The Hoke County News - Established 1928
VOLUME LXXIV NUMBER 36 RAEFORD, HOKE COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA
Slated For Court Jan . 20
- ^ oumal
25
The Hoke County Journal - Established 1905
$8 PER YEAR THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1982
Commissioner Hunt Charged With Passing Bad Checks
By Bill Lindau
County Commissioner James
Albert Hunt is scheduled to appear
in Hoke County District Court
January 20 for trial on charges of
passing worthless checks, the
Sheriff's Department records
show.
The checks totaled $13,543 and
were made payable to Robeson
County residents, according to the
records.
Sheriff Dave Barrington said
Monday two criminal summonses
and a warrant were served Friday
on Hunt by Deputy Sheriff Alex
Norton.
Hunt had been admitted to
Moore Memorial Hospital at
Pinehurst about two weeks before
the warrant and summonses were
turned over to the Sheriff's
Department to be served.
A hospital spokesman said Mon
day Hunt was discharged from the
hospital officially on Christmas
Day, but was out on leave the day
before. Hunt reportedly had gone
to the hospital to undergo hernia
surgery.
Hunt could not be reached for
comment on the check charges
Monday.
The sheriff said if Hunt made
restitution for the checks before
January 20, a District Court ap
pearance wouldn't be necessary.
A defendant in a worthless
check case can avoid going to
District Court for trial by signing a
trial waiver in which he or she
pleads guilty, then makes restitu
tion for the amount of the check
and pays court costs, which is a
minimum of $31, Barrington said.
He said no bond is required in
connection with a scheduled court
appearance on a criminal sum
mons, and Hunt signed a written
promise Friday before Magistrate
E.B. Ingram to appear in court to
answer the warrant.
The sheriff explained also that
when a warrant is served, the
defendant is taken before a
magistrate but that in the case of a
criminal summons, the defendant
is simply informed of the charge
and instructed to appear in court
on a specified date.
The criminal summonses accuse
Hunt of writing a check for
$10,250 payable to Samuel A. Cox
of Lumberton Datsun, and one for
S2.978 payable to Charley E. Ben
nett of Lumberton Machine and
Welding Co.
The warrant charges Hunt with
giving a S3 IS check payable to
Fred Baker of Box 131, Lumber
Bridge. The warrant was issued
December 15 by Magistrate J.M.
Hall in Hoke County.
All the checks were written on
United Carolina Bank of Raeford.
The sheriff said the warrants
were not served until Friday
because Hunt was in the hospital,
and this was standard practice in
the case of warrants and sum
monses charging misdemeanors.
Hunt is vice chairman of the
Board of County Commissioners
and is serving his third four-year
term as a commissioner. He was
reelected in the November general
election after winning Democratic
nomination in the July 27 runoff
primary.
Hunt finished third in a field of
10 candidates for the party's
nominations for the three seats in
the June 29 regular primary and
led the field of four in the runoff
contest.
Hunt is a 40-year-old business
man, operating truck and rental
firms among others in the South
Hoke area. He and his wife and
their three children live on Rt. 1,
Red Springs.
James A. Hunt
/
Sitting Out The Season-This old harrow is idly parked in a Hoke County field awaiting another season of work.
Housing Construction To Start In January
Construction is expectpd to
begin here in January on over S2.2
million in low income housing
developments.
The two projects, which will be
located on sites near Raeford, are
being developed by firms from
High Point and Winston Salem,
but will be managed locally.
Work is expected to begin in ear
ly January on IS duplex buildings,
known as "The Meadows", on
I North Fulton Drive.
Ground breaking is also slated
for a second project off of Wooley
Street behind the Hoke High
School Stadium in late January.
Winston Salem developers
Anderson, Benton, Holmes Inc.
have obtained a city building per
? >
mit to construct 48 units on the
Wooley Street site, Raeford
Manager Ronald Matthews said.
The permit calls for the $1.2
million Yadkin Trail Homes pro
ject to be constructed with 24
single family units and 24 duplex
units.
Contractors for both
developments are expected to use
local sub-contractors and local
laborers.
Yadkin Trail Homes is financed
through the federal Department of
Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) and the North Carolina
Housing Finance Agency.
High Point developers John
Loving and Douglas Brown closed
the financing agreement on the
%
Meadows with the Farmers Home
Administration (FmHA) and with
HUD under the Section 8 Program
on December 1.
Brown and Loving, who are also
the general contractors, said earlier
that the project should be com
pleted by October.
Under a prior agreement, the
Raeford Housing Authority will
manage both projects and will
begin taking applications for
residents this summer, Matthews
said.
Each applicant will be screened
carefully, Matthews said, noting
that backgrounds will be checked
and current residences inspected.
During January, Housing
Authority Board members will
a
begin organizing the management
unit and will take applications for
the position of director, Matthews
said.
Additional office and
maintenance staff will also be
hired, he said.
Other developers are looking at
Hoke County as a potential site for
low income housing units, and
those developments are also ex
pected to be managed by the Hous
ing Authority.
Authority board members feel
that local management should help
to keep the quality of the projects'
residents high.
The Raeford housing manage
ment plan is unique in North
Carolina.
Around Town
bySa?M?rtf
Can you remember as many
warm days as we have experienced
this Christmas season1? It has now
been in the 70s every day for a
week and the forecast is for it to
drop into the 50s for the high,
come Saturday.
^ v Now this is good for the fuel
bills, but is it good for our health.
When it does turn cold it will be
unbearable. The seasons of the
year, with hot and cold weather,
takes care of the killing of insects
that can destroy our crops and also
our gardens.
Nature must have the correct
seasons to keep the supply and de
I mand in balance. So maybe we can
use some cold weather.
* + *
The Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas
on Christmas Day could have been
called the Snow Bowl. It was hard
to imagine that type of weather
there for the game. Anyway the
result of the game was well receiv
ed by Tar Heel fans.
* * *
The New Year's Bowl games will
be on Saturday this year and
should be viewed by a record
number of fans. The only trouble
is that some of the games will be
(See AROUND TOWN, page 10)
L
JUST HANGING AROUND - Men installing the gas pump for the Hoke
County Sheriff's Department found this dummy hanging around, at the
end of the cable of a crane, when they came to work last week. Nobody
knows who hung the dummy there. In this picture, concrete is being
poured for the pump area, which is across the street from the sheriff's
department. Radford Police MqJ. J. C. Barrington said, keeping a straight
face while indicating the dummy: "That's what you get when you take
county gas. "
NC Cites Raeford
For Sewer Woes
By Warren Johnston
Because of the failure of one of
the city's major industries to meet
sewer discharge requirements,
Raeford has been found in viola
tion of a state consent order mak
ing the municipality subject to im
mediate civil penality.
However, the city has been given
a stay and a grace period to allow
the House of Raeford time to meet
its obligation to pre-treat waste
discharged into the municipal
system.
In a letter to Mayor John K.
McNeill, dated December 15, State
Department of Natural Resources
and Community Development
(NRCD) Director Robert F. Helms
noted that the city's discharge into
Rockfish Creek will be carefully
monitored for the next 90 days to
determine if Raeford can bring its
system into compliance with state
regulations.
Members of the Raeford City
Council received copies of the let
ter this week.
"1 have: decided not to initiate a
civil penalty action at this time^ but
to reserve the option to assess in an
action which could be taken at any
time," Helms said in the letter.
"This decision should in no way
be taken by the city as an indica
tion that an assessment will not be
forthcoming," he said.
Each day the city is not in com
pliance with its permit will be sub
ject to an additional penalty, the
letter says.
Fines could exceed $10,000 per
day.
Helms said prior to levying
assessments, the state will con
sider:
?The time it takes the city to
achieve compliance.
?The magnitude of the permit
violations.
?Any adverse impact the city's
discharge has on the surface waters
of the state.
?Efforts made by the city to
"optimize" the operation of the
Raeford Wastewater Treatment
Plant.
?How actively the city enforces
its Sewer Use Ordinance. "Of
special interest will be the manner
in which the City administers its
surcharge provision against non
complying industries."
On April 8, the city signed a con
sent order which said that all in
dustries would be in compliance by
November 1, and that the city
would complete work on its $1
million renovation of the
municipal treatment plant by the
same date.
Although the city has completed
the work on the treatment plant,
"the discharge from the House of
Raeford is causing an organic
overload that the existing plant is
unable to adequately treat,"
Helms said in the letter.
The state will be watching to see
if city council members impose a
fine on the turkey processing plant
because of its non-compliance, the
letter says.
Although Helms is on vacation
this week and could not be reached
for comment, Regional NRCD
Supervisor Dennis Ramsey said in
dications are that the House of
Raeford is attempting to correct its
discharge problem.
"We believe they are sincere and
are going to get it corrected,"
Ramsey said Tuesday.
If the state was not optimistic
about the Raeford problems being
corrected, "we wouldn't have
given them the grace period," he
added.
All industries that were not in
compliance were given an extended
deadline by the city council until
January 1. If improvements are
not made to pre-treatment
facilities by then, firms will be sub
ject to fines from July 1.
Since work has been completed
on the Faberge pre-treatment
facility, the House of Raeford re
mains the only major industry not
to meet the city's requirements.
Until the city meets the
discharge standards, the state will
also continue its ban on industrial
expansion here.
"In addition to the assessment
of a civil penalty, we would also
have no choice but to recommend
denial of any request by the city
for any future sewer line exten
sions or any increase in wastewater
flow until such time as final com
pliance is acheived," Helms said in
the letter.
The state imposed the
moritorium on future development
earlier, and as a result at least one
industry thinking of locating here
went elsewhere.
Industrial developers feel that
the availability of sewer is a major
factor considered by firms seeking
plant sites.
Ramsey said that because of re
cent heavy rains, it has been dif
ficult to monitor accurately the
Raeford plant's effect on Rockfish
Creek.
However, monitoring at the
plant itself has shown im
provements in the city's discharge,
he said.
1982 was a year of increasing
taxes, record traffic deaths and
political elections in Hoke
County. Associate Editor Bill
Lindau looks at the events of
the year on page I Section II of
today's News-Journal.