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STATE OF COMMUNITY
Leaders
share news,
goals over
breakfast
By ELIZABETH STEWART
Staff writer
Grants over the last 10 years to
bring jobs, rehabilitate buildings and
replace wastewater collection lines
have totaled over $5 million, Kings
Mountain Mayor Rick Murphrey said
last Thursday in his annual "State of
the Community" presentation at H.
Lawrence Patrick Senior Life & Con-
ference ‘Center.
In the last 14 months, with the col-
laboration and leadership of Moun-
taineer Partnership Inc. and a "vibrant
downtown," incoming MPI President
Suzanne Amos said downtown grants
have totaled $544,000 - incentives to
bring new businesses and more jobs to
the city.
MPI Executive Director Adam
Hines said the city's designation as a
Main Street City was another highlight
this year. The announcement last week
See BREAKFAST, 4A
tain Rest Cemetery.
By ELIZABETH STEWART
Staff writer ;
"We will never forget,"
community-wide Memorial
Day service. Rain didn't keep
the crowd away, but moved the
ceremony indoors.
Many in the audience at
city hall were veterans - many
of them from World War IT'and
Mayor Rick Murphrey, left, and American Legion Post
155 Commander Claude Pearson lay the memorial
wreath on Memorial Day at Veterans Park of Moun-
speakers said at Monday's:
photos by LIB STEWART
Korean Conflict eras, and
some of them continued in the
rain, after the indoor service,
to Veterans Park of Mountain
Rest Cemetery for the tradi-
tional wreath-laying.
Mayor Rick Murphrey and
American Legion. Post 155
Commander Claude Pearson .
placed the red, white and blue
See MEMORIAL, 4A
“It was really
like stepping
in somebody
else's shoes -
not all the w
but the best
Age Rei
Tyler West,
ayouthat
Patterson
EMILY WEAVER/HERALD
Tyler West, left, and Savannah Cash, right, have communion at Patterson Grove Baptist
Church - ending a “30 Hour Famine” to help feed the poor and hungry.
PGB youth raise money to feed 100
kids for a month
By EMILY WEAVER
Editor
Saturday, May 29th, 5:45
p.m. - It had been almost 30
hours since the youth and sev-
eral adults at Patterson Grove
Baptist Church had anything to
eat. Like the children they
were raising money for - with
their "30 Hour Famine" - they
were starving.
But unlike those they
helped, they knew that they
were definitely going to eat at
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book (KM Herald)
and Twitter (kmherald)
6 p.m. and thanks to their ef-
forts, at least 100 kids can ex-
pect to be fed for a month.
Youth Pastor Michael
Criswell said that the youth
group at Patterson Grove Bap-
tist decided to have a "30 Hour
Famine" to help feed the hun-
gry through World Vision, a
Christian global outreach or-
ganization. On Saturday night,
after they shared communion
and just before the buffet line
opened for dinner, he read a
See FAMINE, 5A
Happy Customers
are Our Pusiness!
209 S. Battleground Ave., Kings Mountain ® 704.739.5411
www.alliancebankandtrust.com ® MEMBER FDIC
EMILY WEAVER/HERALD
This purple potty helped Patterson
Grove Baptist raise $300 for the cause
as it traveled to 25 yards in town.
INO raise but
lot of perks
No tax hike in $32 4 million
proposed city budget
By ELIZABETH STEWART
Staff writer
~The City of Kings Mountain,
unlike many employers in a
struggling economy of spiraling
unemployment, has been able to
retain its workforce of 200 peo-
ple with no cuts in benefits.
City Manager Marilyn Sellers
said after City Council's work
session on the 2010-11 budget
Wednesday that
new jobs are frozen
but that department
heads and all em- §
ployees have
worked together to
"keep everybody on
their jobs." "Our
employees are our
greatest asset," she
added.
Both Sellers and
Mayor Rick Mur-
phrey commended department
heads during the work session
for their diligence and leadership
in tough times.
For the second year in a row
employees will not receive
COLA (cost of living adjust-
ment) pay or merit raises, but
there are also no health insur-
ance premium increases to staff
proposed in the budget. Employ-
ees and elected officials will
continue to receive 100 percent
insurance coverage, dependent
coverage (56%) and a prescrip-
tion drug plan. Employees also
are entitled to a 401-K retire-
ment plan in which the employer
contributes 5%. Fringe benefits
also include sick, holiday and
vacation pay. Full benefits also
apply to retirees after long tenure
with the city.
"Sellers said the city is in line
with most municipalities in
North Carolina in its benefits
program and said the city budg-
ets $100,000 each fiscal year to
pay for state-mandated retire-
ment for employees, an increase
next year of 1.55%, she said.
See JOBS, 3A
SELLERS
‘Manager: city vis
‘financially sound’
By ELIZABETH STEWART
Staff writer:
Kings Mountain will be holding the
line on taxes with no property tax in-
crease in the proposed $32,476,709
budget, down nearly a half
million dollars ($32,967,966)
from 2009-2010.
"We are financially sound,"
said City Manager Marilyn
Sellers.
| The only major increase to
customers, an increase already
approved by city council and
effective May 1st, is a 15% in-
crease in water and a 35% in-
crease in sewer.
City council took its first
look at Sellers’ proposed 2010-2011
fiscal year budget Wednesday night
and made few comments.
In what she termed her "conserva-
tive and no fluffs" budget proposal,
Sellers said landfill costs have gone up
and the city is passing on a 50 cents
per month increase in residential land-
fill costs and a 50 cents per yard per
month increase to commercial cus-
tomers effective July 1st.
For the second year, no cost of liv-
ing and no merit increase for employ-
ees 1s proposed, no health insurance
premium increases to employees and
no cuts in benefits to the city's 200 em-
ployees. There is no natural gas in-
crease and no electric increase to
customers of the city.
The $102,444 cost for engineering
of a proposed 36-inch water line from
Moss Lake to town is the biggest
ticket item in a "cut to the bone" capi-
tal outlay budget of $669,000 includ-
ing: $102,444 for water and sewer;
$65,000 gas fund; $334,000 electric
fund, including $100,000 for line ex-
tensions; and $168,000 in the general
fund, including the purchase of two
police cars at cost of $25,000 each.
The Electric System Division has a
See BUDGET, 3A
IR ELECTRIC ia
Patrick Yarn gets energy grant
Patrick Yarn Mills of Kings Mountain has been awarded
$154, 109 federal Recovery Act grant for innovative solar. techno
ogy, according to an announcement made Tuesday by. North C 1 al
‘Governor Beverly Perdue.
The Kings Mountain plant award is among 18° innovate projects in
roof of its corporate offices (the former Clevemont Mill Plant) on
~ York Road and will include 320. panels, along with a 3. 1-watt solar
. as historic data for thé amount of energy produced. Total cost of the
the state, 17 using solar technology and one using landfill gas, which o
are receiving a total of $2.3 million and investing in energy technol Hy
ogy in the amount of $26.3 million. 5
Patrick's 100kW photovoltaic solar system will be. installed on the
array mounted on the ground i in front of the building. The web-based
monitoring system gives a complete readout of energy production
from the PV system and includes real time energy generation as well
project is $616, 432 and it i generale 131 000k Wh of ¢ energy an- o
nually.
Patrick's energy project is the ® only one c awarded i in Cleveland
See raw, 3A
Uliance
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