Newspapers / The Chowan Herald (Edenton, … / July 9, 1987, edition 1 / Page 1
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E CHOWAN HERALD Published In The Most Beautiful Little City On The North Carolina Coast ► Volume LUII • No. 28 Edenton, North Carolina, Thursday, July 9, 1987 Single Copies 25 Cents Better; But Not Enough We welcome any organized ef fort to improve the highway system in northeastern North Carolina, but we do not believe that is necessarily the key to fur ther industrial development of the \ area. It is true that good roads en courage both economic and social progress because electric utilities tend to follow the highways; but such services as water and sewer are much slower to develop. A combination of all these is need ed to make an area attractive to industry. 1 What is as important as good roads in attracting new industry is the flexibility of government regulations, as was recently demonstrated at Edenton. A stiff, unbending attitude by a state agency can do as much to turn away industry as the lack of roads or inadequate utilities. We are talking about the new * plastics container manufacturing operation which had optioned a site and announced its intention of building a $5 million plant in Edenton. It was driven away by the state’s insistance that the owner sign a commitment to employ a high percentage of low and moderate income workers. | Without such a commitment the state refused to approve a grant to the city for the extension of municipal utilities to the site. The owners were seeking no concessions. They were willing to spend their own money for pttr cbasmg a site and mtiidsng ana equipping the plant. It was the town of Edenton that needed ) financial assistance, which the state was unwilling to give. As a result, this highly desirable in dustry moved to another small town in the Virginia countryside not too different from the one it left in northeastern North Carolina. By all means, we should move ahead with an organized, area wide effort to improve our highways. Better roads never hurt. But -better roads should never be regarded as the cure-all for economic problems in the northeast. Welcome, Neighbor May we take this opportunity to welcome a new neighbor next door, Westcott’s Waterfront Restaurant? It will be nice once again to drop in for dinner when we are in town. ) We wish Jeffrey Wescott and Continued On Page 4 Beach Residents Address Chowan Commissioners £ By JACK GROVE Spectator seats were full for public hearings in the county com mission board room Monday mor ning. Hie hearing? were to con sider adoption of a final assess ment roll for street improvements to Shawnee and Huron Trails at Arrowhead Beach and final assessment resolutions for im ) provements to Bella Vista Drive and tor Yeopim Trail at Chowan Beach. Base assessment rate is $4 per foot to property owners along Shawnee and Huron Trails. They may make a lump sum payment within 90 days of billing or pay the miimimmt in nnnnnl for five years at a rate of eight 9 percent interest per year. A paving project on these streets has been completed the property owners association paying all administrative costs. rowhead Beach Property Owners Association, told the commis sioners, “I’ve had no derogatory comments on these roads. Everyone is pleased. We ap preciate your help.” One resident, Joe Barbado, urg ed fast action on Yeopim Trail. “It is so bad that some people can’t get out of their driveways.” Mrs. Kathleen Houseman had a different request to make. She asked that speed limit signs be placed on Tuscarora and Yeopim Continued On Page 4 Former Senator Dead At 94 Former state senator and long time Edenton resident Lloyd Eldon Griffin, 94, died Monday in Raleigh. A native of Perquimans County, Griffin was a Chowan attorney in strumental in establishing a tax supporting a uniform statewide school system and revising the state’s corporation tax system after his election to the senate from 1933 until 1935. The senator was executive secretary of the N.C. School Com mission (the state board of educa tion) from 1935 until 1941, former chairman of Meredith College’s board of trustees exec live com mittee, of the Chowan County Democratic Committee, a delegate to the 1952 Democratic National Convention and ex ecutive vice president of the N.C. Citizens Association. Griffin was the husband of the late Margaret Belle Walters Grif fin and taught the Men’s Bible Class at Edenton Baptist Church for 61 years, commuting from Raleigh each week to serve. He was a World War I veteran, a member of the state Baptist Con vention and was known as a sportsman. In a 1979 interview with The Chowan Herald, Griffin recalled participating in a shooting tourna ment in Paris shortly after World War I. , ■ Continued On Page 4 Investigation Results In Arrest Two independent but simultaneous investigations removed marijuana valued at $384,000 from the area’s illegal drug market within the past week. A joint investigation by the Chowan Sheriff’s Department and SBI found 120 marijuana plants spread through the central part of the county July 1. The SBI estimates value of $1,200 for a mature plant, which places a street value of $144,000 cm the contraband. The location of the plants came during what Sheriff Fred Spruill called a “fly-over”, where a plane and trained law enforcement of ficer spots the illegal plants from the air and directs ground forces to the site. Spruill said the agent working with this latest fly-over could spot a plant 18 inches tall growing in the midst of weeds. One Chowan County man was arrested after the marijuana harvest and charged with two counts of felonious possession and two counts of felonious manufac ture of marijuana. Henry Luther (H.L.) Bond of Route 3, Edenton, was released on $4,000 bond after Spruill said some of the plants were found growing near Bond’s home between Valhalla and Macedonia. The second roundup occurred in Bertie County after a two month investigation by the N.C. Alcohol Law Enforcement Division. ALE agents located 200 plants, with a street value of $240,000 growing in three patches near the Green’s Cross community in a area called “Big Woods”. “We’ve been working on it for about two months,” said local ALE Agent Gail Jackson, who was assisted by district super visor Ken Dover, assistant district supervisor Ellis Paul and agent Frank Spence from the Outer Banks. The Bertie plants were pulled Monday morning and taken to Edenton Police Dept, for destruc tion after the three patches were found within a 200-yard radius in a cleared area. No arrests have been made in the Bertie harvest and investiga tion is continuing. In other Chowan Sheriff’s Dept, activity, Deputy Victor Lamb is investigating a break-in Tuesday night at Dixie Auto Parts on N.C. 32. Spruill said entry was made after a front door was broken and preliminary inventory showed various auto parts missing. WATERMELON QUEEN—North Carolina’s Watermelon Queen for 1987 was on hand at the July 4 celebration to greet visitors. Edenton Police Officer Bill Phillips was one of many enjoying the scenery. Candidates File For Office By JEANETTE WHITE Hats are flying into the municipal political ring after fil ing opened Friday and four can didates submitted necessary paperwork within five minutes. Squaring off to campaign votes in the November election were in cumbent mayor John Dowd and his opponent, former mayor Roy Harrell; Joe Lee, vying for an at large seat held by councilwoman Marina Crummey; and Steve Biggs, who wants a second-ward seat held by councilman Steve Hampton. Councilwoman Crummey has announced an intention to seek reelection, but did not file Friday. Hampton has said he is undecid ed about his bid for reelection. In a prepared statement, Har rell said, “I am very happy to an nounce that I am a canidate for mayor in the next election. I never lost interest in what went on in Edenton simply because I was no longer an elected official. I have continued to attend the town meetings and study the actions taken by our town council. “I have been very unhappy with the direction our town has gone in the past two years. I will not go in to the many shortcomings at this time, but I do intend to discuss them at a later time. “I am very excited about the upcoming election and look for ward to having several open meetings and radio programs at which I shall appear, one on one, with the other mayoral candidate or candidates and discuss in detail how our town government has operated in the past two years. “I have always felt that an elected official held office as a ser vant of the people and should anyone hold office that did not feel the same - then the people receiv ed the short end of the stick. “I look forward to completing several projects that were started before I left office, such as: the waste treatment plant, the 911 emergency telephone service (council set into motion a study before I left office) and the elec trical generating plant - delayed now almost two years. “I welcome all the citizens of Edenton to help me in any way they can. I welcome their calls and suggestions.” Speaking of her intention to re tain her at-large seat, Mrs. Crum mey said Tuesday, “I plan to con tinue to try to do the best job I can for the town. The town has been moving in a very positive direc tion and I’d like to see it continue to do that.” Her opponent, Joe Lee, held of fice when he served as the town’s Continued On Page 4 ! VALUED AT $144,000—Chowan Sheriff Fred Spruill looks as part of the marijuana confiscated after a fly-over located 120 of the illegal plants growing throughout the central part of the county. Electricity Is Restored The demand for electricity soared as a high pressure system throughout the eastern seaboard brought the highest temperatures of the year to the area. The system, centered off the Georgia coast, is expected to re main into the weekend. Tuesday’s temperatures in the high nineties, mixed with humidity and other factors, recorded a heat index of around 115 degrees. Some Edenton residents were left sweltering Tuesday when power failures caused outages at two different locations. The first occurred at Edenton Manor Apartments when stress on an underground cable caused it to fail. Edenton Director of Utilities William A. (Hawk) Crummey said the failure very possibly could have been caused by the ex treme demand when users switch ed on air conditioners to combat the heat. Crummey said his department received its first call around 7 p.m. A main line was repaired and customers contacted said power had been restored. After Crummey’s crews return ed to the utilities department around 8:30 p.m., another caller said some power remained out of service and the crews returned to the apartment complex. Crummey found a line fuse blown and all power was restored about 10:30 p.m. In the second outage, five homes on Paradise Road were without service for a short time when a transformer was overload ed and burned. Crummey said most of the pro blem is caused when homeowners Continued On Page 4 “It’s been a long time coming, but it looks like we’ll finally have a motel.” With these words, John Dowdy, one of the developers of the new Travel Host Inn opened a ground-breaking ceremony for the motel north of U.S. 17 bypass at the intersection of Mexico Road and N.C. 32. Dowdy, a former Edentonian, is in partnership in the venture with Vann Johnson of Richmond, Va., brothers Dennis and Tom Dowdy of Roanoke and Blacksburg, Va., and Bob Thomas of Edenton. Johnson was manager of the Edenton branch of Peoples Bank and Trust Co. from 1976 to 1980. Groundbreaking Is Held For Travel Inn Dowdy said that the motel had been in the planning stages for 18 months and had experienced many delays. The facility is now under construction. The ceremony was attended by Edenton businessmen, Chamber of Commerce officials, and representatives of town and coun ty government. County commission chairman, Alton Elmore, told the gathering, “There’s no question we’re going to have more visitors to historic Edenton. Citing the need for in creased economic development, he said of the project, “It’s an in dustry right here on this corner and we appreciate having it here.” Following up on Elmore’s theme, Edenton Mayor John Dowd observed that there is a large influx of visitors in bus tours. “If we can get them to stay overnight here it will add dollars to the economy of our town.” The 66 unit motel has a pro jected occupancy date of November 1. The motel will offer a swimming pool, cable television, in-room phones, AARP discounts and free continental breakfasts to guests. Dowdy said that the motel is be Continued On Page 4 NEW MOTEL—Area officials and developers broke ground Tuesday for a new Travel Host Inn in Eden ton. Left to right are Mary Ann Thomas, wife of developer Bob Thomas; Marina Crummey, town coun cil woman; Willis Privott, councilman; county commissioner A1 Phillips; commission board chairman Alton Elmore; town manager Phillip Whitaker; mayor John Dowd; county manager Cliff Copeland (behind Dowd); councilman Pete Manning; coucilman Steve Hampton; developer John Dowdy; developer Vann Johnson.
The Chowan Herald (Edenton, N.C.)
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July 9, 1987, edition 1
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