Members of the Martinsville Redevelopment Commission raised questions about billing for the Wayne and Morgan parking lot project and discussed transferring ownership of the lot to the city.

A council member said he had been asked why a change order from Wallace on the parking lot—referred to in the meeting as a $2,526,000 change order—was billed to the city rather than the redevelopment commission. Commission staff said that a separate figure (referred to as “26,000” in follow-up comments) did not appear in the RDC claims presented for approval and that the payment had been billed to the city and not included in the RDC’s claims at that meeting. Staff also said the matter was being investigated to clarify who should ultimately pay the charge.

Separately, commission member Joe said the parking lot work was complete and asked the commission to authorize staff to begin paperwork to deed the parking lot from the RDC to the city of Martinsville. He said he would work with city staff to put the deed transfer on the city council agenda; commissioners present raised no objections to him starting that process.

Why this matters: The billing allocation for a major project affects which public entity bears the cost—RDC (TIF-funded) versus city general funds—and could influence future budget and project accounting. Transferring the lot to the city would move ownership and long-term maintenance responsibility away from the RDC.

Meeting context and next steps: Staff said they would investigate the billing discrepancy and proceed with paperwork to deed the parking lot into city control. No formal vote to reimburse the city or to change prior approvals was recorded in the meeting minutes for this item.