By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Fayetteville leaders set their sights on priorities for the year 2000 during their annual retreat recently.

“Our goals have been refined a bit over the years, so they stayed consistent this year,” said Mayor Mike Wheat, who presided over the annual brainstorming session as one of his last official acts as he prepares to step down from the mayor's chair in January.

“It was fairly low-key with lots of information gathered,” Wheat said.

The city's five goals remain:

1. Achieve all goals while striving for the lowest total cost for public services.

2. Maintain a managed growth policy that requires quality development in concert with our economic development strategy.

3. Provide for the public safety and welfare by committing appropriate resources to police, fire, streets, recreation, water and sewer.

4. Continue cooperative efforts with other governments.

5. Preserve our historic and cultural heritage and encourage revitalization of downtown through support of Main Street initiatives.

Under each goal, the council outlined action items that it wants the city to work on in 2000.

Under growth management, for instance, council members want a written policy governing the city's attitude toward future annexations.

“There will be some annexations, for instance down around the hospital,” said Wheat. “There are some projects that fit into our new zoning classification for medical office projects, and that's probably a place where annexation is appropriate,” he said.

But the city is taking an increasingly more conservative approach to annexation in general, he said, and council feels the need to have a written policy to help guide future decisions.

Council members also want a “philosophy statement regarding redevelopment and `infill' development,” he added. City leaders in recent months have pushed for plans to fill in downtown areas with residential and pedestrian-friendly commercial development designed to insure a community atmosphere well into the next century.

In dealing with future federal regulations on storm water management, the city is considering development of a storm water utility, Wheat said. The utility would provide a vehicle for collection of payments earmarked for the storm water problem.

Local government leaders are anticipating new federal rules that require more active efforts to prevent pollution of streams and lakes as storm water washes agricultural chemicals and other pollutants into the surface water supply.

But the extent of those new regulations is not yet known. The federal Environmental Protection Agency could require relatively minor cleanup efforts, or expensive projects like collecting storm water and running it through complete sewage treatment before releasing it.

“We need a funding structure for addressing whatever they decide the regulations are going to be,” said Wheat.

Council also is shooting for a decision by February on what to do with solid waste left over from its sewage treatment plant. The city currently buries sludge in a landfill and is looking for a better, less expensive solution, Wheat said.