By Blake Proctor
With County Commissioners Dr. Ophelia Munn-Goins and Michael Cogdell attending telephonically, and all other Commissioners present, Chairman Charles Ray Peterson gaveled the January 4, 2021, Board meeting to order at 6:30pm sharp.
No guest pastors were scheduled for this meeting, so Commissioner Reverend Cameron McGill, a frequent past guest pastor himself, provided the invocation; County Manager Gregory Martin led attendees in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Prior to approval of the eight-item Consent Agenda. Chairman Peterson requested that the meeting agenda, a component of the Consent Agenda, be amended to include a closed session for personnel as item 12A.
Commissioner Cogdell, a member of the Charitable Contribution ad hoc Committee, requested that meeting agenda item 10C, to consider approving the 2020-2021 charitable donations, be removed from the agenda at this timl.
With meeting agenda item 10C removed and item 12A added, the Consent Agenda was unanimously approved.
As no parties wished to address the Board, Mr. Peterson turned to “Matters of Interest to Commissioners:” Commissioner Munn-Goins asked about the availability of broadband in un-served areas of the County; Mr. Martin will be in contact with her to provide some information.
Commissioner Arthur Bullock informed the Board that there is an acute drainage problem at Clark’s Chapel AME Zion Church on NC Highway 87 in Tar Heel; he opined that the problem either originated or worsened when the highway was widened some years ago.
Chairman Peterson stated there is great concern regarding the continued decline in staffing levels at White Lake’s NC Department of Transportation maintenance facility. He has drafted a letter to State Senators Danny Earl Britt and Bill Rabon, and State Representative William Brisson, as well as to DOT Secretary Eric Boyette.
Outlining the County’s concerns with reductions in personnel at that facility and the negative effects it will have on the maintenance of over 1,700 lane miles of State roads in the County, the Chairman requested that the Board approve the letters; the vote to send these missives to the State was resoundingly unanimous.
Russell Worley, Maintenance Director for Bladen County Schools, appeared before the Board to request their approval for the School System to apply for an NC Education Lottery Building Fund grant for $65,885.70 to replace the roof at the Elizabethtown Middle School cafeteria. This request was unanimously approved.
Dean Morris, Director of the Bladen Soil & Water Conservation District, came to the podium to give the Board an update on the District’s stream debris removal projects; local projects consist of cleaning out the many laterals that flow into the canals, while interlocal downstream projects include the Big Swamp and the Lumber River in North Carolina, and South Carolina’s Pee Dee River.
Emergency Services Director Nathan Dowless next stepped to the dais to request approval of interlocal agreements with all of the County’s towns but East Arcadia. These agreements are requirements to the County’s grant to allow the County to provide funding to the towns from it. Approval was unanimous.
He then updated the Commission on the status of the Hazard Mitigation Projects from both Hurricanes Matthew and Florence: Buyout proposals from Matthew are at the State for approval, and if accepted, these properties will be deeded to the County un-improvable in perpetuity.
Additionally, he confirmed that the County is seeking funding to provide one-megawatt emergency generators at the high schools; if funding falls short, lower-capacity generators will have to be substituted. Finally, forty Hurricane Florence assistance applications are awaiting approval at the State.
Health Department Director Dr. Terri Duncan, came to the stand to provide the Commission an update on the incidence of Covid19 within both the State and Bladen County:
CONFIRMED
LEVEL CASES DEATHS RATIO
State 570,111 6,549 1.15%
Bladen 1,937 26 1.34%
“Ratio” is percentage of deaths to confirmed cases
She informed the Board that more vaccine is coming in; and, as with the original supply, the first recipients will continue to be the highest-risk persons and next will be those 75 and over. Asked about nursing homes and assisted living facilities, she replied they would also be among the next to receive the vaccine.
The Chairman reminded the Commission that, at the January 19th meeting, there was a single appointment to the Bay Tree Lakes Fire District Committee ad three appointments to the Lisbon Fire District Committee.
As is normal to round out the meeting, Mr. Martin reminded the Board of the calendar events for the rest of January and the month of February, with emphasis that the next meeting will be Tuesday the 19th, as the previous day is the Martin Luther King holiday.
He then presented a memorandum proposing a County Personnel Paid Sick Leave Plan for both full and part-time employees. There was some confusion among the Commissioners about the wording for “maximum time off” and “per-incident time off;” the item was tabled for rewriting.
With all open agenda items covered by 7:14pm, Chairman Peterson called for a vote to enter closed session for personnel. The Board exited closed session at 7:48pm and adjourned with no action.
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