What’s to Come with Capital Improvement Projects in the Town of Vienna

With road fixtures, building renovations, and other uncertain town repairs and purchases, Town of Vienna leadership met to discuss future capital improvement projects.

Town Manager Mercury Payton, hosted a forum with several directors to discuss what major projects Vienna can expect to see in the near-future.

“Basically, our CIP [Capital Improvement Plan] is a long-range plan that talks about how we look at scoping out and planning for our long-range projects… everything from our road projects, to structures and buildings and everything in between,” Payton said. “We like to plan those out years in advance and make sure that we’re thoughtful about those projects.”

Payton outlines a few capital improvement projects that the Town of Vienna can expect over the next few years, including:

• Police Department Project — a project for the construction of a new police department facility at 215 Center St. S.
• Water and Sewer Projects — $5.4 million dedicated to improving water and sewer infrastructure including water main replacements and sewer relining
• Stream Restoration for Piney Branch — a project to reduce sedimentation and improve water quality
• Multimodal Study — a project to improve local roadways and transportation
• Faith Baptist Church Property Acquisition — a project to transform the property into a space for community use
• Public Parking — a project to provide more public parking spaces in Vienna

The panel of directors consisted of Vienna’s Directors of Finance, Public Works, Recreation, and Economic Development Manager. The town attorney and police chief were also present.

Marion Serfass, the director of finance, described recent capital improvement projects as, “projects like road improvements, sidewalk improvements, storm-water improvements, the town green, the community center renovation and other buildings. Generally, to be a capital project or to be considered for a capital project, it’s a big long-term project like that and has to cost at least $5,000 and many of those projects cost a lot more than that.”

The process of choosing which projects to fund also consists of a budget committee and strategic planning.

“We do the CIP every fall and every spring,” Serfass said. “We put out a call to directors… what sort of projects do they think they need to help improve the delivery of town services and help with the infrastructure of the town. And then we take in all those, the budget committee gets to look through those, department heads make their case about why this project is important, how it fits into the strategic plan. In the meantime, the finance department is forecasting the meals tax revenues because we borrow money for capital projects, we pay it back with our meals taxes, so we don’t want to exceed what we can comfortably pay back in our meals taxes, plus leave a cash reserve.”

Residents of the Town of Vienna were also asked to provide insight about possible repairs or construction their communities may need.

“I would encourage them to reach out to their council people,” Serfass said. “Our website is www.viennava.gov and our council members’ emails are there, under ‘town council’.”

Photo via Town of Vienna/Facebook