Newspapers / The Perquimans Weekly (Hertford, … / Jan. 18, 2017, edition 1 / Page 1
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1 ■ £ M V o P The ERQUIMANS MWeekly "News from Next Door" WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2017 King’s memory is honored STAFF PHOTO BY PETER WILLIAMS Rep. Bob Steinburg (left) presents The Order Of The Long Leaf Pine honoring Clayton Griffin to his widow, Omedia Griffin Monday at a Martin Luther King Jr. event at Riddick’s Grove Baptist Church. Griffin receives Long Leaf Pine award EDITOR'S NOTE: There will be more coverage of the Martin Luther King Jr. events in the Jan. 25 edition of the Per quimans Weekly BY PETER WILLIAMS News Editor T he annual Perquimans County celebration of the life and dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also touched on the life of another man who made a difference. The late Clayton Griffin was honored Monday at Riddick’s Grove Baptist Church. Griffin died in September 2015. In his life he served in a gang prevention and mentoring program. It was for that service that Rep. Bob See MLK, 4 PCMS holds groundbreaking, 6 JAN 18 m 50 cents Leaders try to fight Amazon wind project BY PETER WILLIAMS AND JON HAWLEY Staff Writers State Sen. Bill Cook and the leaders of the General Assembly are asking the in coming Trump administration to kill the almost-operational Amazon Wind Farm US East. In a letter that House ' Speaker Tim Moore’s of- fice shared Thursday, the > speaker, Senate President Pro Tern Phil Berger, eight other lawmakers, indud- ing Cook, R-Beaufort, and retired Marine Mqj. Gen. Robert Dickerson wrote JONES a letter to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition headquarters asking that the wind farm in Pasquotank and Perquimans counties be shut down. They claim the wind farm will interfere with long-range radar at the Navy’s North west Annex in Chesapeake, Virginia, and thus represents a national security threat. The letter drew immediate response from local elected leaders. “The premise of their argument is that DoD would have let a project proceed that interfered with national security,” Perqui mans County Commission Chairman Kyle Jones said. “I’m no expert on that sort of See LEADERS, 3 STAFF PHOTO BY PETER WILLIAMS Vanora Brothers (right) presents a certificate from the Perquimans County NAACP to Sheriff Eric Tilley Monday at a Martin Luther King Jr. event. Tilley is retiring at the end of the month. Teacher makes a splash with video BY PETER WILLIAMS News Editor What started as a challenge to get students excited about doing well on a test turned into a viral on-line video and brought national attention to Perquimans County native Michael Bonner last week. Bonner is a second grade teacher at South Greenville El ementary in Pitt County. Last week he was a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and got the surprise gift of $25,000 for his school plus i-Pad minis for students. Out of 36 schools in the Greenville school district, Bon ner admits South Greenville was the least popular. That’s why Bonner asked to go there. He figured he’d go to South Greenville for a few years after graduating from Elizabeth City State University. Out of the 21 kids in his classroom, just one is white. Bonner is black and 6-foot-5. Male teachers in second grade are rare. Male, black sec ond grade teachers are even more rare. “We used to have more (white students), but when Greenville offered open enrollment a lot of kids whose SUBMITTED PHOTO Michael Bonner, a Perquimans County native, accepts a check for $25,000 on The Ellen DeGeneres Show last week. Bonner teaches at South Greenville Elementary. See BONNER, 4 Town adopts business registration system BY PETER WILLIAMS News Editor The Town of Hertford is requiring all business own ers register their business, pay a $25 fee and undergo what they say is a basic background check. 89076 7144 6 2 “(It is) just so we know who’s doing business in town,” Town Manager Brandon Shoaf said in an e-mail about the new registra tion system. “It’s only a registra tion, not a license, and only a public information search.” Police Chief Douglas Freeman said the registration is a way to keep “unsavory” people from doing business in the town. He said it was prompted in part by out-of-town crews who came into town offering to do work, like vinyl siding and not doing the job. “We are not doing a criminal records check, traffic check through DPS (Department of Public Safety) on each person,” Freeman said. “We’re not doing that. Everything we’re doing any individual could do on their own. We’re not trying to invade their privacy and we’re not try ing to dig into backgrounds.” The search will look into Bet ter Business Bureau records as well as sex offender registries, Freeman said. The application form asks for some basic information as to the location, phone number and name of the business. It further asks for the federal ID number and state registration number if the business is regulated by a state occupational board. The owner has to sign the document and give their date of birth and driver’s license num- j ber. Until 2014 the state law al lowed municipalities to charge for business licenses based on gross profits. See REGISTRATION, 4 Sen. Cook defends wind letter BY JON HAWLEY The Daily Advance State Sen. Bill Cook, R-Beaufort, defend ed his call to shut down the Amazon Wind Farm US East, arguing in an email Friday that he was putting the military’s interests ahead of “taxpayer-subsidized wind proj ects.” COOK Cook is one of 10 law makers, plus a retired Marine mqjor general, to call last week for the ad ministration of President- elect Donald Trump to shut down the 104-turbine wind farm in Pasquotank and Perquimans counties. They argue the turbines will generate interference in long-range ra dar activities at the Navy’s Northwest An nex in Chesapeake. They wrote the wind farm should be permanently shut down or, barring that, turbines that cause more than 5-percent signal loss should be shut down until problems with them can be fixed. See COOK, 2 Badawi says Wind agenda is faulted BY PETER WILLIAMS News Editor A Perquimans County couple that fought the construction Amazon Wind Farms East in court before it was built are applauding an effort by some mem bers of the General As sembly to shut the project down before it becomes fully operational. “I am thrilled,” said Gigi Badawi, a Swamp Road resident. Badawi and her hus band Stephen Owens ar ¬ BADAWI gued that the state improperly allowed the permitting for the project. An administra tive law judge rejected the claim. Now the top leadership in the N.C. Gen eral Assembly is appealing to the incoming See BADAWI, 2
The Perquimans Weekly (Hertford, N.C.)
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Jan. 18, 2017, edition 1
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