Newspapers / The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.) / May 16, 1985, edition 1 / Page 1
Part of The News-Journal (Raeford, 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
Turkey Pickin May 30 5:30-8 p.m. New Armory The News -Journal Established 1928 ? ? The Hoke County News - ? The Hoke County Journal - Established 1905 Volume LXXVIK Number 4 ~ Thursd.y, M? 16, 19S5 Raeford ad valorem taxes not expected to rise By Ed MiUcr There will be no ad valorem tax increase for Raeford property owners next year, but fees for many local services will rise, members of the city council were told in a special budget session Monday night. Currently under consideration is a plan which would more than double such fees as garbage pickup, trash hauling and water taps. Council members are also eyeing suggestions to raise water and sewer rates in an effort to meet costs of maintaining the city's ag ing system. Although little detail about the budget was discussed in the ses sion, councilmen were told that $157,107 has been cut in revenue and expenses for the upcoming fiscal year. The coming year's budget is pro jected at almost SI .4 million which is down from this year's $1.54 million, City Manager Tom Phillips said. An effort is being made by city administrators to keep costs down. According to Phillips, there will be no new employees hired by the city next year. Present employees can look for ward to limited raises if any, said Phillips. "If an employee is not doing his job, he will not have it for long," Phillips said. Employees who just do their jobs may have no raises to look forward to, and ones who work very well stand to get raises of 2.5^# to 5^o, said the manager. "There will be no across the board pay raises," he said. Phillips said department heads for the city will have about 3 ?7o of their total salary budget to use for merit pay raises. According to the manager, although taxes will not go up for the coming year, many of the fees charged by the city for services will be raised. A rate hike is proposed for sanitation pick-ups, he said. Whereas currently, everyone is being charged a rate of $1.50 for pick-up, the fee is proposed to rise to S3. SO, Phillips said. An increase is also proposed for fees charged to haul limbs from yards, said the manager. Phillips said that the current rates are based on a flat fee per load hauled to the landfill. Now with the "woodchipper" owned by the city, a greater amount of discarded wood can be hauled at one time, but more man hours are spent feeding the wood into the machine. Also, according to Phillips, some residents had been taking ad vantage of the service by having large numbers of trees cut in their yards and having the city haul them off at a low price. The proposed fee for hauling large amounts of limbs to the land fill will be $12 per hour, Phillips said. The manager emphasized that a normal load of limbs found in a yard would still be taken away as part of the service and at no cost. Also in an effort to recover costs, fees charged to tap into water lines will vary according to the size line going into the home or business, said Phillips. The present charge for a normal .75 inch water line is $ ISO, and that rate will not change, said Phillips. The rate for a one-inch tap will be $175, and rates for lines with four inch diameters will be $800. The larger the tap, the higher the fee, said Phillips. Phillips also gave councilmen a number of options to look at with regard to raising water and sewer rates. According to the manager, the public is paying a disproportionate share of the total water bill for the city. The large industries in Raeford are paying for less water than they use. Working way through crowd Governor James G. Martin works his way through a reception crowd of local residents and others atten ding the annual Raeford-Hoke Chamber of Com merce banquet Friday night. Regional industry hunt eyed Plans are being formulated to put the state's industrial recruiting efforts on a competitive regional basis in order to help rural com munities with economic develop ment, North Carolina Governor James G. Martin said Friday. Martin, who was in Raeford to speak at the annual Chamber of Commerce dinner, said under the plan regional directors would be judged on the industry coming to their area. "We have made progress, but we haven't had balanced growth," Martin told the crowd of more than 300 gathered at the new Na tional Guard Armory. The new plan would be designed to insure that rural communities, like Hoke County, would get their share of the industries coming to North Carolina, the governor said. Future recruiting efforts would also turn to trying to land more food processing plants for the state. "We need to provide a market place for our farmers," Martin said. Farmers, who want to diversify planting and to get away from Around Town By Sam Morris The rain last Thursday and again on Sunday has been very helpful to farmers and to the folks that have gardens. It must have rained a little over an inch in the two days. We still need about two inches to get the water level back to about normal. The forecast is for rain maybe Thursday or Friday, The temperature will be in the 80s and maybe even reach 90 during the re mainder of the week. ? ? ? The Raeford-Hoke Chamber of Commerce and the Raeford Junior > Woman's Club is sponsoring a "Yard-of-the-Month" contest for the month of May through September. The Junior Woman's Club will act as judges for the yards each month. The chamber will place a sign in the yard of the winner for the month. (See AROUND, page 3A) depending heavily on tobacco, are limited by easily accessible markets. The governor slipped in a plug for the tax package he is fighting to get through the state Legislature by noting that existing industries would be helped by lowering taxes on inventories and intangible assets. Artfully drawing on the names of Hoke County industries, Martin enrolled the benefits of his tax pro posals and emphasized that tax relief for business meant jobs. No funds to local government would be cut by the Martin Plan and increases could be made because of growth in the economy, the governor said. "I'm for business. I'm for large business, small business, business in between. Business is where jobs come from," Martin said. Prior to the governor's speech, newly installed President Tom Howell said the Chamber had defined its goals for the coming year and would work for the suc cessful completion of those pro jects. On the Chamber target list are such projects as: the widening of U.S. Highway 401 between Raeford and the Cumberland County line, establishing extended area telephone service, the North Carolina Turkey Festival, a com munity college satellite, restoration of the Raeford Depot and economic development. In addition to Howell, L.S. Brock was installed as first vice president, Julian Johnson as se cond vice president and Alice Glisson as secretary-treasurer. Burlington Plant Manager Bill Archer, Dr. Larry Bullard, Harry Hodges and Glisson were installed as new board members. A special award for service was presented by out-going President Benny McLeod to former Presi dent Steve Parker. Parker was a key figure in the revitalization of the Chamber which was at a low membership ebb less than an year ago. During the last few months, the Chamber has doubled its member ship, McLeod said. riMM kr pm rn*M Blocking the road This truck blocked traffic on state Highway 211 for more than an hour Tuesday morning after the driver Thomas R. Green, of Petersburg, Ohio, got stuck. The truck was carrying a tank destined for an asphalt plant in the southern part of the state. It took a wrecker from Fayetteville to remove the vehicle from the road and traffic had to he diverted while the road was blocked, according to investigating state Trooper R. T. Burr. Achievement test scores up By Ed Miller After seeing preliminary results, school administrators and members of the Hoke County Board of Education are pleased this year's local achievement test scores have risen to national levels. "I think we can say with a smile on our face we are at the national norm," School Superintendent Dr. Robert Nelson said at Tuesday night's Board of Education meeting. Also encouraging to educators is the fact that upward trends are starting to appear in at least grades six, seven and eight, Nelson said. According to the superinten dent, there have been a number of years in the past where students were not getting "a year's worth of achievement in a year." According to this year's ^preliminary results, the students in these middle grades are achieving more than a year's worth of academics in a year which shows an upward turn in test results when compared with other years. "What we're seeing by the 1985 results is that the trend is at least flattening out or turning up," Nelson said referring to graphs showing this year's results as com pared with scores from 1978 to last year. "You've got to catch up to get ahead," said Nelson, adding: "We are beginning to catch up." In comparing this year's scores with those from past years, ad ministrators have discovered a problem in students between their second and third grade years. "These charts tell us we have a problem," Nelson said. "Right now, we don't know what the problem is but we know where it is," he said. According to Nelson, locating a problem is hard when dealing with test scores and groups of children. "We will be working to find out what that problem is and correct it," said the superintendent. According to the results presented to Board of Education members Tuesday night, six out of the first nine grade levels in the ' Hoke County school system are above the national norm in achievement. According to Nelson, the na tional norm is the grade level of the student in question plus seven months. So, the national norm for third graders would be third grade, seventh month, said Nelson. According to what results are in so far, this year's Hoke County third graders are exactly on the na tional norm. According to the results given board members, the preliminary results for the first grade in the county is 1.8, which means that students, at the time of the tests, were achieving at the first grade, eighth month level. Students in the second and third grades are right on national norms, scoring 2.7 and 3.7 respectively. Students are not tested at the fourth and fifth grade levels; however, they are graphed as being below national norms. Students in grade six averaged to be one month above national norm at 6.8, according to the preliminary results. Nelson said that there are no state or regional results to compare Hoke County students to yet. When they come out, they will be above the national norm, but they always are, Nelson said. "I'm right encouraged," said Nelson. Hoke County has been at the bottom of the region in past years, he said. Students scoring at and above national norms "has not happened before." Airport zoning plan being studied By Ed Miller A proposed ordinance that would have the effect of zoning around the Raeford-Hoke Airport was accepted for review by members of the county Airport Commission last Thursday. Airport Commissioner John Plummer presented the zoning proposal, which must endure ex tensive review by several boards before becoming law. According to Commission Chairman Frank Baker, the or dinance must be passed by the Air port Commission, forwarded to the Hoke County Planning Board for approval, survive two public hearings and be passed by the Hoke County Board of Commis sioners before it goes into effect. "Everything in this ordinance has been accepted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)," Plummer said. According to the proposal, the airport will be have two sections of zoning. A section called "A-A" will be a fan shaped area starting at each end of the runway and extending a distance that has yet to be deter mined by members of the commis sion. Section "A-B" is proposed as an oval shaped area with its center at the middle of the runway and ex tending as much as a mile on either side of the runway. That distance has not been nailed down either, said Plummer, adding that he has considered a half mile and a mile. According to the ordinance (See AIRPORT, page 3A) Park owner hearing board suggested By Ed Miller Although no changes were sug gested for a proposed ordinance on mobile home park standards, the Hoke County Planning Board is considering a "board of ad justments" to hear complaints from existing park owners. In a meeting last week, Board Chairman Brown Hendrix sug gested that a review board be set up in order to hear complaints from owners and to air grievances they might have with the new or dinance now under consideration by the Hoke County Commission. A public hearing on the or dinance is scheduled for May 20. "More teeth" should be put into the draft of the ordinance so owners who run substandard mobile home parks can be run out of business, Hoke County School Attorney Bill Moses said. Moses, who attended the meeting as the owner of the North Raeford Mobile Home Park, said he supported the proposed law but had reservations about how it would affect existing owners. "I am not against zoning," Moses said in the meeting. "The older parks need to be grandfathered to a certain extent," he said. (See ADJUSTMENT, page 3A) Telephone vote delayed A key decision by the North Carolina Utilities Commission on extending local telephone service between Raeford and Fayetteville has been delayed at least until next Monday. Commissioner Hartwell Camp bell requested the delay on the vote because he was unable to attend a regular meeting scheduled for this Monday, Hoke County Economic Developer John Howard said. Campbell had expressed concern earlier about a request from a group of Hoke County residents to hold a public meeting September 10 and to require Carolina Telephone to determine the costs of establishing the direct service between the 875 Raeford exchange and Fayetteville. In a meeting two weeks ago, members of the Utilities Commis sion's public staff, who represent the Hoke County group, requested that an order be signed which would allow local custotpers to ap pear at the meeting scheduled for Turlington School on September 10. The order would also require the cost study to be made prior to the public hearing. During the earlier meeting, Carolina Telephone's attorney ob jected to the cost study because it would deviate from a previously established rate setting method now used by the firm. Mock injury Jill Morel rests after receiving a nypk sprained ankle during nmek disaster activities held Saturday at Upchurch Junior High School. Story and photos on page one of Section B in to day's News- Journal.
The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
May 16, 1985, edition 1
1
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75