THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 24, 1995 TAG: 9503240436
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROPER LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
After hours of bickering, members of the Northeastern North Carolina Economic Development Commission approved a $7,000 appropriation to help start a zoo in Scotland Neck, a town of 2,589 population in Halifax County.
Also this week, the pump-primers gave Edenton and Elizabeth City $15,000 to ``leverage'' a $65,000 plan to improve the town waterfronts, and approved another $7,000 grant to find out how private use of public lands could yield more revenue for Albemarle counties and municipalities.
Most of the unusually long makeup meeting at the Sound View Restaurant in Roper, however, was devoted to short-fused discussions about why the commission has so much trouble spending the more than $2 million the General Assembly gave the group in 1993.
Chairman Andrew Allen, a Plymouth businessman, had to schedule the special Roper meeting Wednesday because only seven members - not a quorum - showed up at a regular meeting the previous week. Without a quorum, the commission couldn't vote.
``We've been fooling around for two years trying to get something done,'' snapped Charles Shaw, a retired Edenton oil company executive who has served as a self-appointed commission saddle burr.
``Every time we start to do something, we put so many constraints in it that not even a lawyer wants to touch it,'' said Shaw.
Shaw's comments came after several commission members tangled over the procedure followed by Bunny Sanders, head of the Tourist Division of the Economic Commission, before she recommended funding the Scotland Neck rare bird zoo and the waterfront assistance for Edenton and Elizabeth City.
As at previous meetings, Dallas Taylor, an Ahoskie banker, and Mary Lilley, head of the Martin County Chamber of Commerce, suggested to Sanders that communities or private groups seeking financial help from the commission also should be required to participate in the funding as an act of faith.
Sanders insisted that the purpose of the commission was to spend money to attract tourists, helping the economy of the entire Albemarle region.
``But somebody else should endorse these projects before we start something that we can't finish,'' said Lilley.
``Did the Town Council of Scotland Neck endorse the idea of the zoo?'' Taylor asked Sanders.
``The mayor of Scotland Neck wrote a letter of approval,'' Sanders replied.
At one point, Anne-Marie Kelly, Edenton town manager, attending the meeting as a spectator, rose to comment.
``Edenton officials were consulted (by Sanders) and participated in the discussions about funds for improving the waterfront,'' Kelly told the commission.
Finally, after listening for nearly an hour about Sanders' decision-making, Chairman Allen interrupted the discussion.
``Do you want to vote on this right now?'' he asked.
Allen then called for a decision on all three of Sanders' proposals: the zoo, the Edenton-Elizabeth City waterfronts and the use of public lands for local tax purposes.
Without dissent, the commission quickly approved everything that Sanders wanted and added another $25,000 to help Sanders' print and distribute an Albemarle travel brochure for tourists.
Next, several members of the commission metaphorically jumped on James Lancaster, the group's executive director who is paid $55,000 a year.
Lancaster told the group that he hadn't prepared a progress report for the General Assembly because he wasn't hired to write ``strategic economic plans. That's a job for people specifically trained in that kind of planning.''
Lancaster said that as a promotion and advertising expert he had prepared several programs.
He said he was working on an additional report urging better utilization of Albemarle manpower in economic development.
The group then tangled over two proposals that would provide guidelines before project funding was authorized.
Sanders offered a ``10-scale'' system of appraising proposals based on the ratings of various aspects of a plan.
Any proposal that needed more than $50,000 would have to have a rating of 80 points, under Sanders' system. Proposals for $1,000 to $24,000 would have to score at least 50 points. Projects scoring less than 50 points wouldn't get any money.
Jimmy Dixon, an Elizabeth City business executive and Pasquotank County commissioner, offered alternate criteria for funding based on detailed evaluation of the assets and debits contained in proposals.
Before another argument could boil over, Allen intervened.
``We need a motion that we all think about these ideas and come up with our own recommendations at a future meeting,'' said Allen.
The motion quickly passed and, finally, so did a motion to adjourn. by CNB