Newspapers / The News-Record (Marshall, N.C.) / Oct. 22, 1981, edition 1 / Page 1
Part of The News-Record (Marshall, 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
N EWS R ECORD SERVING THE PEOPLE OF MADISON COUNTY 80th Year No. 43 PUBLISHED WEEKLY IN THE COUNTY SEAT AT MARSHALL, N.C. THURSDAY, October 22, 1*1 15c Per Copy Allison Sentenced To 50 Years SPENCER DALE ALLISON, 44, of Moore Haven, Fla., entered the Madison County Courthouse with Sheriff E.Y. Ponder Monday afternoon to enter a plea of guilty to the charge of robbery with a dangerous weapon. The charges of conspiracy and kidnapping stemming from the June 15 holdup of The Wachovia Bank branch in Hot Springs were dropped in an agreement between Allison's attorney and prosecutors. Allison was sentenced by Hon. Judge Ronald W. Howell to 50 to 80 years in a state prison. The trial of another defendant in the same case, Charles E. Williams, has not been scheduled. To Division On Aging By NICHOLAS HANCOCK Declaring him a true "advocate for the elderly," Got. Jim Hunt appointed State Rep. Ernest B. Messer, D Haywood, as assistant secretary for the Division on Aging of the N.C. Depart ment of Human Resources Thursday at a news conference in the governor's western office in Asheville. Messer succeeds Nathan Yelton, who headed the division on aging from 1977 until his death on Sept. 29. Messer, 67, a former teacher and basketball coach in the Haywood County school system, has served 19 years in the General Assembly. Hunt said that during that tenure, Messer "has become one of that body's most respected and influential members, and he is North Carolina's greatest champion of the rights of senior dtisens." Him* mm that ?i?w y el ton's "there has been an outpouring of requests from senior citizens to appoint Ernest as his successor. The senior citterns of North Carolina are ex tremely fortunate that a person of Ernest Messer's stature would agree to assume the position of assistant secretary. Messer has been chairman of the House Committee on Aging since it was created in 1077. The committee was responsible for legislation that established the Division on Aging with 178,000, and Hunt said, "Today, the division administers more than $7 million a year for programs to benefit senior dtixaM." Hunt said that Messer and the Committee on Aging has led numerous legislative battles on bebalf of the state's elderly. "These include in creasing the state's compulsory retirement age from 66 to 70, expansion of the Homestead Exemption, a BID of Rights for patients in nursing homes sod rpflt homes, Appropriations for local senior citizens' centers, and establishment of in-home service programs which help keep senior citizens at home and out of institutions. "The latter is an area in which we've got a lot of work to do," Hunt said. Hunt said Measer is "uniquely qualified to administer the very programs he was so instrumental in creating." Messer, who served Haywood, Jackson, Madison and Swain counties along with House Speaker Listen B. Ramsey of Marshall, said, "I assure you that it wasn't easy to decide whether to continue to serve in the General Assembly or to try to Oil the vacancy created in the Division of Aging by the death of Nathan Yelton. " Measer, who will assume his new position on Nov. 1, said it will be dif ficult to give up his seat in the House and cease serving Ms constituents in that capacity, but "my service to them Continued on Page 3 The People Ask __ ? Debbie Baker, Madison Co. Food jfiliw Director, are enrollment and distance from suppliers. Haywood Coonty serves three times as many tenches a? Madison County every school day, so they are able to bay foods at larger quantities and thus at lower unit prion. Buncombe County's enrollment of 24,000 is eight times j? ff}*.. &Bf" ,?2P? ???;* {? - *V At Boa ;?..., c.,J>w ,.v " i *????: ww | Mecucai iltant Questions F rozenF unds By NICHOLAS HANCOCK Editor A heated discussion involving frozen county funds which help to provide a medical consultant for the Madison County Health Department was the focal point of last Wednesday's board of health meeting in Marshall. Dr. Charles H. Powell, Mars Hill physician and medical consultant to the health department, said be felt he was being coerced, through manipulation of county funds, into admitting patients to Madison Manor Nursing Center in Mars Hill. During the meeting, Powell said James Ledford, chairman of the health board and chairman of the county commissioners, had told a health department secretary that the county portion of Powell's medical consultant fee would be eliminated unless he admitted patients to the nursing home. "Is that true?" Powell asked Ledford. Ledford neither confirmed nor denied the allegation but said the $1,700 "was a budget reduction approved by the beard of county commissioners at the adoption of the budget" on June 3. Powell tokl The News Recerd an announcement was made at the July health board meeting stating the county commissioner would be freezing funds far hiring a nurse practitioner and medical eoamltant. tie said Ed Morton health department director, talked with him during the latter part of August and told him that Ledford had said the commissioners would release the funds if Powell agreed to admit patients to the nursing home "They, Jim Ledford, Bobby Edwards and Virginia Anderson, sent word that everything would be fine, rrty fee would be restored, and the family nurse practitioners position would be rein stated if I'd go ahead and admit patients," Powell said. Morton, saying he "didn't want to be caught in the middle," declined com ment when asked if he delivered such a message to Powell. But health board member Lillian Corbett said that she telephoned Morton after being takl of his conversation with Powell and that Morton told her he had made the statement. "It seems that some of the county commissioners have such a vested interest in the nursing home that they're willing to sacrifice the well being of another institution (the health department)," Powell said at Wed nesday's meeting. "I submit that this is abuse of public power ? a conflict of interest," he said. Ledford, county commissioner Virginia Anderson, and Robert L. Edwards, school superintendent and health board member are members of the board of directors of Madison Convalenscene Inc., the non-profit organization which spearheaded the construction of Madison Manor. As medical consultant, Powell is responsible for the proper dispensation of medications and vaccinations ad ministered by the health department nursing staff. He contends that eliminating or freezing funds for a medical consultant, resulting in the elimination of that position, would "jeopardize the well-being of the health department." Powell receives <5,100 per year as medical consultant. The county has been providing $1,700 of that amount. and the remainder is provided through Title V (Maternal Child Health) and Title X (Family Planning) monies from the state and federal governments. Ledford said he "knows of no con nection" between the freeing of the medical consultant's funds and the operation of Madison Manor, and maintained that the action was made by the commissioners in a budget tightening move. However, he told the health board that "it would be so much easier if Dr. Powell and all the doctors would work to make it (Madison Manor) a success." Powell said he chooses not to do nursing home practice. "I think a professional should have the right to make that choice without being coerced with the county taxpayers' money. I don't think that's right," he said. Powell said he has declined to admit patients to Madison M?nnr "for a variety of reasons." "It was an in dependent decision. I really don't like the concept," he said. But Ledford argued that the county has a 91 .3 Medicaid budget and county taxpayers support that budget with a percentage of their taxes. "If we transfer our patients into Buncombe, Haywood and other counties, we take our tax dollars out of Madison County," he said. According to David George, Madison Manor aihidmatfaUrf, Medicaid finds pay K tt patients' expenses at the facility. After the lengthy discussion, board members approved a motion in structing Morton to request the release of the frosen medical consultant's funds at the county commissioners' November meeting. ReplacementTo State House Up In Air When word spread that State Rep. Ernest Messer would be appointed to the state government post of assistant secretary to head up the Division of Aging last week, speculation was rampant about who would succeed him in the 43rd District House seat in Raleigh. Early speculation, preceding Messer 's ap pointment by Gov. Jim Hunt on Thursday, had Pat Smathers of Canton and Charles W. Hipps of Waynesvtlle as frontrunners for the seat. However, Hipps, an attorney who has been putting our feelers on a possible race against state Sen. James McClure Clarke for the Uth District U.S. House seat, emphatically stated he would not be seeking Messer's post in the General Assembly. According to Wayne Mc Devitt, director of the governor's western office in Asheville, Smathers is also out as a successor to Messer. Contacted Friday, McDevitt said Charles BeD and Jack Abbott, both of Canton, look like leading prospects for the soon-to-be vacated House seat. McDevitt said he un derstood that Abbott was in Madison Comity Friday, in dicating that Abbott may have been calling on district executive committee mem bers to strengthen his chances for appointment to N.C. representative position. The actual decision on a successor to lleaser will be made by a district executive committee made up of two people from each couity in the 48rd District, but it it thought mai ines6 commiHM mem hen will be guided con siderably from the direction ghraa by their county chair McDevitt said Madison County's committee members are James Ledford and Swann Huff, both of Mars HO. He said selection of a successor will be determined by weigniea votes oasec on population ? one vote per 300 Contiaaed on Pair a SI B Me; MT (i 8 of iftbeN.C. H*'
The News-Record (Marshall, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Oct. 22, 1981, edition 1
1
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75