Newspapers / The Jones County journal. / May 22, 1969, edition 1 / Page 1
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COUNTAINS FACING BIGGEST TAX BOOST IN COUNTY'S HISTORY FOR HOSPITAL by Jack HMer Inflation and over-design have combined to confront Lenoir Countians with the biggest sin gle tax boost in' the county’s history to build a 285-bed coun ty hospital. - hr 1965 when preliminary plan ning began for the badly needed medical facility a projected cost of the project was .placed at 5,910,500. A year and a half later when the hospital trustees retained an architect for prelim inary planning and cost estimat es the price tag had climbed to an estimated $8,612,448. And it was on this latter es timate that plans were thrown into motion and for which a county bond issue was held in late 1967. The overall plan called for a $3,000,000 grant from federal sources to be matched1 by $5, 775,000 in county funds far a hospital expected to cost some thing less than 48,775,000. Last week when bids were op ened and canvassed for the new facility Jesse Pugh Wooten, chairman of the hospital build ing committee, told the press and members of the board of county commissioners that something very close to $10 million was go ing to be necessary to do the job. When the bond election was held it was necessary to ask the voters of the county to approve an issue in the amount of $7, 775,000, since federal funds would not all come in one fis cal period and in order to let bids it would be necessary to have ample funds to cover the entire cost. But every assurance was re peatedly given every voter in the county that the approval of $7,775,000 was only a technical necessity” and that no more than $5,775,000 of that amount •would ibe spent Now that promises had al ready been broken, hy a wide margin since the board of coun ty commissioners some months ago gave the hospital building committee permission! to exceed that $5,775,000 by $000,000 and now they are being asked to kick that permission considera bly higher. At the time the architect made his original projections in March of 1967 inflation was very much a part of the problem and it was talked about at great length, yet no weight was given to this in flationary factor in the planning of the facility, since last week when the bids were opened the architect assured all who had :THE JONES COUNTY JOURNAL NUMBER 5 TRENTON, N. C., THURSDAY, MAY 22, 1969 VOLUME XVH Gross Inequities Tabulated in Distribution of Tax Monies System Craven New Bern Lenoir Kinston Hones Wayne Goldsboro Wilson Wilson City ♦Includes special Pupils 8122 5448 7981 6000 3039 11,911 7949 4646 7576 For Schools $3,677,203.98 2,154,356.09 3,898,498.52 2.716.603.43 1,364,907.54 5,277,656.91 3,313,808.62 2.167.013.44 2,956,062.90 Per Pupil $452.74 395.42 488.46 452.76 449.11 433.07 424.42 466.41 390.17 Local $23.23 67.63 69.88 102.74* 23.79 30.72 61.02* 39.03 54.65 State $289.93 277.26 303.90 286.24 302.30 292.98 281.44 323.21 277.42 school district. 21-cent levy in Kinston Graded School District and 35-cent levy in Federal $139.58 50.53 114.68 63.78 123.02 119.37 81.96 104.17 58.10 Goldsboro Paul Meadows Charged in Wednesday Night Shooting of Deputy Provost Special Deputy Sheriff Ever ett “Tony” Provost' suffered painful but not serious injuries in a Wednesday night shooting incident in Maysviile. Sheriff Brown Yates said Pro vost was called! to a disturbance and found Paul Meadows, a na tive of Maysviile, who has re cently been1 making his. home in New Bern, waving a high pow ered rifle around. Provost, who knew Meadows, asked him to give him the rifle. Meadows instead fired it at the ground’ and when it hit the pave ment the bullet splintered and a good many fragments from the shattered projectile hit Pro vost in the upper body. Shady Grove Sunday Homecoming Services will be held et the Study Grove Metis dist Church, Route 1#' Trenton on Sunday, May 25.. Sunday School will be at t*i Vcleck, worship services at aleven o'clock and a picnic dinner will be served at neon. Rev. J. A. Williams of Leland, a former pastor -of this church, will be bringing the morning message. All members and friends of the church art invited. ' ^ .• ■ ■ .V. Provost is reportedly in satis factory condition at Craven County Hospital in New Bern and Meadows has been charged with assault with a deadly weap on with intent to kill. And the Rains Came Things were getting a {riffle dry but Monday the rains came, and came and canpe and when the clouds parted slightly Wea ther Observer Douglas Rouse reported 3.74 inches as the offi cial rainfall for Kinston and nu merous unofficial weather wat chers reported as much as eight inches in some parts of the coun ty. Rouse said the 24-hour per iod ending at 6:30 Tuesday morning saw a dramatic rise in Neuse River, which stood at 3:51 feet when the rain started and had risen to 6.67 feet 24 hours later. Jones Arrests Wilbur Metis of route 2, Tren ton, and David Williams of Pol 3J6dtevillle were arrested over the weekend and charged with being publicly drunk. David Rouse of route 1, Trenton was also arrested over the weekend and charged with not having an operators license white driving. Escaped Convict is Caught After Three Break-ins Locally Leroy Johnson, who gave a Kinston address of 213 South Bast Street, but who more cor rect address was the Union County prison camp, is being held on numerous charges fol lowing his arrest by Lenoir County authorities over the weekend. He is charged with breaking into the homes of Dick Whaley and Dewey Johnson in the Lakeside Community of eastern Lenoir County and in Jones County he is charged with break ing into the home of Bruce Wat ers of the Wyse Fork section. In Union County he’ is wanted for prison escape and for theft of the car he was driving while contributing to the local crime wave. ACC Graduates Six, from Jones County are among 289 Seniors to receive degrees in the arts and sciences be held at Atlantic Christian Col on Friday, May 30, at 7 pm. Those to graduate are: John Ro bert Foscue and Rosemary Mal lard of Pollocksville; Linda Sue | Andrews, Gerald Edward Dixon, ! Celia Noble Smith, and Frankie Greene Penny all of Trenton. I assembled that the bids were very good bids and were “with in one per cent of his firm’s projections”; which obviously means that his firm had deliber ately planned to spend a lot more than the $8,775,000 that had been committed for this project. As usual expediency is the argument that persuades men noted for the personal conserva tism when they are spending their own money to be as loose as a drunk sailor on Saturday night when they start spending the taxpayers’ money. The argument, a valid one, is that the county would surely lose at least one of the three million dollars of federal grant money if the project were held up at this late date. And, of course, inflation is still very much a part of the picture. But inflation was a part of the picture before the first line was drawn, and a year ago when the first preliminary drawings Were presented to the building committee this issue was once more forced to their attention. In the same week these Le noir Countians were asking per mission to over-spend their pro ject by $600,000 it was called to their attention in writing by this writer that the June 1968 bid letting of the 300-bed Nash County hospital had totalled only $8,495,627, which indicated there was some fat in the design, or the estimates of the plans for the Lenoir County hospital since its designer was at that time putting a price tage of $9,375,000 on a much smaller hospital than Nash County is getting. This was evidenced by the fact that the 300-bed Nash Coun ty hospital had less square feet in its design than the 285-bed Lenoir County hospital. The trustees of the hospital agreed to take judicious notice of these discrepancies but they apparent ly ignored those reminders com pletely since the estimates less than a year ago that had already risen by $600,0000 over those made six months before have now risen by another $700,000. The Tax Bite And what does all of this mean, to pay for the mistakes made in the design of this facility? Very simply it means the big gest tax boost in the history of the county. Whether as addition al sales tax or as a real estate tax the income of the county will have to go up by at least $557, 000 in the first full year of amortization, and this estimate is based upon the county being able to sell its bonds for 4 per cent, which is another area in which inflation has also taken its toll. If this amount of money has to be raised by taxes on real estate and private property the county tax rate will have to go up about 43 cnts on the $100 valuation. It has also been estimated that the much-talked-about ad ditional one-cent sales tax for Lenoir County would return to the county about $470,000 per year, which is almost $100,000 short of the amortization cost of $10 million in 25 year bonds at four per cent. A variation of one-quarter a per cent over the life of $10 million bonds costs $500,000. On the basis of the most re cent bond sales there is little real reason to expect that Le noir County will be fortunate enough to sell these hospital bonds for as little as four cents. The latest summary sheet of the Institute of Government shows AAA rated bonds selling at 4.3 per cent for 10 years and 4.6 per cent for 20 years. And Lenoir has an “A” rating in this category and the latest reported sales in this “A” rat ing area were in the range of 5.15 to 5.20 per cent interest. This interest rate makes all of these earlier projections fall far short, and what it really means is that the county is con fronted by the immediate pros pect of well over a 50 - cent tax rate increase if the additional one-cent sales tax is not passed and about a 15 cent tax increase even if the additional sales tax levy is authorized. NFO Having Area Rally Monday Night At ECU With Dignitaries Expected Knight to Attend Governor's School Robin' Knight, son of Rev. and) Mrs. R. N. Knight of Wendell has been selected to participate in the 1969 Governor’s School of North Carolina in both academic and the performing arts fields. Robin is a former student of Maysville Elementary School and Jones Central High School. Rev. Knight was formerly pastor of Maysville Methodist Church. Robin also received a scholar ship to Andover Summer Session at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. He is also an al ternate for the National Science Foundation Summer Science Training Program at UNC at Chapel Hill. He chose to attend Governor’s school which will be held from June 22 to August 9 on the campus of Salem College in Winston - Salem. His main stu dies there will be in French. FORGERY ARTIST CAUGHT Myrtle Beach police nabbed a forged check artist named Ro bert G. Radford last week who was plying his trade in that re sort town and Lenoir Cbunty au thorities were happy to hear it since he had bounced a forged check in the amount of $78.90 against the Kinstomian Motel while passing through from Nor f Governor Bob Scott, Commis sioner of Agriculture Jim Grah am, Congressmen L. H. Fountain and Walter Jones are among the high state and federal officials planning to be on hand Monday night when an area meeting of National Farmers’ Organization chapters is being held in. Wright Auditorium on the campus of East Carolina University at Greenville. All members or the NFO in Eastern North Carolina are in vited to attend both the dutch supper which begins at 7:30 and the regular program which is scheduled to begin at 8:15. A national officer of the or ganization is . to be on hand and thousands of interested farmers from every part of North Caro lina are expected to attend to learn more about this organiza tion which is preaching collec tive bargaining as the only ans wer to the pressing problems that confront a majority of the nation’s farmers today. Non-Support Case David F. Chapman filed a non support suit against Nellie Fay Chapman Carroll-during the past week in Jones County Superior Court. Chapman, grandfather of Mrs. Carroll’s three children, is asking for $100 a month to help support the children. folk where he had stolen the checks and a check writer.
May 22, 1969, edition 1
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