Newspapers / Jones County Journal (Trenton, … / Jan. 7, 1954, edition 1 / Page 1
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NUMBER 35 Our Tax Article Irks Taxpayers Who Irk Tax Collector Who Irks Editor As Board Chuckles At All A pint-sized tempest raffled the otherwise quite air of the January meeting of the Lenoir County Board of Commissioners when Tax Collector and Super visor Milton Williams complain ed vehemently and lengthy over a December 25th article In this paper on taxation in the county. Williams pointed out that the article was the lowest blow he has suffered in 17 years in the department and that it has made his job infinitely more difficult than it might have been with out the article. The referred to article men tioned that Williams, last spring, had told the commissioners that his department was now going to give particular attention to personal property and inventory listings since the real estate and fixed equipment listings had been carefully and scientifically br ought into line by the Cole-Lay er-Trumble Company. The article took various types of stores in Kinston and listed the 1953 tax inventory fig ures for each store In each group. From William’s rather heated exposition on the “freedom ol the press” it was apparent that causing the biggest eijt to blip was that listed the inventory ol i A*qi,iw, ttarry rearson’s $18,975 Nachamson’s $20,185, Brody’! $32,650, Belk Tyler’s $86,000, Montgomery Ward $35,415 and Sear’s $64,580. Since this was a grouping ol department stores the Harvej inventory listing only included the Harvey department store section and did not include the entire Harvey tax listing. This paper felt that it would not be fair, and still feels that way, to include the entire Harvey list ing and set it beside the listings of Belk, Brody’s and the other stores. Williams never did say but he inferred strongly that this Har vey listing had caused others to squawk that they had been listing their inventories too high. This $35,565 inventory listing for Harvey’s only include the men and women ready-to-wear and the other soft goods. After Williams had finished his dissertation on the unfairness of newspapermen in general and Jack Rider in particular, Rider then rose to have a few words to say on the subject and said in effect: “I wrote this article in the best possible faith and with only the most helpful motive in mind. Over the five and a half years period that this paper has been published I have tried on every occasion to help the tax collec tor and hie department. If I have made a mistake in this particular article that has embarrassed the tax collector and made the work sonal letters to each of those persons who has bothered Wili ams, or I would visit each of them personally and explain that Williams knew nothing of this article and had nothing to do See TAXES Page 5 k Teen-Ager Had Quite An Arsenal Pictured here is the arsenal found on or about the belongings of 17-year-old Victor “Jack” Debnam who is awaiting trial in Lenoir County on three charges of breaking and enter ing and larceny. Debnam, a former inmate of the East Caro lina Training School at Rocky Mount, was caught red-handed Wednesday taight while he was leisurely pilfering the Thrifty Food Store on the 200 block of East Caswell Street. Officers Durwood Smith, Leslie Moore and Jim Griffin caught the young man. He was weaning the nickel-plated .32 caliber automa tic pistol in the lower left corn er in a shoulder holster beneath his shirt at the time he was ap prehended. Later la the apart ment of his mother at 23 C Si mon Bright Hemes In Debnam’s handbag the other four guns were found. Debnam admits having broken into Parrish’s su per market at the comer of Mc Daniel and Bright streets, where he got $3 and the pistol he was wearing when arrested. Also admits sawing the door off a safe at Jaybird Sparrow’s mar ket at the corner of Adklin and OKing streets and taking some $40. He also admitted to Detec tive Wheeler Kennedy that he had broken in one place at Port Arthur, Texas, and two other places in Alabama. Other loot also in the heavily armed hand^ bag included a number of men and. women watches and some sets that bad been knocked out of rings. Debnam drew two yean on the roads in Recorder’s Court Monday. (Polaroid photo tn-a-monute by Jack Rider.) New Commissioneer John Lucas, manufacturing superintendent of the Du Pont Company, was named a member of the City Recreation Com mission .Monday night for a five-year period. Lucas’ ap pointment HRs oat the nine man commission which has been one member short since Member Jack Ridter, who had the Welfare Board rep re on the commission, the un The initial 1954 meeting of the Jones County Board of Commis sioners was relatively quiet and perhaps the most expensive proposition before the board was tabled for further study: That was the question of repairs tc the court house floors, many of which are in bad condition and getting worse—particularly in the first floor. Other matters acted upon in cluded giving Welfare Superin tendent Mrs. Zeta Burt permis sion to sell two sewing machines that represent holdovers from ■early “New Deal’” days when a sewing room was set up in the county. Sheriff Jeter Taylor and Dep uty Brown Yates had their allo cation for telephone rentals in their homes increased from $5 to $7.50 per month. The lowering of the acreage of the A. H. Hagan farm In White Oak Township from 211 to 250 acres was authorized to be made on the tax books and a road petition, asking improve ment of the “Blonle Brown” road in Beaver Creek Township, was approved. Holidays approved for 1954 In cluded July Fourth, Labor Day, Armistice Day, November 25, 26, 27 and 28 at Thanksgiving and the same one week scheduled Christmas vacation. All county employees were also authorized a one-week vacation with pay to be taken at their discretion. North Carolina tobacco farm ers produced 83 per cent more leaf per acre in 1952 than in 1942. ■ f. ' i.u. Speed Killed 10 in 1953 On Jones County Roads The year just ended was by far the worst ever on the high ways of Jones County. Ten per sons were killed, thus break ing a five year chain in which the annual toll on Jones high ways and byways had been two per year. Jones County escaped con tributing to this grisly statis tical parade until 2 a. m. on Monday, March 9, when Theo dore Roosevelt Browning, a 22 year-old Camp Lejeune Marine came to his death five miles west of Comort when he came off a side road onto NC 41 and rammed his car into an embank ment. Speeding and drunken ness were blamed by investigat ing officers for this first death of the year on Jones County highways. The next day, Tuesday, March 10, at 11 a. m. Jim Rob Jones, a 37-year-old farmer of Beulaville Route one was in. stantly killed when his car hit a wooden bridge three miles north of Potters’ Hill and he was im paled by a piece of the timber in the bridge. Speeding and drunken driving were the com bination blamed for Jones’ death. Then a three month holiday for highway death in Jones County was observed—until 10 p. m. Friday, June 5th when 20-year-old Marine Virgil Jesse Bitney, going at an apparently rate of speed rammed iear~df tr tfm»khiad oi was itlxnself killed by decapitation. Speed was the demon that “done him in.” On July Fourth John Jame* Darden of Lincoln, Delaware, speeding and under the “influ ence” rammed into a tree in s de tne town limits of Mays vllle and became No. 4 in the Jones death parade. The next day Navy Veteran ira Eugene Monette, a native o: Pollocksville hit “Little Hell” budge on NC 12 and died in stantly. Speeding and “driving under the influence” were again the culprits. Then the most awful tragedy of the year in Jones County came at 7 45 p. m. on Sunday, August 22nd, when a drunk, speeding, young marine rammed headlong into the car of Michael Pellita.ia of Irving ton. N. J., at a point 2.3 miles north of Maysv.lle on US 17. Pelliiani, his three-year-old son Francis, and his mother-in-law Mrs. Emma Piacenti, all were instantly killed or died shortly afterwards from this wreck. The marine was indicted for manslaughter and drunken driv ing. Tried last month he was given a probationary sentence in the Jones County Superior Court and had to pay fines and court costs totali ng $55. This was the only death from collision other than that in which Bitney died after ram ming the rear of a truck and was the only highway death of 11853 in Jones County that te sulted in an indictment. | See SPEED Page 5 Unique Construction Project Underway .There have been far larger projects of this nature pictured j here but not locally, or so most' who observe it believe.. Part of the widening program for US 70 highway south of Kinstcn calls for installation of a wide culvert at the intersection of the New Bern and Trenton roads. But water has to keep running and in order to accomodate the water a man made ditch, about two feet above the ordinary hot tom of the ditch was built and through it something like a 1, 000 gallons of water per minute are flowing while workers of the Barms Construction Company prepare to buiid a bridge, not over but around said' stream. Workers in this picture are seer* making preparations for the bottom of the culvert while the water flows between them.. (Po laroid photo-in-a-minute by Jack Rider).
Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.)
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Jan. 7, 1954, edition 1
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