Did you miss the Wake County Board of Commissioners’ meeting on Monday, July 11? Here are the highlights:

• The Board of Commissioners approved $1.37 million to purchase a 91-acre Zebulon property on Fowlers Mill Creek for Wake County’s Open Space Program. The tributary leads to the Little River and staff reports show conservation work will protect water quality and several endangered species that live there. The funding comes from the 2018 Parks Greenways Recreation & Open Space bond, as well as settlement funding from the North Carolina Department of Transportation. The meeting item summary includes a map, as well as tracking documents for both funding sources.

• The Board also held public hearings for two education bond referenda before passing both unanimously. The first bond will generate $530.7 million for the Wake County Public School System’s 2024-2025 capital needs, including funds to build five new schools and renovate seven existing schools. The other $353.2-million bond is for Wake Tech’s 2024-2027 capital needs, including the construction of new buildings for health sciences, culinary science and cyber science.
  
  The capital improvement plans for both WCPSS and Wake Tech would also utilize cash on-hand in addition to the funds generated from the bonds.
  
  To fund both general obligation bonds the county would add 1 cent to property tax, or $10 for every $100,000 of assessed value. Starting in Fiscal Year 2024, a Wake County homeowner whose house is the average assessed value of $337,000 would see an additional $33.70 on their annual property tax bill.
  
  Voters will see both bond referenda on their ballots for this fall’s general election; Early Voting will be Oct. 20 to Nov. 5 and Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8. The Board’s final step will be to declare the results of the vote at its Dec. 5 meeting. Voters can view the presentation from the bond hearings and read more here.

• The last item on the meeting’s regular agenda was hearing a report from Health & Human Services Director Nannette Bowler on Wake County’s 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment. The assessment was created to determine the county’s health needs and priorities with extensive input from the public and stakeholders, before turning them into an action plan to address those needs. The assessment team received more than 1,000 survey responses and talked with six discussion groups in late 2021. The results are available online at the Live Well Wake data dashboard. Then in early 2022 the team worked with participants to prioritize 14 different focus areas. The assessment showed the top three health priorities are affordable housing & homelessness, access to healthcare, and mental health. The full Community Health Needs Assessment report is available online, as is the presentation the board heard.

• The Board of Commissioners went into closed session, permitted by North Carolina statute, to discuss matters relating to economic development and personnel, before adjourning the meeting.

Want to dig deeper into the board meeting? The full recording of the meeting is available to watch, with the meeting called to order at the 20:45 mark.

The Wake County Board of Commissioners’ next regular meeting will be Monday, Aug. 15 at 2 p.m. in Room 2700 of the Wake County Justice Center.