THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504160054
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HERTFORD LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Few soap operas rival the non-stop developments of the Northeast North Carolina Economic Development Commission, so on Wednesday the group will consider hiring a super-boss to curb the independent actions of two salaried directors.
The commission is the only one of five regional pump-priming groups in the state that has a separate tourism division. At present, Bunny Sanders, the $57,000-a-year tourism director, makes her headquarters in Elizabeth City.
The work of the main 15-member economic commission is under the management of James Lancaster, a separately functioning $57,000-a-year director in Hertford.
Sanders and Lancaster are charged with recommending and implementing programs that could receive more than $2 million that the General Assembly gave the economic commission two years ago for northeastern development.
But too often the twain don't meaningfully meet, much less see eye-to-eye, the commission's executive committee decided Thursday. At a tense, closed-session meeting in Hertford - the second in a week - the executive committee decided to recommend the hiring of a paid super-director, with orders to take charge.
Under the constraints of the closed-session gag-rule, committee members would not discuss their reported plans.
``But appointment of a new supervisor might cause the present paid directors to quit,'' said a source close to the committee on Friday.
Six members comprise the executive committee, but only four members - a quorum - attended the Thursday meeting. Two key members, Jimmy R. Jenkins Jr., chancellor of Elizabeth City State University, and Sidward M. Boyce Jr., an Elizabeth City banker, didn't attend. Jenkins is vice-chairman of the commission and Boyce heads the finance committee.
Sanders' father is E.V. Wilkins, the mayor of Roper in Washington County, who is also chairman of the ECSU board of trustees. For many years Wilkins has been a leader of African-American Democrats in the Albemarle.
When the legislature created the commission, it made the tourism division a separate group, and Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. appointed Sanders to run it. Hunt also appointed five members of the full commission, and the speaker of the House and the president pro tem of the Senate named the remaining 10 members.
The chairman of the commission is Andrew Allen, a Washington County businessman who lives in Plymouth. Allen is a former chairman of the Washington County Board of Commissioners. He was defeated in the last election.
The divided organization of the commission has been a source of irritation to many members since the General Assembly created the group. But other than one ineffectual effort to bring peace to the two divisions by making Sanders and Lancaster regularly report to Chairman Allen and the full membership, conflicts have continued.
Most recently, Allen said he ``had apologized'' to county and city officials after Randy Keaton, Pasquotank county manager, wrote to Allen and complained that neither the county nor the local municipality had been informed by Sanders about a vast new Harbor Towns waterfront development that her tourism division is proposing for Elizabeth City.
Keaton sent copies of the unusually critical letter to Albemarle county and city officials. Sanders immediately sought to have Keaton publicly state that the criticism was based on his own views. Pasquotank Commission Chairman Zee B. Lamb of Elizabeth City declined to comment on whether such action had been ordered.
The full commission will meet at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Kermit White Center at ECSU to hear the recommendations of the executive committee. by CNB