THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 20, 1997 TAG: 9702200117
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HERTFORD LENGTH: 58 lines
Chairman Jimmy Dixon of the Northeast North Carolina Economic Development Partnership is disgusted with colleagues who play hooky from the monthly meetings of the pump-primers and said future absentees will find themselves marched to the principal's office.
Five of the 15 local members of the northeast group didn't show up for the February meeting Tuesday in Hertford's Albemarle Commission building and Dixon decided it was time to punish them.
``So we passed a resolution that in the future anyone who misses three consecutive meetings will probably hear from the governor or the legislator who appointed them,'' said Dixon.
``We'll let it be known that if the governor or the legislator wants to appoint someone else to the partnership, that'll be all right with us,'' added Dixon, an Elizabeth City bottling executive who may attend more civic meetings than anyone else in the Albemarle.
The economic commission, one of seven regional panels created by the General Assembly in 1992, is staffed with appointees selected, five each, by the governor, the speaker of the state House and the president pro tempore of the Senate.
Each partner gets $100 per meeting and 25 cents-a-mile travel reimbursement.
Since the economic panel was created, there have only been two or three meetings attended by all of the members.
Jimmy R. Jenkins, Jr., a former chancellor of Elizabeth City State University, was elected vice chairman of the group when it was founded, but months often went by between his appearance at commission meetings.
Dixon wrote a Feb. 11 note to House Speaker Harold Brubaker asking the speaker to appoint a successor to Jenkins.
Besides Jenkins, Tuesday's absentees included former Chairman Andy Allen of Plymouth; Ray Hollowell, a Manteo real estate entrepreneur; Jack Runion, a retired power company executive; and George B. ``Buffy'' Warner, an Ocracoke Island restaurant and bar owner.
Warner recently was named to head the tourist activities of the commission, one of the more responsible jobs on the panel.
Each of the seven economic commissions originally created by the legislature received $1.2 million in startup funds in 1992.
The same funding has been annually handed out by the General Assembly to keep the panels operating. The northeastern commission has used only a portion of its funding each year.
The partners Tuesday indicated they would view with favor a $100,000 startup fund request from a group of Northampton County developers who hope to build a multimillion dollar recreational center on Lake Gaston.
``We asked them to come back with a more detailed financial statement,'' Dixon said Wednesday.
Grover Edwards, the current vice chairman of the economic commission, is a resident of Northampton County, but over a year ago he pointedly removed himself from any business association with the Lake Gaston developers.
In another action, the developers agreed to pay half of the $25,000 cost of a survey to determine how to get natural gas piped into Washington, Martin and Bertie counties.