Chowan loses tax administrator
Ordered to repay
two-year earnings
By RITCHIE E. STARNES
Editor
Chowan County’s tax
administrator is out of a
job after the Local Govern
mental Employees’ Retire
ment System concluded
that he has been working
No challengers file
against incumbents
From staff reports
The four incumbents
seeking re-election for the
Edenton Town Council
will face no opposition in
November’s municipal
election,
barring
any write
in candi
dates.
'Mayor
pro tem
Steve
Biggs filed
for re-elec
tion Friday
- the final day of the filing
period. Biggs represented
the last incumbent with an
expiring term to file.
The other three board
members filed earlier.
Mayor Roland Vaughan,
an Edenton jewelry re
tailer, has filed in pursuit
of a fifth term. Council
Biggs
Lions deny
women members
Rocky Hock
offers option
By RITCHIE E. STARNES
Editor
Because women are wel
come at the Rocky Hock
Lions Club, some believe
that alternative excuses
gender discrimination at
the Edenton Lions Club.
It was the failure of
Edenton Lions to admit fe
male members that forced
internal club dissension
and led to the 2002 start
of the Rocky Hock Lions.
The club splintered when
talk arose about inviting
women to join.
“There were some heat
ed discussions. A lot of
members were about to
quit,” said Mike Dean, cur
COA Chowan set to open in old D.F. Walker campus
Move delayed until
after classes start '
By PETER WILLIAMS
Stuff Writer
The College of The Albe
marle hopes to move into
new quarters in Edenton in
September or October and
open a Currituck County
6
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©2009 The Chowan Herald
All Rights Reserved
as an employee and not an
independent contractor.
While county officials
were at work inking Gene
Rountree a new service
contract similar to his pre
vious deal, the retirement
system nixed those plans
amid a call for him to repay
the retirement body for the
last two years of compen
sation. It’s also asking the
county to contribute $5,000
man Jimmy Stallings, an
insurance agent for Farm
Bureau, was the first to file
for re-lection as he seeks a
fourth term as the repre
sentative of the 1st ward.
After he was first appoint
ed to fill an
unexpired
term, at
t o r n e y
Sam Dixon
was first
elected as
council
man in
Vaughan
1999 to rep
resent the
2nd ward.
Biggs, economic devel
opment director for Ber
tie County, represents the
Council’s at-large seat.
He will be seeking a fifth
term.
There was no incumbent
opposition in the 2005 and
2003 municipal elections.
rent Edenton Lions Club
president.
Instead, the Rocky Hock
Lions Club was formed
while Edenton’s club re
mained all male. It remains
male only while more than
half of Rocky Hock’s 23
member club is women, or
13 to 10.
Bud Miller, a former
Edenton Lions president
and Rocky Hock’s cur
rent president, was among
those who championed for
change in the town chap
ter. But calls for more club
diversity fell on deaf ears,
Miller said.
“I was upset with Eden
ton Lions when they
wouldn’t accept women,”
Miller said. “They (Eden
ton club) like being able to
See LIONS, 2A
campus in early 2013, board
members were told Mon
day night.
The college is renovat
ing the old campus of D.F.
Walker Elementary School
in Chowan County and will
relocate the administrative
offices from a shopping cen
ter where it is housed now.
The shopping center
houses all of the develop
mental education, office sci
ence, business administra
tion and career readiness
programs. It also holds the
computer lab and learning
center
Chowan County is pro
viding $200,000 over two
toward Rountree’s retire
ment benefits.
At issue is whether
Rountree’s role as tax ad
ministrator was that of
employee or contractor. Of
ficials with the retirement
system notified the county
that because Rountree had
worked for more than 1,000
hours per year it consid
ered him an employee,
according to County Man
STAFF PHOTOS BY THOMAS J. TURNEY
Steamers outfielder Brian Blasik (right) can hardly bear to watch the final moments of the Petitt Cup championship game
loss to the Gastonia Grizzlies at Hicks Field, Saturday.
Steamers’ fabulous season ends in heartbreak
Steamers coach Dirk Kinney yells at home plate umpire Randy Rosen
berg for what he felt were bad calls when the Steamers’ last batter of
the night was called out on strikes.
Fall one win short
ofPetitt Cup crown
ByCHICRIEBEL
The Daily Advance
The season wasn’t supposed to end this
way
Not with the Gastonia Grizzlies
celebrating a Petitt Cup championship on
a Hicks Field turf on which the Edenton
Steamers had been nearly invincible, win
ning 26 of 30 previous games.
Not with the Coastal Plain League’s best
hitting, highest-scoring team trying to figure
out how it batted just .135 and scored only
three runs in the best-of-3 title round that
went the distance.
Not with Steamers head coach Dirk Kin
ney angrily chasing down the home plate
umpire and berating him for punching out
the Steamers’ final batter in the final game
See STEAMERS, 3A
years to do the work.
“We need to be out of
there (the shopping center)
by Oct. 30,” COA President
Kandi Deitemeyer told the
board.
The consolidated cam
pus will be at 824 N. Oakum
Street near John A. Holmes
High School.
Meanwhile, the Cur
rituck aviation center is
still on the drawing board,
but Currituck County has
agreed to provide the $6
million to build it.
Deitemeyer updated the
COA board on both proj
ects, including showing a
V See COA, 2A
ager Paul Parker.
“Their position of a reg
ular employee is different
from ours,” Parker said.
Rountree said he ad
hered to the system’s re
quirement that he was free
to work as long as he didn’t
earn more than 50 percent
of his annual retirement
compensation.
“I read the state’s hand
book page 23 and I fit the
bill to a T,” Rountree said.
That was the same de
scription that former
County Manager Peter
Rascoe, also an attorney,
used when he penned
Rountree’s original con
tract in July 2009 and
subsequently approved by
the then Board of County
Commissioners. And it
was that same contract
that Parker planned to
use to extend Rountree’s
services for another two
years.
Chowan paid Rountree
a maximum annual pay
of $46,800 with an hourly
rate of $30 with a target
workweek of 30 hours.
Rountree was also afford
ed an expense allowance
of $14,000 for travel and
See ROUNTREE, 2A
PHOTO BY RITCHIE STARNES
A crew with build
ing contractor John
Bassett Inc (JBI) of
Edenton reels off
electrical cable en
route to underground
installation as part
of the renovations
at the former D.F.
Walker campus
that will become
the new Edenton
Chowan campus for
the College of The
Albemarle. -i
Gnltartsis, Phi Huey t Brew Armstrong 2-3pm
BWkte. COLONIAL PARK, EDENTON NCl
SUNDAY, AUGUST 11 • Z*Spm I
Bring your blanket or Iown chair and enjoy an afternoon of music!