Newspapers / The Chowan Herald (Edenton, … / March 10, 1988, edition 1 / Page 1
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his home in ne afternoon Mrurpoae . Jim Martin's 16 year-old son, Arthur Benson Martin, wrecked a state owned car nt Iredell County one last week. Fortunately, he and his young companion, Thomas Sears, 16, of Raleigh, escaped serious injury al though the car was damaged an estimated $5,000. Investigating officers re ported the car swerved back and forth across the road until it turned over into the ditch line. Young Martin was charged with exceeding a safe speed. The Governor's press sec retary, Jim Sughrue, ex I plained that the Governor has agreed to pay property loss I and damages resulting from the wreck. 'Mr. Sughrue should have left it at that, but he didn't. He went on to explain that the Department of Administration provides a car for the Governor and his family to use. "The vehicle was being 1 used for its intended purpose," }he said, "but regardless, the 1 Governor has decided to pay expenses." We doubt that the Department of Administration has authority to make a publicly-owned ve hicle available to the Governor or anybody else for use other than for a public purpose. There is a line in our con stitution which says that no person is entitled to "separate emoluments or privi leges...but in consideration of public service. It is difficult for us to un derstand how pleasure driv ing by a teenager on Saturday afternoon falls into the cate gory of public service. We commend the Governor for his willingness to make the state whole again, but we would suggest that if he wants his son to have a car for his own use he should buy one for him. After all, Jim Martin is the second highest-paid gov ernor in the country. Room To Experiment There is, of course, a limit to the amount of co-operation Edenton and Chowan County officials can efficiently carry out. But we do not believe they are near that limit yet. For that reason, we endorse the initiatives by Mayor John Dowd and County Manager Cliff Copeland in setting up a joint committee to study the problem. A first step was taken a year or so ago when the city agreed to let the county collect city taxes for a fee. As it turned out, collections in creased more than enough to Continued On Page 4 BLUB RIBBON-Governor Martin's Blue Ribbon Commission on Coastal Initiatives met in the Edenton Town Council chamber Tuesday and Wednesday to summarize results of six public hearings on the governor's plan. Former Lt Gov. Jimmy Green (loft) listens as a panel member makes a point. Other panel members attending the Edenton meeting included Dave Flaherty, Secretary of Dept, of Human Resources, Jim Harrington, Secretary of Dept, of Transportation, Tommy Rhodes, Secretary of Dept of Natural Resources and Community Development and Ella Bengal, Mayor of New Bern. The initiatives are aimed at economic development and improvements in coastal water resources, THE CHOWAN HERALD Published In The Most Beautiful Little City On The North Carolina Coast Volume LLIV - No. 10 Edenton, North Carolina, Thursday, March 10,1988 Single Copies 25 Cents Boards Reach Decision Site To Be Retained By JACK GROVE The question of the location of a new Chowan Middle School to replace the present Chowan Jr. High School was settled by the Chowan County Commission Board and by the Edenton-Chowan Board of Education Monday. The site of the school will be the present campus of the junior high school. School board member John Mitchener, III had suggested earlier that the new school be located nearer Eden ton, per haps on the U.S. 17 Bypass. This met with opposition from board members Alice Jones and J.M. Parrish, III at an early morning meeting on February 26. That meeting was to con sider an application to the state for critical needs fund ing from a pot of $95 million set up by the General Assembly last summer. The application has to be endorsed by both boards with a filing deadline of March 15. The application also had to be based on a long-range school construction plan pre viously submitted to the state. That plan called for demoli tion of the two-story building at Chowan, construction of a new middle school there and renovation of the present cafeteria, gym, auditorium apd ten classrooms. The cost was set at $5.6 million. The school board endorsed revision of the plan on the ap plication. It deleted the speci fied location of the middle school and added $200,000, needed if the school was sited elsewhere. Commissioners Monday morning strongly took excep tion with any other location than the junior high campus. It was pointed out that the "super-sub" committee, com posed of two commissioners and two school board mem bers had come up with the original recommendation for the middle school at the Chowan campus. "I'd like to stand on the original recommendation," commissioner Alton Elmore stated. He is a member of the super-sub. "It ought to be done at the present site," he contin ued. "I just think that the peo ple in the northern end of the county deserve a piece of our school system." Commissioner A1 Phillips agreed. "I think the best in terest of the county is to put it exactly where it is." The board unanimously endorsed changing the appli cation by deleting the $200,000 and restoring the Chowan lo cation and building and ren ovation plans. Commissioner Clara Boswell abstained from the vote. Mrs. Boswell is cur rently principal at Chowan Jr. High School. At a marathon meeting Monday night, the school board voted six to one to en dorse the critical needs appli cation as changed by the county commissioners. The^'application will now meet the March 15 deadline. Report Is Issued The Edenton-Chowan Board of Education had a full agenda Monday night that stretched their meeting from 7:30 p.m. until midnight. One of the major topics un der consideration was the ap proval of a crucial needs ap plication to the state. (See ac companying article.) The school system is listed as 33rd in ranking for school con struction needs. While no guidelines have been announced for dividing a $95 million critical needs fund by a special state com mittee, Schools Superinten dent John Dunn has said that Edenton-Chowan could get as much as $1 million from the fund under one recent pro The board began their meeting with a look at the computer curriculum of busi ness teacher Penny Jo Powell at Holmes High School. Stu dents John Nixon and Bryan Waff demonstrated computer program that they had each written recently. The report of an architect selection committee was re ceived by the board. Some 30 architects have expressed in terest in working with the school system on plans for the new Chowan Middle School. Among agenda items, the board: 'Discussed plans for six board members to attend a National School Board Assoc, meeting in New Orleans; •Heard a presentation from Jill Jordan on the new AIDS curriculum that will soon be taught to students in grades 7 through 12. A meeting for all interested parents on this subject has been scheduled for tonight at 7 p.m. in the cafete ria at D.F. Walker School; •Considered a new policy on adult school bus drivers that would require employment in the schools as a prerequisite; and •Considered use of the school van for activities transporta tion. Photos Needed By Dept. The Edenton Fire P^partment is in the process of restoring their 1923 Reo fire truck. The truck is being taken apart, sanded, cleaned and repainted. Firemen request that any one having old pictures of the truck loan them to the depart mentasa^aid^m’tKST-estora-^ tion work. NEW BOOKMOBILE-The Pettigrew Regional Library has added a $42,000 bookmobile to its resources, providing two bookmobiles to cover routes in four counties. Shown inside the new unit are (from left) Victor Eure, Outreach Coordinator, Anne Jones, Librarian at Shepard-Pruden Library and Martie Smith, Regional Director of Pettigrew. The new bookmobile carries 2,000 books as well as video tapes. System Expansion Plan Presented County commissioners heard a presentation on ex pansion of the county water system at their Monday morning meeting. The pre sentation was made by con sulting engineer Bill Diehl and Graham Farless, super visor of the system. Diehl explained that the 200 gallon per minute capacity of the Yeopim treatment plant in the southern end of the county is totally inadequate during periods of hot weather. He also said that the ele vated storage tank, of riveted construction and built for the air base in the 1940's, was in adequate for drinking water and fire fighting. Diehl pointed out that the tank was 25 feet too low to provide water pressure to areas on higher ground. He said the best solution was replacing it with a 250,000 gallon tank of welded construction. Two alternatives were given in expanding water ca pacity. The first would be construction of a new plant with a 600 GPM capacity be hind the present Yeopim plant and addition of tl|a new raised water tank. Diehl cited the need of the Bayliner Boat Co. for adequate fire fighting pressure. "In an industrial area, you can never have too much overhead storage," he commented. The second alternative would connect the system in the northern part of the county with the southern, add to the Valhalla plant, capacity for an additional 600 GPM and build another elevated tank and booster station near the intersection of N.C. 32 and U.S. 17 bypass. Either alternative would cost $2 million. Diehl recommended the second alternative of connecting the systems. He said that an added benefit would be the single plant for treating water. New federal regulations require many new tests for water quality the engineer said and it would be better if they could all be done at one location. Commissioners were told that there were two possible sources for grants to fund the expansion. A maximum of Continued On Page 4 ARBOR DAY-Mayor John Dowd signed a proclamation at Tuesday night's council meeting naming March 18 as Arbor Day in Edenton to protect the town's tree heritage and urging citizens to plant new trees. With Dowd are Dee Phillips, chairman of the tree committee and Steve Karl, committee member. Rezoning Is Denied On a vote of four to two, Edenton Town Council turned down the request of Judy Earnhardt Adams for a re zoning of her property to CH, highway commercial, from R-20, agricultural-residen tial. The ten acre parcel lies on the southeast corner of the intersection of U.S. 17 Bypass and N.C. 32. The Planning Board had unanimously ap proved the request Monday night. That the CH designation could allow construction of businesses that might be un sightly, worried town offi cials. Councilman Living stone T. Goodman observed, "I see this as a major issue. It's a major entrance to the town," He also cited the property's proximity to the Golden Cor ral, hospital and church. He said the property might be needed in the future for pro fessional offices associated with the hospital. Bob Adams told the council that they were only asking for rezoning "for approximately 25 per cent" of the 40 acres owned there by Mrs. Adams. He said that 20 to 30 acres be hind the ten acres could be used for the medical arts. He also pointed out that, in meet ings with the adjacent church, they received approval. Mayor John Dowd said that he couldn't see any other use for the property other than commercial. "Any growth in the 1980's has to be in that area." "Mr. Mayor, I think we're showing a good growth west of the bypass," Councilman Allen Harless responded. Council members Marina Crummey and Jimmy Alli good said that the majority of their constituents supported the rezoning. "To this day, I haven't heard a whole lot of opposition. My gut feeling is I'd like to see that property remain the way it is but, real istically, I believe it will change," said Councilman E.N. (Pete) Manning. Just prior to the vote, Good man added, "I'm not voting for it because its ten acres.” Council did approve a re quest to rezone the old A&P property on No. Broad Street from industrial-warehousing to highway commercial. The property does not include the nearby Western Gas Co. Plans by owner A1 Cox in clude an attended car wash. In other matters, council: •Revised upward the fee schedule for building per mits; •Authorized funding of $£50 for the Highway 17 Associa tion; Continued On Paged
The Chowan Herald (Edenton, N.C.)
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