THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 24, 1995 TAG: 9508240506
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PLYMOUTH LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
Pasquotank County Commissioner Jimmy Dixon Jr. was elected chairman of the Northeast Economic Development Commission on Wednesday and got off to a fast start with a $550,000 program that will give county planners a role in the panel's areawide pump-priming.
The meeting of the troubled planning group at the Vernon G. James Agriculture Center in Washington County was the first since the group fired an executive director and a tourist division director Aug. 4.
Participation by planners from 16 Albemarle counties covered by the commission could speed hands-on financial help from the 15 commissioners who have hemmed and hawed for two years about how best to use $2.4 million they got from the General Assembly.
``This new advisory panel is a good idea that was a long time in coming,'' said Dixon, an Elizabeth City bottling company executive, after he was unanimously elected to succeed Andrew Allen of Plymouth. Allen's two-year term as the commission's first chairman expired this summer.
There is still $1.34 million unspent in the commission's kitty, James Lancaster, the former executive director, reported before he was dismissed along with Tourist Director Bunny Sanders. The two directors were each paid $58,000 a year.
Sanders and Lancaster, now on administrative leave, were observers at Wednesday's meeting. Later they both privately discussed with the commissioners the terms of severance packages.
After electing Dixon, the commission quickly voted to set up the advisory panel of county planners and set aside the $550,000 in commission funds to be paid over two years, ending in 1997. The money will be used to implement a program offered by L. C. ``Rocky'' Lane Jr., executive director of the Halifax County Development Commission.Lane is one of the organizers of NEED - The North East Economic Developers Technical Assistant Group - which brought together the 16 county planners and developers who will now work as advisors to the commission.
Lane said the $550,000 would pay for a comprehensive advertising program that would include telemarketing, business recruiting, a speakers panel and other public relations efforts recommended by individual county developers.
In other business, the commission heard Ray E. Hollowell Jr., a panel member from Dare County, describe promotion plans for the Babe Ruth World Series that will be played by teenage teams next July in Manteo.
Hollowell defended the commission's decision to give the Babe Ruth World Series $200,000 for national advertising and television exposure.
The commission approved the financing two months ago.
``You're making money with that $200,000,'' Hollowell told the commissioners, ``It's drawing interest in the bank. None of the money will be spent until we have contracts in hand that will guarantee the kind of promotion we need.''
At an earlier meeting this summer, the commission heard criticism of Hollowell's television plans from a private TV producer, who said $200,000 was inadequate for the type of promotion described by Hollowell.
``This is only year one for the Babe Ruth World Series,'' Hollowell told the commission, ``Everything is shaping up splendidly, and we believe it will be a huge success next summer.''
Details of infighting between Hollowell and Sanders that preceded the dismissal of Lancaster and Sanders at the Aug. 4 meeting surfaced at Wednesday's session.
Minutes of a meeting of the commission's executive committee in Hertford showed that Hollowell had a ``lengthy discussion'' with Sanders about funding promises to various waterfront communities. One of the Sanders' main hopes when she was running the tourist division was a high-speed water transportation system that would carry tourists to various Albemarle sound and river ports.
According to the minutes:
``Commissioner Hollowell stated that he and Director Sanders had a lengthy discussion concerning making grant promises to the harbor towns that the Commission could not keep if the fast-boat project materialized.
``He reported that he had received letters from towns that had been made promises of thousands of dollars. He said that he would talk to these towns and explain that the money would not be available.'' by CNB