■ .
482-4418
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
50*
In the works
$28 million by
pass proposed
outside of town
■ A4
Karate instructors Ashlee and
Eric Gilbert had their program
terminated due to county
budget cuts.
Recreation
cuts affect
hundreds
By Vernon Fueston
Contributing Writer
With 30 kids and adults
taking classes at the North
ern Chowan Community
Center, Eric and Ashlee Gil
bert’s karate class was one
of the center’s most success
ful programs.
Now that program has
been cut.
The demise of the karate
program illustrates just
what the dismissal of 10
part-time recreation depart
ment employees will cost the
county.
Heavy cuts
In the county’s second
proposed budget option —
the one calling for job cuts
and an 8.5-cerit realty tax
increase — the loss of those
10 jobs was put forward. But
those cuts have already been
made
Also on the table under
option #2 is a 10 percent
cut in operating funds. The
recreation department has
already started making cuts
in services to the public,
starting with the Northern
Chowan Community Center.
About 2,000 users per
month take advantage of the
center’s sports programs
and weight rooms. Dur
ing the colder months, that
number swells to 3,500.
The center, once open 73
hours per week, has cut back
to 50 hours because of staff
cuts, said Robbie Laughton,
director of Chowan’s recre
ation department.
The center is no longer
open on weekends and only
until noon on Fridays.
Possible closure
Under County Manager
Peter Rascoe’s third budget
option, the one calling for a
2.5-cent realty tax increase,
the center would close com
pletely, along with Swain’s
senior center in town.
Closure of the Northern
Chowan Center would af
fect more than the public.
Chowan Middle School also
makes use of the center.
When it was constructed,
the Northern Chowan Cen
ter was designed as a com-*
promise between the recre
ation department and the
school system.
The middle school was
built without a full gymna
sium and auditorium, sav
ing money for the school
system. The school now
uses the center’s facilities
next door for athletics and
assemblies.
The recreation 4 depart
ment was able to do without
building extra ball fields,
See RECREATION, Page A2
©2006 The Chowan Herald
All Rights Reserved
• >
i
FACES OF A FISCAL CRISIS
‘ Beneath all the journal entries and beyond the PowerPoint presentations
are our neighbors — volunteers, county employees and residents who rely on
certain Chowan services. Here are some of their stories.
The DeVines — Kincaid,4, Jill, Cyndy,2, and Kirk — sit down for breakfast before Kirk starts another day of job hunting.
"After trying for so long to
come back, my community
has disappointed me and
that hurts more than any
thing." — Kirk DeVine
Former county social worker helped
neglected and abused seniors
By Rebecca Bunch
Staff Writer
A lot of tears were shed the day
layoffs came at Social Services.
Kirk DeVine’s supervisor, Renee
Long, cried for hijn when he lost his
job. A secretary, Kim Goodwin, did a
lot of weeping too.
DeVine spent most of the day con
tacting his clients — adults dealing
with suspected abuse or neglect, or
unable to perform- even basic life
skills without help — and wondered
who would watch out for them n#w.
He also thought about how he had
longed to move back to Edenton so
his 2 and 4-year-old children could
grow up in his hometown.
Now he spends his days filling out
job applications and hoping to find
work here.
But he doubts that will happen.
“After trying for so long to come
back, my community has disap
pointed me and that hurts more than
anything,” he said.
Staff meeting
DSS Director Ben Rose had called
a staff meeting the week before the
layoffs took place to tell workers
Local youth travels to Europe on peace mission
by Earline White
Managing Editor
In Germany a girl asked
Destiny Askew if she was
rich.'
Destiny was wearing
Levi’s, but she was far from
designer jeans.
She was an American in
Europe on a peace mission.
♦ ♦ ♦
Since 1956, students from
across the U.S. have traveled
to countries across the globe
as People to People Ambas
sadors — students with a
belief that ordinary people
can make a difference in the
role government plays.
Askew, who made the area
papers for her political ac
tivism during Sen. Hillary
Clinton’s campaign, knew
that the chance to study pol
itics abroad might happen
only once.
But the 20-day trip across
INSIDE
■ Residents share ideas for reversing shortfall A6, 7
■ Candidates talk about county’s fiscal crisis at discus
sion group; Commissioner Chair Ralph Cole said he is con
sidering resigning A8
■ Proposed budget cuts affect numerous county depart
ments A2
there were going to be some cost-sav
ing measures taken because of the
county budget crisis.
“You could tell something was go
ing on but nobody would say any
thing,” DeVine said.
A week later, at 11:58 a.m., DeVine
was told he no longer had a job there
as of the end of that business day.
He wrote an e-mail to County Man
ager Peter Rascoe saying that the
services people who had been elimi-.
nated were providing should have
been considered in the layoffs and
not just how long they had been on
the job.
DeVine, you see, was a one-person
department. No one else did the job
he was doing.
DeVine, who had joined the staff
in March, said being a newcomer
made him an obvious target.
“I was easy,” he said. “The people
who were gotten rid of, were gotten
rid of without considering what
services they provided. I think they
(county officials) are scared and they
acted rashly.”
“At 5 o’clock I left for good,” he
said.
Rascoe said the layoffs represented
a necessary cost-saving measure.
Rising Holmes Junior, Destiny
Askew just got back from a
20-day, 6 country tour as Peo
ple to People Ambassador,
six countries cost $6,500;
she only had $1,000 she’d
been saving over the past
nine years.
♦ ♦ ♦
“I wanted her first time
abroad to be with me back
packing,” said Askew’s
mother Kristy LaLonde.
“But how could 1 keep her
Coming home
Prior to March, DeVine had worked
for four years at Skills, Inc. in Eliza
beth City in what he described as a
“family-like” setting.
He said the decision to leave there
was a difficult one but that he had a
strong desire to come back to Eden
ton.
Now, though, DeVine said the limit
ed job market in the area might leave
him and others who’ve been laid off
with no choice but to relocate.
He’s talked with his former em
ployer in Elizabeth City but the only
thing available is the entry-level job
he took when he went to work for
them in 2004.
The salary that goes with the job
isn’t enough to support a family, he
said.
Although his wife, Jill, is still em
ployed, DeVine said he is weighing
his responsibility as a husband and
father who should be able to support
his family against his desire to raise
his children, Kincaid and Cyndy,
here.
And like many young families who
have already had to leave Chowan
to go where they could find jobs, he
said, his family may be next.
from going? How many kids
her age get to have such an
experience?”
Back at home in Valhalla,
Askew keeps her daily itin
erary handy just to remem
ber it all. The group (of 33
from northeastern N.C.) hit
Rome running, she said.
They went to the Coli
seum and Roman Forum;,
the Vatican and the Sistine
Chapel; a salt mine, a flour
mine; Germany, Switzer
land and France.
It was a trip of firsts
— a rail car up an Austrian
mountain, witnessing na
tional militia carrying AK
47s at a rally for public jobs,
shopping for authentic Ital
ian shoes.
But what struck Askew
the hardest was a visit to
the Mauthausen concentra
tion camp.
“I didn’t understand how
people could come from
there and act the same way,”
Askew said.
“The idea that one man
can take control and com
mit such crimes and the
people can do nothing... My
brother would have been
killed; I would have been
forced to work; women
younger than my mother
would have been killed ... I
cannot understand.”
♦ ♦ ♦
The group picked up 20
bags of trash on a beach in
Jesolo, Italy; lived with a
German host family; hag
gled in the markets. They
toured the Murano glass
factory; slept on straw mats;
attended cooking school.
“Twenty days seemed like
a week and a half,” Askew
said. She’s off the ground
running, again. She’s read
ing some books she picked
up on the trip, getting ready
for school; and thinking of
next year, and Australia.
"Losing these
programs would
be disastrous."
Bill Miller, Area Agency on Aging
board member
Future of
“Meals”
uncertain
By Vernon Fueston
and Rebecca Bunch t
Contributing Writer
Cynthia Penny, who suf
fers from multiple sclerosis,
is worried that her visits
from Meals on Wheels could
end with the county’s belt
tightening.
She rarely
sees visitors
at her home
in Rocky
Hock, and
considers the
program’s
volunteers
her lifeline
to the outside
world.
Without the program, she
said, “I’d miss it, not because
of the food. But because of
the interaction with the peo
ple.”
The program is also im
portant to volunteer Linda
Robbins. On Monday she de
livered a hot meal to Penny
consisting of a hamburger,
potato salad and fruit.
She’s been delivering
meals to the elderly for three
years now, but her own limi
tations are catching up with
her.
“I've been told that with
my using oxygen, I should
not be doing this job,” she
said. “But as long as God lets
me keep doing it, I will.”
Shutting down?
The program, known to
many as “Meals on Wheels,”
is actually called the Albe
marle Commission Senior
Nutrition, Home Delivered
Meals.
It, along with week
day lunches served at the
Chowan Senior Center, may
soon be lost, according to
Bill Miller of Edenton, who
serves on the board that ad
ministers the programs.
Miller said if the county’s
budget woes prevent it from
providing $51,483 in match
ing grant monies to the Area
Agency on Aging Nutrition
Fund, the lunches and meals
program would end.
County Manager Peter
Rascoe said if Option 1 or
2 ends up being the one ap
proved by the county com
missioners, the matching
funds would remain in the
budget.
They would not, he said, if
one of the other two options
is chosen.
The Home and Commu- . *
nity Care Block Grant that •
funds the programs totals
$177,983 for the 2008-09 fiscal
year.
Those funds pay for about
20,500 meals in Chowan
County that are distributed
annually, resulting in 12,428
See MEALS, Page A2 >