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KINGS MOUNTAIN
Thursday, March 23, 2000
Vol. 112 No. 12
Since 1889
Kings Mount.
Hall of Fame
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50 Cents
COMMUNITY
Commissioner forum
at KM Woman's Club
The Kings Mountain
Woman's Club will host a fo-
rum for Cleveland County
Board of Commissioners can-
didates Monday, March 27 at
7 p.m. The meeting is open to
the public. 8A
KM woman shot,
husband kills self
A Sunday afternoon shoot-
ing left at Kings Mountain
woman in serious condition,
and her husband dead from
an apparent self-inflicted gun-
shot wound. 3A
CCB announces
merger with bank
CCB Bancorp, which oper-
ates.a bank in Kings
Mountain, has announced a
merger with National
Commerce Bancorporation.
3A
Mayor wants your
help with cleanup
Mayor Rick Murphrey an-
nounced the first phase of
Operation Spring Cleanup at
‘Tuesday night's City Council
meeting. 3A
KM Little Theatre
play opens March 24
The Kings MOuntain Little
Theatre is preparing for “Five
Tellers Dancing in the Rain.”
It opens March 24 at 7:30 p.m.
at the Kings Mountain
Woman's Club. 7A
SPORTS
Canoeing popular
in Cleveland County
You don’t have to drive far
or go to great expense to en-
joy some great water sports.
The Broad River Greenway
and other public facilities
within a short driving dis-
tance of Cleveland County of-
fer quality canoeing, kayaking
and other recreational oppor-
tunities. 1B
Mountaineers top
Pisgah in baseball
Kings Mountain's bats
came alive Saturday in a 14-2
nonconference victory over
Canton Pisgah at Lancaster
Field. 4B
Students prepare
for Special Olympics
Kings Mountain school
children are preparing for the
annual Special Olympics com- i:
petition in April. 3B
KM soccer team
has streak snapped
Kings Mountain High's
girls soccer team had its un-
beaten and unscored on
streaks snapped by
Forestview in last week's
Gaston County Tournament
at Ashbrook. But the Lady
Mountaineers bounced back
to finish third and now have
ALAN HODGE / THE HERALD
A capacity crowd filled the auditorium at Cleveland Community College Tuesday night to hear attorney Gil
Middlebrooks give his report on school merger.
Moving toward merger
County commissioners vote 4-1 to begin plans
BY ALAN HODGE
Staff Writer
School merger took a giant step to-
wards becoming reality Tuesday
evening when the Cleveland County
Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 to
give their attorney Gil Middlebrooks
the go ahead to begin drawing up
plans for combining the county's
three school systems into one, Willie
McIntosh cast the sole negative vote.
The vote came at the end of a
lengthy presentation by
Middlebrooks where he spelled out
the case for merger. Middlebrooks’
report to he commissioners consisted
of 125 pages of data he had gathered
from the Kings Mountain, Shelby
City, and Cleveland County school
boards, The Department of Public
Instruction in Raleigh, the Cleveland
County Chamber, the U.S.
Department of the Census, various
educators, and the Institute of
Government. Of the reports total
length, Middlebrooks’ executive
summary covered just nine pages.
Cost to the county for
Middlebrooks’ services have
amounted to $16,000 as of the end of
M BATTER
February, according to assistant
county manager David Dear. The fi-
nal bill has not been tallied.
. Prior to Middlebrooks” hour-long
Power Point presentation, the chair-
men of the county’s three school sys-
tems were allowed to address com-
. missioners. Speaking on behalf of
his fellow board chairmen, Tommy
Green appealed to the commission-
ers for the chance to work out a solu-
tion to the issue of merger without
engaging in merger itself.
“We are three united but individu-
al school systems,” Greene said. “We
are open to investigating any avenue
in lieu of merger. Is there anything
we can do to stop it?”
Greene went on to present seven
ideas the school boards have been
working on to achieve some of the
goals that commissioners say merger
will address, without actually merg-
ing.
In response to Greene's plea, com-
mission chairman Jim Crawley said
he would think about it.
“We would be remiss if we didn’t
consider your opinions,” Crawley
said. “But on first hearing your ideas
is not the time.”
ized.
Moving on to his portion of the
meeting- which packed the auditori-
um at Cleveland Community
College- Middlebrooks began by ac-
knowledging that merger was “a
contentious issue.” He then began to
lay out the pros- mostly pros- and
the cons of merger, as well as the cri-
teria he used to draw his conclu-
sions. Issues Middlebrooks looked at
in a broad sense included utilization
of existing facilities and capital out-
lay, administrative, organizational
and operating cost concerns, and ed-
ucational programming and achieve-
ment.
The utilization of school facilities
was given special emphasis by
Middlebrooks. Through a series of
charts and graphs he revealed that
several schools in Shelby- notably
Shelby High- were underutilized and
that schools in Kings Mountain ex-
ceeded 100 percent utilization.
Merger, Middlebrooks said, would
even this situation out.
“Kids need space,” Middlebrooks
said.
See Merger, 3A
City rejects water line bids
Council delays voting
on incentives grants
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
At the request of City Attorney Mickey Corry,
Kings Mountain Council Tuesday night delayed
approval of an incentives grant request from
Commonwealth Industries until the grant is offi-
cially finalized.
Corry said the Commonwealth grant will be
the first under the city’s new Incentives Policy
and needs to be done right
“We are very thorough,” he said, “and we're
being very cautious because this will be a model
for Kings Mountain.”
No one spoke at the public hearing called for
the purpose of receiving citizen input for or :
against the proposed grants. It will be continued
until next Tuesday’s Council meeting. By that i
time, Corry said, the grant contract will be final-
Commonwealth Manager Bob Wright attended
the meeting and spoke briefly about his compa-
ny’s plans to locate in Kings Mountain. He said
negotiations are under way with owners of two
area sites and should be completed within days.
“We're very pleased to be working and bring-
ing a site to North Carolina,” he said.
He said most of the employees will be hired lo-
Compact
residents
oppose
rezoning
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
The City Planning and Zoning Board voted
unanimously Tuesday afternoon to recommend 1
that City Council deny a local trucking terminal
owner’s request to rezone 12 1/2 acres in the
Compact Community from Residential-10 to
Light Industry. City Council will hold a public
hearing on the matter Tuesday, March 28 at 7 p.m.
Kenny Bridges of Bridges and Son Trucking is
requesting the rezoning of property owned by
Laura Houser and Catherine Mauney on Dixon
School Road, across the road from the former -
Compact School (Barrett's Floor Covering).
Bridges hopes to purchase the property and con-
struct an office building and garage to service ap-
proximately 12 trucks.
But over 20 Compact residents attended the
P&Z Board's hearing on the matter Tuesday, and
presented petitions containing over 170 names of
people opposing the rezoning because of the po-
tential of increased traffic, noise and other rea-
sons. Members of Mount Olive Baptist Church
pointed out that they had invested over $200,000
in a new family life center and that Dixon School
Road, the only major road through the communi-
ty, is heavily traveled by young people and older
people going to church activities and that the
road is heavily-congested anytime traffic is re-
routed from nearby I-85 because of accidents or
other reasons.
Bridges and Son hauls in-house products for
Keebler Cookie and Vermont American and cur-
rently operates out of Gaston County. The firm i
has 20 employees. Kenny Bridges estimates that
only about 10 trucks a day would be entering and
leaving the proposed terminal.
Bridges said citizens need to be heard, but
added that they may be misinformed about some i
property that adjoins the Mauney /Houser prop- »
erty which is already zoned for heavy industry.
“They seem to think that the mine (Foote
Mineral) owns all that property around it, but
they don’t,” Bridges said. “Some gentleman out
of Dallas owns it. Foote Mineral doesn’t own it
and doesn’t even adjoin any of that property.”
Bridges said if the rezoning is allowed, his
property could act as a “buffer” between the
Compact residential area and the property al-
ready zoned for heavy industry. The land is not
inside the city limits but is in the city’s one-mile
extraterritorial jurisdiction.
oe
See Compact, 3A
=
GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
a
In a special meeting Tuesday night at City Hall, 4
Kings Mountain City Council rejected bids for i
construction of a new 36” water main that will ’
run approximately 3,000 feet from the water plant
across Muddy Fork Creek. The project is being re- !
advertised this week.
City Manager Jimmy Maney said bids ranged
from $750,000 to approximately $1.2 million, but
the low bid contained two errors amounting to
over $50,000. Since the plan has to be submitted
to the State for approval, city staff felt it is best to
re-bid.
“We had five or six bidders and got some good
prices,” Maney noted. “We'll try to re-bid and
have them back to Council as soon as possible,
even if we have to schedule a special meeting.
The only holdup may be the delivery of pipe.”
Maney said construction could go on as sched-
uled, but the city may be looking at tying-in the
new system during the Labor Day holiday rather
than July 4 as previously planned.
Maney said most of the contractors have alert-
ed pipe manufacturers of the situation, and it’s
possible someone may already have enough pipe
on hand to supply the project. He said delivery of
the pipe will be a mammoth task and will amount
to about 140 tractor-trailer loads.
Carl DeVane, chairman of the Utilities
Committee, said if someone has the pipe in place
it may still be possible to meet the July 4 connec-
tion goal.
“The worse that could happen is not to get the
cally. Equipment will be delivered in June and
L.J. Stacey from Bethware School limbers up his throwing arm production will begin by October 1.
tie-in done and have to push it back to Labor
with help from Coach Jennifer Patterson during practice for
their sights set on conquering
their county rivals in this the upcoming Cleveland C Day,” he noted. :
week's Cleveland County the Kings Mountain High yt Mnomazy a See Council, 3A See Repairs, 5A |
Tournament at Crest. 3B
Kings Mountain Gastonia Shelby Bessemer City \
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