Asheboro recognized as a top veteran employer

ASHEBORO – The City of Asheboro was recognized for its commitment to employing and retaining military veterans as it was awarded a 2024 Gold HIRE Vets Medallion Award.

The virtual award ceremony was held Oct. 31 and the board was presented with the information at its Nov. 7 meeting.

“The HIRE Vets Program is administered by the US Department of Labor and the acronym stands for Honoring Investments in Recruiting and Employing Military Veterans,” said human resources generalist Kristen Terry. “This program honors employers who demonstrate exemplary efforts in recruiting, employing and retaining veterans. While we do not have a dedicated recruitment partnership or strategy to attract veterans at this time, we recognize the valuable skills and experience that veterans bring to our workplace.”

According to Terry, Asheboro retained 100% of its veteran employees for at least 12 months and those veteran employees also make up nearly 10% of their total workforce – the national average is about 1%.

“Retaining is the most important thing,” Terry said. “You can recruit people, but to keep them these days is huge.”

“That’s my motto,” said city manger John Ogburn. “ ‘Hire the vet, he won’t lose the bet.’ ”

At its Nov. 7 meeting, the board also approved Stewart Cooper-Newell, the architecture firm designing the fire station, to proceed with design services for Fire Station No. 3.

The $450,000 contract for design services will include architectural, structural, civil, landscape, mechanical, electrical and plumbing design.

The station will be approximately 12,000 square feet and will be located on four acres of property located on the corner of Zoo Parkway and Crestview Road.

The board also approved GMP 2 for the Wolfspeed Water Main Extension Project at a total cost of approximately $16 million, which includes the early procurement of construction materials for sections two and three and the final design and construction of section four, bringing the total project cost to just under $25 million.

“The best news is we’re still under budget,” Water Resources director Michael Rhoney said.

In addition, the board approved four, on-street parking spaces on the east side of Loach Street and the city will also begin evaluating changing the intersections of Worth Street and North Main Street, Worth Street and North Elm Street and Brewer Street and North Elm Street from traffic lights to four-way stops.

“These are the only three that are maintained by the city,” said city engineer Michael Leonard. “They have reached the end of their life cycle and it’s getting more costly to repair.”

Finally, the board also held three public hearings all dealing with rezoning applications.

The first request was to rezone property located on the east side of US Business South at Oakhurst Road from R10 Medium-Density Residential to I2 General Industrial, which aligns more with surrounding properties.

The second was to rezone property located at 1135 and 1147 South Cox St. from R7.5 Medium-Density Residential and RA6(CZ) to an amended RA6(CZ) in order to add a duplex unit on the subject property along with associated parking.

The third hearing was to rezone property located on the west side of W.O.W. Road from R15(CZ) Low-Density Single-Family Residential Conditional Zoning to just R15.

Following each hearing, the board approved the requests.

The Asheboro City Council will next meet Dec. 5.