on-site childcare. ARPAenabled dollars offered the town the opportunity to explore this project and to help determine the best path for the town. Finally, the town pursued another opportunity to extend the ARPA-enabled funds through the purchase of several new vehicles. In addition to three police vehicles and a fire vehicle, the town put down payments on a new fire engine and a garbage truck. The garbage truck will provide additional benefits by transitioning from a rear-load garbage truck to one with an automated sidearm. This will allow the town to reduce the size of the garbage crew from three people to a single person driving the truck, meaning they can now utilize those employees in other ways within the public works department, increasing their productivity. Eddie Smith has worked in the waste removal industry for 30 years. He admits there has been a learning curve for residents as the department shifts to the automated truck, but they have already been able to reduce the garbage collection crew to two and hope to soon start running it with only one person. “It is faster, and it is safer,” Smith said. “It is good to have, especially weather-wise. You are not outside in the rain for long periods of time. You are inside, out of the heat.” “This [purchase] is allowing us to be more efficient in that process and improve the way we do it. And it is safer for our staff,” Franzese said. “There are a lot of reasons why we were really thrilled to be able to make this change. And it is not very glamorous, but I would say it is really important.” Overall, Spencer has taken on several projects that will serve the town today and in the long term. They have the vision in place, and now they have access to the funds to make that vision a reality. “The way all of these things have worked together over the last few years has allowed us to do things here that I think for a longtime people wanted to do or maybe had ideas, but they just did not know how to raise the funding to make it happen,” Franzese said. “It has allowed us to do a lot of different things at one time that really were not a possibility beforehand.” NCLM ARP Field Representative Charles Hines and Spencer Town Manager Peter Franzese. Town of Spencer historic library. Town of Spencer town hall. NCLM.ORG 19
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