Newspapers / The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.) / May 23, 1985, edition 1 / Page 1
Part of The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
The News-Tournal Established 1928 ^ ^ ww ? ? Mobile home I The old Cottingham house took to the highway Tuesday. The house was sold and is being moved to the Puppy Creek area of the county. Here, this fellow on top of the house gets a good view of Pros pect Avenue. College given approval to begin fall classes By Ed Miller The Board of Directors for Sandhills Community College voted to approve the establishment of a satellite college campus in Hoke County at a meeting Mon day night. "It would be our intent that classes start next fall" at the Hoke County campus, Sandhills Presi dent Dr. Raymond Stone said Tuesday. According to Stone, the board of directors also voted to approve a committee formed by interested Hoke County residents as the of ficial Hoke Advisory Commission. The board also voted to make Elizabeth High the full-time direc tor of the satellite, Stone said. High will start the job on July 1, he said. According to the Sandhills presi dent, High's first duties will be to arrange space and times for classes with Hoke County Schools Superintendent Dr. Robert Nelson and Hoke High School Principal Dr. Linwood Simpson. According to Stone, Hoke High will be the site of the college. Members of the advisory com1 mission say that the high school will be used as temporary quarters for the school. High will also be surveying peo ple who want to take classes at the satellite to get an idea of what kind of courses to offer, said Stone. She will poll the senior class of this year to seek interest also, he said. According to a list of recom mendations from the commission,, plans should continue to find a permanent location for the college and acquire funds to purchase land and erect buildings. Currently, the money for the director's salary and operating ex penses are being paid by the state. A sum of $50,000 has been budgeted by the state for those purposes. The Hoke County Commission has also budgeted $15,000 for utili ty and classroom costs at the high school. An additional $8,000 has been budgeted out of Hoke County's Revenue Sharing budget for setting up an office for the satellite direc tor. Efforts have been underway for almost two years to get the satellite in Hoke County. Over a year ago, the Hoke County Commission funded an architectural firm study the possibilities of putting a satellite in the old Bank of Raeford building or the old National Guard Ar mory. The effort was nearly discarded when reports came back from that study saying it could cost $700,000 to restore either building. Recommended county budget includes tax rate increase ? A public hearing will be held on June 17 at 7:30 p.m. to hear atizen's opinions on a $6.47 million recommended Hoke Coun :y budget, which would raise ad /alorem tax rates by seven cents. Members of the Hoke County Commission are currently con liderfnftte budget pWeHietl limn Monday night. If adopted, the county budget would be S747.000 greater than the ^previous year, but would include $300,000 for the renovation of the Hoke County Courthouse. For a $30,000 homeowner the proposed budget would mean an annual tax increase of $21 . A $75,000 homeowner's taxes would increase from about $562 per year to over $615 per year. The recommended budget also includes: ?Seven new county employees of which three slots are earmarked for sheriff's deputies, two in the health department and two in the Department of Social Services. According to Hoke County Sheriff Dave Barrington, the three deputies are needed to maintain law enforcement standards in the county. Last year, $239,953.74 were spent In salaries lhthe department. This year, a recommended budget of $329,309 is proposed, represent ing an increase of $89,556. ?A 5% increase in the school operating budget, which is down by almost 560,000 over what was sought by the Hoke County Board of Education. The schools would also receive $235,000 for roof repairs and $79,500 for building maintenance. ?Hikes for economic develop ment; garbage collection and for a 5^o cost-of-living raise for county employees are proposed. County Manager William Cowan is proposing that the coun ty phase into its own trash collec tion in five years. For next year, Cowan is propos ing a new supervisor that would co-ordinate efforts to keep dump ster sites clean. His salary is pro-, posed at SI 3, 101. An additional increase of $66, l68 is recommended for the garbage box collection' contract. The total sanitation budget will go up $93,168 if the proposed budget is adopted. In addition, $25,000 is being proposed in revenue sharing money for the purchase of 50 new six yard containers. By 1990, the county will have from seven to ten garbage sites that have 40 yard containers instead of the current 37 sites most of which to?ve six yard containers, said Cowan. The new sites will have ramps that rise above the containers for easy dumping of garbage. Studying budget Raeford Councilman Bob Gentry takes a close, relaxed took at the proposed city budget. City gives green light to budget, fee hikes A $2.26 million spending bill, which would raise most municipal fees charged by the City of Raeford but would keep ad valorem taxes at the current level, moved one step closer to becoming law Monday. In a two-hour work session, members of the Raeford City Council consented to go forward with a plan that increases rates charged for water and sewer, residential garbage collection. trash pickup, grave openings and water taps. The proposed city budget will be aired at a public hearing scheduled for June 3, and, if adopted, will raise the monthly charge for water and sewer service about 29 cents per month for the average residen tial user. City Manager Tom Phillips said. Residential customers who use less than 3,000 gallons will see their current bill of $5.95 per month go to about $6.25, Phillips said. The hardest hit by the water and sewer increases will be commercial and industrial users, who in the past have been paying a lower rate than residential users. Under the plan, the city's two largest users, The House of Raeford and Burlington In dustries, bills could be hiked by as much as 20?fo, the city manager said. "I've told the industries it is coming," Phillips said, noting that the customers are not "upset" by the increase. "They expect it," he said. Residential customers will be paying about 95 cents per 1,000 gallons for water and sewer after the increase, and commerical and industrial customers will pay about 55 cents per 1,000 gallons. Industries and businesses are (See CITY, page 2A) Mobile home ordinance sent back for review By Ed Miller An ordinance which would place controls on the development of mobile home parks in Hoke Coun ty will be returned to the planning board for a review. r Following a public hearing Mon day night, members of the Hoke County Commission voted to send the draft of the ordinance back to the Hoke County Planning Board for reviews of comments made by local residents. About SO persons, representing the planning board, the general public and park owners, showed up for the hearing. ) Views of the ordinance, both pro and con, were voiced. Park owners called the or dinance everything from "needed" to "illegal" in the hearing while neighbors of some parks, who were in favor of the plan, told of children playing in the garbage containers of parks. One of the most vocal of com plaints with the ordinance is the "grandfather clause" which states that an existing park owner can leave his park as it is unless he wants to expand. If an owner wants to make his park larger, or make capital im provements to the park, he must bring the entire park up to the standards set out in the ordinance draft, according to Planning Board Chairman Brown Hendrix Jr. "1 find myself having to oppose this ordinance," park owner Neill McFadyen said. In a letter to the commission, McF)ulyen lists reasons why the or dinance is not needed. According to McFadyen, the state has already put forth stan dards for park owners in some arefes. If the county passes the or dinance, it will cost park owners I ' ? ' ; ' J ? more to run their parks because improvements will have to be made, said the former state representative. The ordinance could cost the county money too because some one will have to be hired to enforce the ordinance, McFadyen said in the letter read to the public hear ing. There are also "too many boards telling us what we can and cannot do," said McFadyen. Also addressing the possible rise in costs to owners was park owner and Hoke County School Board Attorney William Moses. According to Moses, when costs for owners rise, rental rates for oc cupants rise also. "People working at Burlington and at the turkey plant (The House of Raeford) on three or four day per week shifts can't afford to pay $75 or $80 a month," Moses said. Moses also voiced an opinion on having to pave all the streets in his park. "When you start paving streets, you're putting out black gold," said Moses of the expenses. According to Moses, the dirt streets in his park will not need paving because they are graded after heavy rains. The roads in his park will not "look washed for over 24 hours," he said. Moses also said that he is in favor of licensing park owners. Virginia Allison, a home owner in the Puppy Creek area, said that she is in favor of the ordinance. According to Allison, her pro perty values are going down because of some of the mobile home parks in her area. In reaction to one park owner's comments resisting making changes in practices that have been going on for years, Michael Cockburn, a home owner from (See MOBILE, page 6A) ' Annexation considered for city subdivisions A state agency has been commis sioned to study the feasibility of annexing two Raeford area residential sections into the city limits, members of the City Coun cil were told Monday night. Staff members of the state Department of Natural Resources ' and Community Development (NRCD) have been asked to study the costs of annexing and pro viding the services for the Thomasfield, College Drive and Palmer Street areas. City Manager Tom Phillips said. The results of the study are ex pected this summer, and at that ; time the council will be abk to , decide whether to pursue the an nexation and to provide services, Phillips said. If successful, the annexation would bring the population of the city to over 4,500 residents, Phillips said. Annexation could take as long as two years and would be subject to the approval of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department, Mayor John K. McNeill said. Hoke County is one of the 40 counties in North Carolina which is governed under the 1964 Voting Rights Act, and any changes in the racial makeup of the city would be subject to the Justice Department approval, the mayor said. Under a plan now being con sidered, water and sewer connec tions could be provided in con junction with work to furnish the services to a new motel proposed for U.S. 401 south of Raeford. Inside Today What a mess This cub scoul climbs on a trash dumpster to deposit debris as he and fellow scouts help clean around a Highway 211 site. The Cub troop gave the county a hand recently by raking and picking up trash at the site. More about the county's gar bage woes on page 1 of section B In today's News- Journal. Around Town By Sam Morris The weather has been about perfect for the past week. It hasn't been too hot and we have received about 1 '/: inches of rain. We still need about that much more to bring the water level to normal for the year. The temperatures have been in the 70s and 80s during the day and in the 50s at night. The forecast is for the weather to continue this way during the week and with a chance of rain on Tuesday or Wednesday. + * + The work at the olde A&R Depot is still progressing as one would expect. Volunteers worked again last Saturday and from talk ing with some of them Monday it seems that most of the framing on the inside has been completed. Maybe you should go by and take a look at what these folks are doing. Then maybe you would like to donate to this worthy cause. A good way to donate to this cause is to buy a ticket on the John Deere riding lawn mower. The drawing for the mower will be at the Armory on 1 hursday. May 30 at the Turkey Pickin'. ? ? ? Raz Autry, retired school superintendent, has just returned from a trip to California. Raz has written some children's books and they will be published by a firm in San Francisco. We don't know the (See AROUND, page 2A)
The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
May 23, 1985, edition 1
1
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75