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VOL. 105 NO. 10
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Thursday, March 11, 1993
'35¢
Kings Mountain,
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By ELIZABETH STEWART
of The Herald Staff
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Corbin don't plan to stop bat-
tling City Hall over delinquent gas bills. They will be
back with city fathers at the April 27 Council meet-
ing. i
At issue is how long a utility customer has to pay
delinquent gas bills after the city made an error and
didn't bill the customer for 14 months. Siw
They told City Council last month they wanted the
same amount of time to pay the back bill.
Council put the matter in the city manager's hands
and said it would stick to the 90-day policy. City
Manager George Wood gave the couple four months
to pay the back gas bills and set up monthly pay-
ments of $284.62. He says that's ample time but time
is running out. ;
Wood said this week that he has invited Corbin to
call him at home after hours or to come to see him at
his office at City Hall to discuss the payment sched-
Kristen to sing
ule but Corbin has not replied. Wood said he had a
conference with Mrs. Corbin the day after last mon-
th's board meeting. }
Mrs. Corbin told The Herald there is no argument
about owing for the gas.
The city utility department sent a registered letter
Wednesday to the Corbins with a request for payment
of utilities of $853.84 by February 28, $569.22 by
March 30, $284.61 by April 30 and $284.61 by May
31. The Corbins are behind on their current bill for
city services and payment of $145.91 is required by
March 12th or their utilities will be cut off. Mrs.
Corbin said she mailed a check for $400 to the city
treasurer. Finance Officer Jeff Rosencrans had not re-
ceived the check Tuesday.
"We will take responsibility for owing for the gas
but we want to see something on the books so that
other consumers will know if errors are made that
they will have more time to pay the bills," said Mrs.
Corbin, a dietitian at Kings Mountain Hospital. "It's
ill city's fa. _t
"It's hard for people to come up with
that amount of money."
- Mrs. Corbin
hard for people to come up with that amount of mon-
ey."
The Corbins moved to Kings Mountain two years
ago and have renovated a home at 105 E. Mountain
Street. The house has two gas meters and former oc-
cupants lived in a downstairs apartment and an up-
stairs apartment. Mrs. Corbin says she writes the
checks for family bills every month and she didn't
notice a charge for gas on her utility statement.
For 14 months the couple got city gas and didn't
pay for it.
‘We're not trying to gip the city," said Mrs. Corbin.
Wood said that when the Corbins moved in they
requested no gas service. He said he had documented
the billing process and charges to Mrs. Corbin but
that her husband, who teaches at Myers Park High
School in Charlotte, had not come to his office as he
had hoped he would to discuss the situation.
Meter readers use the last reading from previous
tenants, a policy which Corbin questioned.
Uncomfortable with paying the amount owed over
a four month period, Mrs. Corbin said she would
make a payment before the cut off date for the cur-
rent bill. Through the Corbin's attorney, Scott
Cloninger, Wood said he felt city council had extend-
ed the time for payment as far as they could without
setting a precedent.
Last week Mrs. Corbin called City Clerk Marilyn
Harrell and asked that Mr. Corbin be allowed time on
the agenda for the City Council meeting in April.
"It's hard to deal with people who won't come in to
talk and we have offered," said Wood. "We've apolo-
gized for the error but we are human and the city op-
erates over 10,000 meters."
See Utility, 2-A
Schools budget
at Hornets game
East School fourth grader
Kristen Feemster is a big fan of
the Charlotte Homets but that's not
the reason she was picked over 250
: | people to sing
The National
Anthem at the
opening of the
| March 20 bas-
| ketball game in
| Charlotte
{ Coliseum.
| Talented
Kristen has
been singing
and winning
" talent. shows
FEEMSTER since she was
five years old. The 10-year-old stu-
dent auditioned recently in
Charlotte and won the right to open
the Hornets game with her popular
rendition of "The Star Spangled
Banner."
"I'm never afraid when the
crowd is big or small,"says
Kristen."I just do my best to make
them happy when they hear me
sing." ;
Kristen, daughter of Clinton and
Carrie Feemster and granddaughter
of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Watson and
Mrs. Ollie Feemster, all of Kings
Mountain, is a three-time winner of
city-wide talent shows sponsored
by the Kiwanis Club. She won tal-
ent contests at North School in
both the Kindergarten and second
grade division and was winner of
the East School third grade divi-
sion. She was grand prize winner
of talent competition sponsored by
Sara Lee Corporation last July and
performed before 2,000 spectators.
An active Brownie Scout, she is
vocal soloist for Shady Grove
Baptist Church.
Musical ability apparently runs
in the Feemster family. Mr.
Feemster sings and do does
Kristen's older sister, Lakeitha, a
senior at Kings Mountain High
School.
Kristen is in demand to sing the
National Anthem at various func-
tions. Saturday she will open the
concert by the Richard Smallwood
Singers at Ashbrook High School
with a rendition of "Go."
Outside city
Thirty families on Dixon School
Road could get water from Kings
Mountain next fall if a draft agree-
ment with the City of Kings
Mountain and the State of North
Carolina for a $1 million w-
ater/sewer line project jells.
Community Service Director
Tom Howard met with members of
the city utilities commission
Kemp Mauney, 41, the new president of Mauney
Hosiery Mill Inc., advanced through the ranks literal-
tive office.
Mauney's after-school job in the early 1970's was
the dye house where he hand loaded socks and added
dye formula by hand in 120-degree temperatures.
The hosiery mill, the city's oldest continuing mill
founded by Kemp's father, W. K. Mauney Jr. and
cousin, the late Carl F. Mauney, has come a long
way. A small operation founded in the basement of
the old Mauney Cotton Mill with five employees in
1939 has grown to a textile giant in the community
with 325 employees and annual sales of $13 million.
The younger Mauney follows his father and his
grandfather, the late W. K. Mauney Sr., in the busi-
ness.
Today's new look at Mauney Hosiery is a far cry
from the mill's beginning. Today, automation has rev-
olutionized the industry and Mauney sees even more
high-technology in the future.
Ninety-one new knitting machines purchased at a
cost of $3 million in the last three years have in-
creased production and efficiency and Mauney's goal
is to hook up each one to computers which will
ly from the basement of the big industry to the execu-
[Kings Mountain People
Kemp Mauney, new president of Mauney Hosiery Inc., shows off a new line of Italian knitting ma-
chines which have revolutionized the Kings Mountain industry.
Mauney advances with industry
rapidly transmit production information to each shift
and track inventory.
The all-electronic. Bravo Italian machines stand
side by side with less sophisticated machinety which §
Mauney hopes to replace in the future.
Another big plus for the business was the redoing
of piping two years ago for a heat reclamation system
which extracts the heat out of the wastewater before
it goes to sewage and saves the firm about $20,000 a
year. New automatic dye tubs weigh 200 pounds.
With a push of a button the tubs automatically un-
load.
Mauney Hosiery's reputation as a high quality sock
producer is well known. Banana Republic, Gap,
Limited and Izod are some of the buyers of Mauney
"made in the USA" hosiery.
Kemp Mauney got his chance to work on older
model knitting machines too but his big break for an
executive position came when he broke his arm ski-
ing. Because he had taken computer courses in
school and fixing classes at Catawba Valley
Technical Institute, he could not only fix computers
but could fix knitting machines when they broke
See Mauney, 5-A
we?
residents may get water
Wednesday afternoon to go over a
draft agreement for the project. If
state-approved, the state would pay
for 85-90 percent of the cost.
Kings Mountain would run the
water line from Chesterfield
Apartments on Margrace Road
across Battleground Avenue and:
Highway 216 down Dixon School
Road and the Tin Mine Road to the
Elections Board reviewing
Cleveland County Board of
Elections was meeting Wednesday
to take a look at names on a
beer/wine petition from residents
of Grover.
Once the county board verifies
the required 121 signatures arc reg-
istered voters, thcy have four
months to call for the clection for
the sale of beer and wine for off
premise use.
The Elections Board will also
meet March 24 in the next step to-
ward resolving a dispute over how
to count the paper ballots from the
November county commission
clection between third place finish-
cr Sam Gold and fourth place fin-
isher Charlic Harry. Gold has said
he would not agree to a different
Rest Stop.
Howard said once the state re-
views and approves the project that
negotiations will begin for an engi-
neering contract which City
Council would have to approve as
well as the state agreement when
the state officials rcturn the com-
pleted contract to the city.
beer petition
type of recount or a visual inspee-
tion of the ballots for irrcgular
marking of the candidates for
county commissioncr.
The State Board of Elections has
told the county board to resolve the
matter through a local hearing but
Gold has filed a restraining order
10 stop a recount by the board.
Ken Hamrick, left, top bidder for the old steak house property on
King Street, is congratulated by Chuck Lowe, vice president of
Carolina Auction. A large crowd of spectators joined bidders at the
public auction Tuesday.
>
is on the table
The proposed current expense
and capital outlay budget which
Supt. Dr. Bob McRae will present
to county commissioners soon will
request a 12 percent increase in
current expenses and a 6.7 percent
increase in capital outlay.
"Since we received no increase
from Cleveland County last year
we feel these requests are not un-
reasonable," said McRae.
The budget anticipates a five
percent supplementary increase for
certified employees and a four per:
gent pay raise for locally paid
teachers.
Finance officer Terri Haas said
the system is requesting
$1,857,156.00 in county appropria-
tions for current expenses and
$300,000 in capital outlay for
equipment and building mainte-
nance. She said the $3,730,689.00
budget for current expenses in-
cludes $1,310,000 in supplemental
taxes, $80,634.00 in inventory tax-
es, $118,336.00 in Gaston County
taxes and $105,000 from share of
ABC profits and out-of-district tu-
ition costs.
McRae said the $300,000 re-
quest for capital outlay funds is in
addition to the sales tax distribu-
tion monies the system receives.
"We want to lobby commissioners
to keep that money in place be-
cause it's needed for paving, roof-
ing, bleachers, and computers,” he
said.
Associate Supt. Dr. Larry Allen
said that a priority for spending
next year will be for roofs.
Replacement of roofs at Bethware
and East Schools will be high dol-
lar items. He estimated expendi-
tures of $246,308 for roof replace-
ments, computer upgrades,
insurance, repairs to one building
at Grover School, fixing an
underground gas line at Kings
Mountain High School and paint-
ing the stage area of Barnes
Auditorium. Allen said that left
over funds from capital outlay ap-
propriations will be distributed at
each school.
See Budget, 5-A
| property owner with $100,000 tax-
able valuation would be paying an |-
additional $10 a year. The raise |:
would be from 17 to 18 cents per |=
$100 property valuation. :
School tax
may go up
Kings Mountain citizens could
see their school supplemental taxes
go up a penny if Board of
Education members decide to ask
for the hike from the Cleveland
County Commissioners.
Supt. Dr. Bob McRae ap-
proached the board Monday night
onan idea which would halt the
door-to-door solicitation by school
pupils, a policy in vogue for many
years to raise funds at the various
elementary plants. :
McRae wants input from other
county commission.
If citizens like the idea, this
would mean, for instance, that a
"I am concerned that kids face |-
too many undetermined situations |
when they knock on doors to raise
funds and we need to protect
them," said McRae.
Adding a penny to the supple-
mental tax would generate about |
$65,000 a year but another prob-
lem would be how to distribute the
money fairly to the schools, said
McRae. The door to door sales
would be eliminated but spring
flings and fall festivals could still
be held.
"We need to get feedback from
the public before we go before the
county board," said McRae. "Tt will
be tough for the individual schools
to lose the money they are eaming
from door to door sales because
some plants raise much more than
others and the problem will come
in how to distribute it."
citizens and has asked PTO Parent- |
Advisory groups to conduct sur- |
veys and report results to the board §
of education for discussion before |
budget requests are made to the |
See School Tax, 5-A
Hamrick
buys old
Kings Mountain busincssman
Kenneth Hamrick bought the old
stcak house property on King
Street Tuesday for $116,000.
tioncer.
said
East King Street.
few minutes.
steak house
The property was auctioned by
Carolina Auction of Spartanburg,
SC. Col. Carroll Pinkncy was auc-
Hamrick says he has several op-
tions for usc of the property. He
that he is looking at the pos-
sibility of opening another steak
house on the property which fronts
The auction drew several bid-
ders and a crowd of spectators who
gathered at a colorful tent for the
bidding and sale which took only a
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